Cast Bullets

[ohman11]

I see quite a few guys in here are geting into casting bullets. Can anyone tell me how much tin needs to be added to wheel weights?(per pound) Also where are you getting the tin?

 

[Harve Curry]

I just melt/flux/stir the wheel wieghts and cast them. At velocities up to 1600fps they work accuratley for me. Never got into the alloys. I do drop them into water from the mold, and use SPG lube or 50/50 alox-beeswax lubes.

 

[ReloaderFred]

The wheelweights are fine as is, but if you have questions about casting, and are serious about getting into it, then I'd suggest buying the Lyman Cast Bullet Manual. It will answer all your questions and give you loading data for most common calibers with cast bullets. Every caster should have this manual in their collection.

Hope this helps.

Fred

 

[zxcvbob]

I cast .45 and .358 bullets from wheel weights and/or scrounged range lead without adding any tin. If I start casting anything smaller I *might* have to add some tin, but so far it's working just fine without it. I have a few pounds of tin, but I'm saving it.

I cast a few hundred bullets this weekend. Last time I had trouble with wrinkled bullets, and I was afraid the lead might be contaminated. Using the same batch of lead, this time I cranked it up to about 950 degrees and got the mold smoking hot before I started. The first few bullets were frosty, but I let the mold cool down a little and they were perfect after that.

 

[snuffy]

You don't NEED to add tin to wheelweights. Well, most of the time anyway. The composition of the WW sometimes lacks enough tin to make nicely filled out boolits. Then, you go to a local hardware store, buy a roll of 95-5 lead free solder. the 95 is tin, the 5 is antimony. Some lead-free solders contain 3-5% copper or silver, the best is the 5% is antimony. IF you can find 50-50 bar solder, it contains 50% tin, the rest is lead.

 

[ohman11]

OK,Another Question.

I have been melting my lead and pouring ingots. I have no molds yet, just ordered them today. Anyway, am I wasting my time, cant I just melt the wheel weights and pour right into the bullet molds? I kind of feel like I am doing double the work.

 

[Bula]

2% tin does make a purdy bullet. The reason you don't (although I'm sure plenty do) is to keep all the crud out of your furnace. It is a pain processing your WW into ingot but I have found If you do it once or twice a year in big batches, it's not so bad. adding the tin isn't a necessity, but I was lucky to stumble onto about about 25 lbs of 60/40-that's 6.4 oz's of tin per LB. so I do about 5 lbs of the 60/40 solder to 100 lb of wheel weights (assuming 10-12% waste with the clips)

 

[Walkalong]

If you have a big batch of wheelweights you need to cast it all into ingots. Since I had a small pot, I liked to mix those batches of ingots up together and smelt them again. That way I felt like my ingots were more uniform. I always added a small amount of 95/5 solder to mine.

 

[ohman11]

Well I have a small pot and about 450-500 pounds of wheel weights. I also only have a ingot mold that makes 4 one pound ingots.

 

[Hunter0924]

You should not melt wheel weights in your production pot.
They will be nasty and need to have all the trash, oil, clips, and so forth skimmed off.
Here is an article I wrote for the m1911.org ezine on the Lyman tools and casting, it may help you.
http://ezine.m1911.org/casting_frame.htm

 

[ohman11]

Thanks everyone for the advice! Looks like I am off to cast some ingots

 

[snuffy]

Here's my smelting set-up.

Turkey fryer, 6 quart cast iron dutch oven.



Lead all fluxed, ready to pour ingots.



Some freshly poured ingots.

 

[RustyFN]

I just had my first smelt last week. My mold and handles came in the mail today. Hoping to do some casting this weekend.
Rusty

 

[Griz44]

Rusty, where did you get those molds? Look like around 10 lbs each?

 

[JeepGeeek]

I have to wonder-- honestly-- what is the deal here?

It's bullet, Not boolit.

By continuing to misspell the word, you're disabling the search feature, folks.

OP: Read this article regarding alloy ratios:
http://www.jesseshunting.com/articles/guns/category16/9.html

Also, suggest the Bear Cast bullet manual

 

[tradja]

I have to wonder-- honestly-- what is the deal here?

It's bullet, Not boolit.

I've noticed this nomenclature too on gun boards that discuss cast bullets. With the very-popular http://castboolits.gunloads.com/, I suspect that this term is solidly in place. IMHO, a fun piece of the subculture.

 

[no_problem]

Tag!

There is some great info here.

 

[JeepGeeek]

Well, I suppose if we're all going to speak the same language, it's too much to ask to spell it properly.

Looks like those molds were welded up out of flatbar.

 

[THe Dove]

THis is where you need to lurk when it comes to cast boolets! http://castboolits.gunloads.com/

The Dove

 

[trickyasafox]

Boolit came about to distinguish between home cast and store bought 'bullets' one of those 'it came from the interweb things' sorry jeepgeek. besides, it doesn't disable searching, it just makes it more interesting.

I think its best to ingotize (is that even a word?) prior to casting if only for the cleaning. it may feel like double work, but it really does speed up your casting process. if your adding ingots, there is very very little cleaning to your pot as you add lead. if you are using ww, now you have to flux and skim a considerable amount every few lbs of lead.

I use straight ww for the vast majority of my casting. I came across some babbitt, but haven't used it tons.

Also- Castboolits is THE place to learn. Glockpost is very good as well. THR has some good info, but I would say the definitive area of casters is castboolits. very nice people on all the boards and all are very helpful.

 

[snuffy]

I have to wonder-- honestly-- what is the deal here?

It's bullet, Not boolit.

By continuing to misspell the word, you're disabling the search feature, folks.

Well, spend enough time on the castboolit board, you'll start spelling it that way too. I just do that for an in your face sort of rebellion. It sounds like boolit when Marty Robbins sings the western ballad El Paso,(ya know the song)? I felt the boolit go deep in my chest.

 

[RustyFN]

Rusty, where did you get those molds? Look like around 10 lbs each?

I made them at work in my spare time. I bought some 3" channel. I cut them 6" long with a little bit of an angle to keep the ingots from wanting to stick. The ingots come out about 2.5 inches wide, 6" long and about 1" thick. They weigh about 5 to 6 pounds each. My wife just bought me a couple of cast iron muffin pans so I'm going to give them a try.
Rusty

 

[fireflyfather]

One thing that I think has not been mentioned yet:

The best reason to do big batches of weights and put them in ingot form is to get a consistent alloy from batch to batch. In the beginning, this may not seem like a big deal. When you start to get frustrated because bullet performance & leading problems arise with NO CHANGE IN YOUR CASTING/LOADING procedures, you will start to go absolutely mad with frustration. By doing big batches and then labeling the ingots (a permanent marker should do just fine) by batch, you will have much more consistent results during your casting sessions.

Any given batch of wheel weights will have a slightly different alloy composition unless you are taking identical store bought weights and melting them down (and why you would do that, I have no clue). This can affect hardness, mold fill-out, and probably other things I can't think of now.

 

[JeepGeeek]

I'm convinced, re: the smelting in a seperate, large pot.

Got a hundred pounds of WW to go through. I'll be using a larger pot than I have now, I think.

good places to buy the heat source, cheap?

 

[trickyasafox]

wal-mart turkey fryer