Hardening up my pure lead????

[Bcwitt]

Sell it or trade it, to hard to find good pure lead to just harden it.

That is the easiest solution by far.

 

[AJC1]

First don't try to use the same formula for all bullets. Your 38 and 45 are low pressure and will be great around bhn 10. Both the 9mm and 357 run 35kish and do well at 12-15 bhn. I don't load 40 but 44 will also do well in the 12-15 range. Tin is very expensive leaving antimony as the best and cheapest way to harden your lead. I use superhard from rotometals, but they recently started selling a scrap that is high in tin and antimony. Given you have nothing now that scrap is probably your best option if it's still on sale. Make a giant batch and add lead until you reach the desired hardness. One ingot will make a slow change so add one, water drop a sample and test it.....

 

[JJFitch]

I have close to 500 lb of pure lead melted down and cleaned up and poured into ingots. This pure lead was from old water pipe and is very soft. I would like to harden it up to shoot the following calibers 9mm, .45, .44mag, .38/357, and .40
How much of "what" do I mix with how much of my pure lead to get a hardness that is usable for my pistol shooting purposes? Should I just order from roto metal? Thanks everyone for your help.
View attachment 1072639

Lots of good advice in post #20. Lead hardness is less important than barrel fit. I shoot a boatload of 9mm, 38 and 45. I cast to +.02 and size to +.01 0r larger. IE. I cast and size NOE 135 grain LRNFP to .358 and size to .357 and shoot these in .38, 9mm and 38 Super. up to 950 fps! I alloy up to around 10 BHN!

I clean my barrels with a rolled up paper towel, zero leading.