Making bullets
Where do you guys get your compounds at ?????? Zink, Tin??? I want to be prepared when he comes up to teach me. Oak.
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Oakie, casting for rifle and pistol bullets is fun!
You never ever want zink in the mix. Go to a old tire store and get wheel weights that are marked Pb. They are lead/tin/antimony mix. For plinking loads under 1,000 FPS you can use about 25% lead and 75% wheel weights. Faster than that use pure wheel weights.I used a old 20 pound propane cylinder cut in half with a 3/16" plate welded to the bottom to create a pot for wheel weights. I was able to use a nut on top with a long 3/4" threaded rod with handle to create a bottom pour pot. It is all welded to a turkey fryer burner and allows me to process 100's of pounds of wheel weights in short order. Use old candles for flux and you will be set. If you melt them in your casting lead pot do small batches to get the steel clips to float to the top. Flux a lot, stir a lot make sure you ignite the candle fumes to reduce smoke.I still have about 400 pounds of Linotype that makes awesome rifle bullets for up to 2,000FPS.95% of my pistol loads use cast lead bullets. It is a cheap way to shoot a lot.You will need a luber-sizer with a die about .001 larger than bore diameter for best accuracy.Mine is a old Lachmiller now RCBS that has sized over 100,000 bullets every thing from 22cal to 458 for the 45/70.NEVER EVER use battery lead it is poison.www.castboolit.com is a great source for information on casting bullets for all types of guns.Keep moisture away from your pot! If you get water into the pot you will experience the tinsel fairy, it is no fun having hot lead fly many feet on and around you.Lee Molds are fine and cost effective, I have several of their 2,4 and six cavity. Lyman still makes the gold standard molds but the costs have gotten up there over the years.
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Antimony (SB) is what I learned...
Hardness of recovered lead will vary greatly so will purity...
Wheel weights and fishing weights and other sources - you may not no the content and history and impurities...
I still have a Lyman small pot melter and I remember making Lyman ingots growing up - I still have a bunch of molds including one for dive suit weights...
At the shop I ended up with an old oversized welders apron cause I kept ruining clothes - burned holes in the top of boots...
Good ventilation is key.
Gas checks are worth exploring...
Paper patching as well but it's a complicated lost art.
Finding old odd useable bullet molds at shows or sales or online and exploring if they work in your application is often fun - odd profiles and shapes and weights and such.
Older guns with worn out or pitted barrels often love lead - especially MIL surplus vintage guns.
Just a few easy things off the top of my head.
Mike
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When you add antimony you need to add tin. Antimony expands on cooling so it helps to fill out the molds. Too much antimony crystallizes out sooner than the rest of the alloy, bullets appear harder but aren't. Keep your alloy fluxed and stirred.
Proper sizing of the bullets to fit the bore (usually +.001 or .002) is important. Sometimes chambers don't allow that. Neck turning can help. Choice of bullet lube makes a big difference in leading. Some of those high temperature lubes like rooster red make for nice handling bullets during loading but do a poor job at sealing the bore. I mostly just use the old 50/50 alox/beeswax.
Gas checks help with leading, I usually just slow my loads down to eliminate the problem. I wouldn't use the beer can aluminium ones in anything except a dark pitted old war horse.
I have very few aluminium molds. I only use a stick to hit my spru cutter. I drop the bullets on a fluffy towel or into water. Even at today's prices it does't take long to pay for the mold, and if you take care of them they can last lifetimes.
I like Loverin designs the best for rifles - short ogive and lots of grease groves. I store the molds with bullets in them.
Paper patching, powder coating and swaging bullets from cast core are other bullet subjects.
Been casting bullets for more than 50 years. Must have about a 100 molds by now.3 -
For your recreational and educational stay at home pandemic quarantine viewing pleasure (I hope)...
Some good solid short professional clips from reliable well known folk or channels - covering some stuff many overlook or forget.
Enjoy.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PSgQ82Kqhzohttps://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p4KmaXfoIKEhttps://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C2aQpVKiCN8https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7Mo5N4Y-plkhttps://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s1LxAwz2XF0https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=og-tMV8_ZW0Mike
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so is it ethical to sell great lakes premium ammo which happen to be reloads i bought his ammo . 6 jams in three magazines two in barrell three in chamber serious jams 0 -
Don't ever let your wife catch you casting bullets on the kitchen stove. (also not good for health reasons) I now use the gas bar-b-que in the back yard. 0 -
xtiml: 31538923908507/comments/31538953392667
so is it ethical to sell great lakes premium ammo which happen to be reloads i bought his ammo . 6 jams in three magazines two in barrell three in chamber serious jamsFiring up the big camdex machine produces ammo that I would hesitate to call "reloads" - that may not be the best or accurate nomenclature...
I have worked with one and it's requires almost a dozen skilled educated machinists and operators to maintain and keep running...
They're not technically reloads though... they're re manufactured... done by a machine that does like 4,000 rds per hour. It checks specs and tolerances with lasers and stuff... so a pretty high tech machine supposedly. The ammo should be as good as factory basically, but with used brass.
Most importantly in remanufactured ammo made on Camdex presses are the monitoring and quality control. There are 11 stations on the Camdex machine to do just four functions. The rest are monitoring stations. Each round that comes out of a Camdex machine is as perfect as a new factory round with just a couple exceptions, the most important being the case is a once fired case and not new. The other is most remanucatured ammo is sold with plated bullets to keep the cost down. Not a problem for plinking ammo.
Having said that if you have had quality control functionality issues have you contacted them and spoken to customer service or one of there techs - have you asked them for a refund or exchange - how did you purchase your ammo???
I would want the ammo sent back for examination and I would offer a replacement swap - have you given them the opportunity to address the issue???
If your experience was that bad nobody can fault you for being unhappy or walking away from the brand - but I hope you at least contacted them and tried to allow them to respond.
If they have serious issues of this nature I would expect the word to get around on gun forums pretty quick.
Please explain further as I am very interested in your feedback.
Mike
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One video showed the stick on type wheel weights. DO NOT USE them they are Zinc 99% of the time. Antimony bonds to tin which bonds to lead. It is found is old reclaimed shot as an easy source. You can use bar solder too but that drives the cost up. My Lyman 20 pound pot has served me well for about 30 years, casting tons of bullets. I did high volume production in my younger days with 10 pound Lee pots and they too served well. 3 -
When I had an 06 FFL ...we cast about 3000 pounds of lead a year...Wheel weights are ideal for casting W/O additional metals...That being said...some of the new wheel weights are not suitable for casting... 0 -
Been casting bullets for over 40 years. Have around 60 different moulds up to .577 and 40 sizer dies. For my antiques, I use near as I can to pure lead as I can find and BP only.
One time in my life, I considered swagging jacketed but involved far to many cranks on a press to make one bullet. Buying bullets already made is just as cheap these days.0 -
chiefr said:Been casting bullets for over 40 years. Have around 60 different moulds up to .577 and 40 sizer dies. For my antiques, I use near as I can to pure lead as I can find and BP only.
One time in my life, I considered swagging jacketed but involved far to many cranks on a press to make one bullet. Buying bullets already made is just as cheap these days.
I had a Corbin swaging set up for turning 22 fired cases into .223 bullets. I made thousands of them. it was dirt cheap at the time but time was the factor. It took a lot of time to make them properly. They were 55gr HP's and shot very well. I looked into buying another set up a year ago but costs for these fantastic precision die sets have gone through the roof.0 -
Wasn't it roboman who was cooking a pot of lead and spilled it on his foot? I believe he was wearing saddles. I know you're smarter than that, but be careful 0 -
Lyman cast bullet handbook. Lead wheelweights make good revolver bullets, but new wheelweights are not lead. Check with a woodrasp if it does not cut into the weight, don't use it. Scored 150 lbs of pure lead foil some time ago- use pure lead only for my .50 hawken. Add some linotype or bar solder to the wheelweights for harder metal. I use a set of Lee tumble lube molds for .45 and .357- no sizing, just spray bullets with liquid Alox. WASH YOUR HANDS with soap and water after handling lead or bullets. 0 -
I think its a good idea, in most cases, to forget about wheel weights completely 0 -
Pure silver!Apparently, my self-defense requirements are different than most folks'.
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I don't think one can get lead from tire stores now (at least in California where I saw a bar of chocolate with cancer warning). Once my old FFL told me how he reclaimed lead from car battery and how it killed the grass with a circular pattern.
I had wondered how one would get the hardness. I did learn one needed a ball of wax to remove impurities but how a ball of wax did that still confuses me. I do like to watch youtube tutorials where they melt range bullets to get the lead. Seeing copper jackets floating on top of lead is cool. Also how they put wax on to the groove was interesting. I would recommend getting a toaster oven for that purpose only.
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