Cast bullets for rifles

[jajbellsouthnet]

I have been using homecast lead bullets in my handguns for several years without any problems. The cost of clad bullets for my rifles is getting so high that I am considering going to cast bullets for them as well. Does anyone have any words of wisdom for me? I have heard that cast bullets are great below 1000fps but not over that. True? I will be loading 300wm and 8mm.

[Kpdpipes]

A LOT depends on the Alloy you're using as much as the velocity, also, Gas checks protect the base of the bullet and help reduce leading problems in higher-velocity rounds. Use a hard alloy, gas check, and also try the spray-moly type coatings, a combination should give you decent performance without too much additional leading.

[kawalekm]

For your rifles I'd suggest getting the heaviest bullet available for either the 30 caliber or 8mm. That will give you the most kinetic energy/shot with the velocity limits that lead bullets have. All the molds I've seen for those calibers are gas-checked, and I think you can successfully push those up to about 2000fps.

I have shot 357 SWC out of my Marlin 357 rifle almost that fast. I have never cronographed them but according to the load data they should be going out the barrel at about 1700-1800 fps. I do get some light leading in the barrel, but nothing that doesn't clean out with just a tight fitting cloth patch. I do notice by feel that most of the leading is toward the muzzle where you'd expect velocity to reach maximum. This is with a Lyman 358477 bullet (Keith style SWC) without a gas-check and a Marlin micro-groove barrel. I have recovered some shot bullets in wet paper and saw that the bases and rifling were still intact, though the bullets did mushroom to about 50 caliber at rifle velocities. I try to duplicate Lyman alloy #2 by mixing about 1 pound of lead-free plumbing solder (tin/antimony) with 19 lb of wheelweights.

[Uncle_Alvah]

To get any real saving from casting bullets, it's necessay to have a good source for lead, linotype, wheel-weights or whatever. If you're paying high dollar for the material, casting becomes more of a past-time than a way to save money. Has a lot to do with how you value your time.......

[kawalekm]

The next time you go to the auto shop to buy new tires or get service, chat up the service guy and ask if you can have some of the used wheel weights. I've gotten hundreds of pounds of lead that way and in all that time only one person has said no. I've even got lead at shops I just happened to be passing by next door to where I was going. They always ask what you want it for. When I tell them I target shoot and make my own bullets they are facinated and always get me some of what they have.

Wheel weights by themselves are typically composed of 97-98% of lead and a few percent each of tin and antimony. It doesn't make very good bullets by itself. You have to add either tin or antimony to harden the lead enough for magnum velocities. The cheapest source of tin I've found is old pewter. By law, a product can not be called pewter unless it is 85% tin. Today, manufacturers use a 97/3% blend of tin/antimony. I buy old pewter at the flea market for next to nothing. For example, one day I bought four large pewter beer mugs for a dollar. They had glass bottums either cracked or broken so the guy just wanted to get rid of them. Those 4 mugs yielded about 80 oz of pewter which works out to 20cents per pound. I've also bought used rolls of solder for a dollar or so. I feel expecially lucky when I find an only slightly used roll of plumbing solder (95% tin) for a dollar.

Lastly, I even made my own bullet lube. I made a blend of 60% candle wax, 40% vasoline that makes a medium hard lube that goes into my Lyman sizer with low heat. It does produce a little more smoke than Thompson's Blue Angel, but its free!

I originally got all my casting equipment used from some guy who put an add in the paper. I got molds, melting pot and sizer for just 80$. Now, just about my only cost is the electricity I use to melt the lead, and my time involved in production and all the scrounding. Just about the only thing I can't make or find are gas checks, but I wait till they're on sale and buy them when they are only 14-15$/thousand.

[TAWILDCATT]

you should be able to get about 2300fs on lead gascheck bullets.wheel weights are fine.there is supposed to be a touch of arsenic in them. which makes them available to heat treat. i use 13 gr red dot in several of my military rifles at 1680 fs.at 100 yds my 1913 springfield is a tack driver.i dare not use full loads in it because it is a low no. gun my guns are full size rifles not 223 size
MIDSOUTH SUPPLY is a good price mail order house.a lee turret press is a good investment and much better than the lee set above.thats best for doing a box.i've reloaded since 1938.
good luck

[jim]

Get a copy of Cast Bullets by Col. EH Harrison. There is enough info there to keep you busy for years.

By heat treating and paper-patching cast slugs you can run them up to 2,000 fps and beyond.

jim

[jajbellsouthnet]

Jim,
Now you have my curiousity aroused. What is "paper patching"? Never heard of it.

[jim]

Paperpatching started in the black bowder era. It started off as a way to make ready made cartriges for soldiers. The paper was used for wadding. Later, it was wrapped around a lead slug for greater accuracy and barrel cleaning qualities.

Crane Bond paper is best, but any kind of paper will work, even slick magazine paper will do the trick. I think Finn Aargaard wrote some about using magazine paper to patch jacket slugs for firing in larger case cartriges. Usually, it was something like a 7MM in a .30-06, a .308 in a .338, or some such.

Usually, one casts a hard slug, (15 Brinnell hardness or better), heat treats it by dropping it from the mould into a bucket of cold water, dry sizes it, then takes paper patches that wraps around the slug twice (edges cut to 60 deg. angle), spays it with teflon lube, then runs it through the lubrisizer to lube and bring it into bore diameter.

jim

[Florida_boy]

Jabel,
There is a fellow named Veral Smith who has written a book called "Jacket bullet Performance from Cast Bullets." it's worthwhile reading if you want what the book offers. Veral makes moulds and has forgotten more about cast bullets than most people will ever know. You can find his catalog over on Graybeards outdoors forum. He also has a section there that is a Veral Q & A.
IIRC he talks about shooting a paper patched cast bullet from a .30-06 at something like 4000 FPS. He will open your eyes as to just what is possible.

[mtdrtbag]

I am shooting lead out of a .30-30, .30-06 and .45-70. I'm not terribly concerned about velocity as much as I am performance for hunting. I have taken deer using the .30-30 and the .45-70 with cast bullets with some pretty exceptional results. Wheel weights don't make great hunting bullets due to the 4% antimony in them as the tend to be a little brittle and not as ductile as a pure lead and tin mixture. Tin will only make your bullets slightly harder but it will make them more ductile and less prone to fragmentation. I shoot a 160 grn flatnose gas checked bullet in the .30 cal. cast of a 16-1 lead tin mixture that gives you a bullet hardness of about 11. I am pushing this bullet between 1600 to 2000 fps. I bought about 20 sticks of the old Mirror Lube on closeout from Herter's a number of years ago and that is all I have used for years. I think it is compsoed of primarily Alox, beeswax and maybe a little bit of moly. The Lyman NRA formula may be about the same. Leading is what you would expect from a softer lead alloy but certainly not excessive. Performance is exceptional with great weight retention and exspansion to .50-.60 when fired into bullet test media of 24" of water soaked phone books with a piece of green deer hide on the receiving end. I have shot 2 deer with this bullet in the .30-30 and they both took a dirt knap where they stood. Both shot through the lungs at under 100 yards. The .45-70 is a 405 gr flatnose cast at a softer 20-1 pure lead/tin alloy. Fired at 100 yards into the same test media at 1400-1600 fps. Weight retention was again exceptional with exspansion in the .830 to .860 field with approx. 16" of penetration. I shot a nice buck this year with this round in my 1886 winchester. Bang! Flop.....and you can eat right up to the hole as Elmer Keith used to say. I wouldn't want to spend alot of time target practicing with these alloys because it would be a long evening at the cleaning bench but then again I think lead is alot easier to push out of a barrel than copper. Getting pure lead and tin is a real issue these days. I got about 600 pounds of pure lead out of the walls of an old x-ray lab at a local hospital and I buy pure tin from Midway but it is exspensive. I think $22.00 for 2 pounds the last time I ordered, but you can cast an awful lot of bullets on 2 pounds of tin. 50/50 solder is a good source of tin also. The Lyman 48th Edition Reloading Handbook is an excellent source for the new bullet caster

[High_Desert]

Jabel,
* There is a fellow named Veral Smith who has written a book called "Jacket bullet Performance from Cast Bullets." it's worthwhile reading if you want what the book offers. Veral makes moulds and has forgotten more about cast bullets than most people will ever know. You can find his catalog over on Graybeards outdoors forum. He also has a section there that is a Veral Q & A.
*IIRC he talks about shooting a paper patched cast bullet from a .30-06 at something like 4000 FPS. He will open your eyes as to just what is possible.

+1 on this book
HD

[Fortyfour]

I have been using homecast lead bullets in my handguns for several years without any problems. The cost of clad bullets for my rifles is getting so high that I am considering going to cast bullets for them as well. Does anyone have any words of wisdom for me? I have heard that cast bullets are great below 1000fps but not over that. True? I will be loading 300wm and 8mm.
I was curious as to whether you decided to try cast bullets. If so, what sort of results have you had?

I've cast bullets for nearly 40 years with great luck. To the point where I rarely shoot any jacketed stuff at all, probably not 50 rounds in the past couple years, as opposed to probably over 20,000 rounds of cast. While I don't use cast in belted magnums I do shoot it in everything else, from 22 Hornet, 25-35 and 30-30, to 44 mag, 444, 45-70 and 45-90.

I'd sure like to hear a range report!

FF