That pile took about two hours or so. It’s been awhile since I’ve done it and had to remember how the turkey fryer worked! Once you get a half a pot or so melted, it goes quicker adding lead. I was melting down rolled up sheet lead that came from an X-ray room years ago. I sawzalled it into pieces that would fit in the Dutch oven. I have a slotted spoon and a couple of ladles to clean the lead and to dip it out into the Ingot molds.How long does it take to melt all that down?
That’s odd. Pure lead usually does cast a bit smaller, but I’ve mixed lead and WW 50/50 for years and had good luck. It’s not cheap but if you can source plumbing solder, modern stuff is 95/5, which is tin to antimony. Most of what I shoot (handguns at 1000fps or less) is cast out of 20:1 lead to tin.Nice, I’ve got so much soft lead I don’t know what to do with it. I don’t cast muzzle loader bullets and I have enough jigs and sinkers to last a lifetime. I tried dumping soft lead into wheel weight lead and see if I could stretch my supply out a bit. Anything more than 1 lb of soft to 6lb of wheel weights and they cast undersized and keyholed at 15 yds. I’ve got a 5 gallon bucket full of 1/4 lb. ingots “cause I stole my wife’s mini-muffin tin” to make them and don’t really have any purpose for them.
What mixture would be required for a 44mag say 1800fps? Or would your mix work as long as it was powder coated?That’s odd. Pure lead usually does cast a bit smaller, but I’ve mixed lead and WW 50/50 for years and had good luck. It’s not cheap but if you can source plumbing solder, modern stuff is 95/5, which is tin to antimony. Most of what I shoot (handguns at 1000fps or less) is cast out of 20:1 lead to tin.
I do powder coat and they say you can drive softer lead faster with the coating, but I haven’t tried any specific tests to see how well that holds up.
Below are the formulas. I put them into a spreadsheet for easy calculation.There’s a formula, which I cannot recall that basically correlated pressure to bhn. I would looks through the LASC cast bullets pages and especially articles by Glen Fryxell, he’s a Freind and a very knowledgeable caster (and a scientist with multiple patents in his name!)
Ideal hardness in BHN = Pressure / 1,920 |
Maximum BHN = Pressure / 1,422 |
I don't make my own. I'm looking into it, have been for a long time.1800 is scooting. Does your bullet have a gas check? I personally would not want to try to push a plain based bullet that fast.