Controlling Lead during Molding

Melnic · Nov 11, 2020

OK,
I have been predominately casting 30 cal rifle bullets and 9mm (powder coated and sized)
With occasional soft lead for Muzzle loader.
I have a dedicated pot for the Brickman's soft lead I bought/traded from him.
I have various harder lead I traded/gifted in various hardness.
I have a Lee Hardness tester so if I do the work, I can test each bar of Lead before I put it into the pot.

What I'm trying to do is find some sort of method of adjusting the lead in a pot to achieve a consistent hardness for the Rifles where I think it matters more.

Generally, Ill fill the pot up and then run as many bullets as I have time for and never put in any more lead during the run. This week, my Lee 311-160-2P mold was dropping at 159gr. I then put in more lead and ran Pistol bullets. at the end of the pistol bullets, I ran my Lee 311-160-2P mold again and they were dropping at 163gr

I thought to myself that if I wanted to adjust down to 159gr I'd put in Harder lead because it is less dense?

Am I on the right track? Or are there other variables I need to take into consideration (Lead temp, Mold Temp, am I facing East or West?, Should I only mold on an empty stomach?)

I have taken random samples of lead and have buckets with Harness of 5, 9-12, 15 and small amounts of 20

I'm no precision shooter with my Cast and PC bullets. I'm pretty much shooting this at steel targets but I'd like to learn to be more consistant.

Sundazes · Nov 11, 2020

I'll start "3%"

Pinecone · Nov 11, 2020

sundazes said:
I'll start "3%"

That was too easy.

Pinecone · Nov 11, 2020

Melnic said:
OK,
I have been predominately casting 30 cal rifle bullets and 9mm (powder coated and sized)
With occasional soft lead for Muzzle loader.
I have a dedicated pot for the Brickman's soft lead I bought/traded from him.
I have various harder lead I traded/gifted in various hardness.
I have a Lee Hardness tester so if I do the work, I can test each bar of Lead before I put it into the pot.

What I'm trying to do is find some sort of method of adjusting the lead in a pot to achieve a consistent hardness for the Rifles where I think it matters more.

Generally, Ill fill the pot up and then run as many bullets as I have time for and never put in any more lead during the run. This week, my Lee 311-160-2P mold was dropping at 159gr. I then put in more lead and ran Pistol bullets. at the end of the pistol bullets, I ran my Lee 311-160-2P mold again and they were dropping at 163gr

I thought to myself that if I wanted to adjust down to 159gr I'd put in Harder lead because it is less dense?

Am I on the right track? Or are there other variables I need to take into consideration (Lead temp, Mold Temp, am I facing East or West?, Should I only mold on an empty stomach?)

I have taken random samples of lead and have buckets with Harness of 5, 9-12, 15 and small amounts of 20

I'm no precision shooter with my Cast and PC bullets. I'm pretty much shooting this at steel targets but I'd like to learn to be more consistant.

There are a lot of variables. As in how are the different bars heavier? More tin? More antimony? More of both? Less of one or the other?

Better would be to make your alloy more consistent.

How much do you have?

Fill the pot, pour ingots. Mark as #1. Repeat, mark as #2. Repeat.

They fill with one ingot from each batch up to the limit of the pot. So, say you can do 10 ingots, you would use one each of #1 through #10. Pour ingots. Repeat until you have used all 10 ingots in batches 1 - 10. Mark as batch A.

Repeat with 11 - 20. Mark as B. Keep going, until you have done all of the ones from the first batches.

Then do a melt of one ingot of batch A through J.

This way, you end up with a lot of ingots that are the same mixture.

At that point, test the hardness and decide if they are hard enough. If not, you can buy some alloying stock and figure out the ratio to get where you want to be.

Melnic · Nov 11, 2020

Other than my pure lead, the content is unknown. Most are scrap/wheelweight lead others cleaned up, put into bars and gave/traded to me.
I have about 200lbs+ now from various sources

Blacksmith101 · Nov 13, 2020

Melnic said:
Other than my pure lead, the content is unknown. Most are scrap/wheelweight lead others cleaned up, put into bars and gave/traded to me.
I have about 200lbs+ now from various sources

Smelt all your miscellaneous lead in a big batch and cast ingots so the content will be the same. Test your hardness and adjust as needed.

Send a sample to RotoMetals and get an XRF analysis and you will know what your mysterious metal is.
https://www.rotometals.com/metals-analysis-xrf/

Go here for answers:
http://castboolits.gunloads.com/forumdisplay.php?57-Lead-and-Lead-Alloys

wilcam47 · Nov 13, 2020

sundazes said:
I'll start "3%"

This will live on forever!

Pinecone · Nov 13, 2020

Melnic said:
Other than my pure lead, the content is unknown. Most are scrap/wheelweight lead others cleaned up, put into bars and gave/traded to me.
I have about 200lbs+ now from various sources

That is why I suggested what I did.

If your pot is 10 pounds, you would have to do 20 runs in each melding for 200 pounds. But you end up with a homogeneous batch of ingots.

Pinecone · Nov 13, 2020

Blacksmith101 said:
Smelt all your miscellaneous lead in a big batch and cast ingots so the content will be the same. Test your hardness and adjust as needed.

How do you do that with over 200 pounds?

That is why I gave the way to do it with a smaller pot.

Biggfoot44 · Nov 13, 2020

Most of the high points have been hit . Consistency of alloy is key .

Wheel weights should be fairly consistent , the " scrap " is a wild card .

3gr variation from the nominal weight of the mold is meaningless , as long as your bullets are consistent with each other .

Vastly Oversimplified - More Antimony in the alloy will be slightly lighter weight, and slightly larger as cast dia .

Melnic · Nov 13, 2020

Biggfoot44 said:
Most of the high points have been hit . Consistency of alloy is key .

Wheel weights should be fairly consistent , the " scrap " is a wild card .

3gr variation from the nominal weight of the mold is meaningless , as long as your bullets are consistent with each other .

Vastly Oversimplified - More Antimony in the alloy will be slightly lighter weight, and slightly larger as cast dia .

BTW, I did another run, from the mix of lead I have, the very first run I was doing and started measuring had mostly Lyman #2 in it. I was adding lead that was around 9-12 BH which made the 30 cal bullets come out 6grains heavier. That #2 is NOT what I mostly have so using that as a target for my 30 cal bullets is going to be unrealistic.
I ran several hundred pistol bullets then added some harder lead that I had and I think I can now keep the bullets coming out more within 2-3 grains from run to run.
Again, not a precision shooter with this stuff, just trying to learn.

So, is it a general statement that the harder the lead, the less shrinkage?
Or does it matter if that hardness comes from Tin or Antimony or is it primarily the antimony.

Blacksmith101 · Nov 14, 2020

Pinecone said:
How do you do that with over 200 pounds?

That is why I gave the way to do it with a smaller pot.

Get a three gallon pot (12 quarts), 200 pounds of lead has a volume of 2.11 gallons.

John from MD · Nov 14, 2020

More lead, heavier bullets, more shrinkage. Unless you buy a plumbers pot and make big batches of ingots, you will continue to run into this problem. One thing to think about. If you are only shooting steel, does it really matter? Making bullets that will shoot sub MOA when you are shooting at a 10 inch steel plate is wasting your time. If your bullets give you 2 to 3 inch groups, and the plate makes a tinging sound, you don't have to go any further.

Pinecone · Nov 14, 2020

Blacksmith101 said:
Get a three gallon pot (12 quarts), 200 pounds of lead has a volume of 2.11 gallons.

And a burner to heat with. With a VERY stable stand. It would not be good if it fell over.

And then you have to get the lead from the pot to the ingot molds.

But that would be one way to do it. I was trying to explain how to do it using your casting pot.

Melnic · Nov 14, 2020

John from MD said:
More lead, heavier bullets, more shrinkage. Unless you buy a plumbers pot and make big batches of ingots, you will continue to run into this problem. One thing to think about. If you are only shooting steel, does it really matter? Making bullets that will shoot sub MOA when you are shooting at a 10 inch steel plate is wasting your time. If your bullets give you 2 to 3 inch groups, and the plate makes a tinging sound, you don't have to go any further.

You are correct. Its more of an informational thing. I think I can keep the swing to less than a few grains from batch to batch.

PowPow · Nov 14, 2020

Have you played around with this spreadsheet any?

http://castboolits.gunloads.com/showthread.php?105952-Lead-alloy-calculators

Melnic · Nov 14, 2020

PowPow said:
Have you played around with this spreadsheet any?

http://castboolits.gunloads.com/showthread.php?105952-Lead-alloy-calculators

Nope, I have no idea the lead/tin amounts in the scrap lead I have.

I do have the ability if I want to spend the time to measure hardness. Right now I was taking random samples from the different sources and marking them.

PowPow · Nov 14, 2020

My thought was that you could play with some guessing based on the BHN of the stuff you have and try some additions with help of the spreadsheet. I've found that sheet to be very helpful.

Biggfoot44 · Nov 14, 2020

Rule of thumb - The larger the batch of ( non- foundry spec) alloy you can make & adjust at a time the better .

Yes , using only a small casting pot to do so can be a hassle . Either be motivated to start with more raw materials of known content , accept and expect the hassle , or use mystery metal for bullets where hardness isn't critical . ( ie , modest velocity , moderate pressure revolvers are more forgiving than magnum handguns or rifles .)

Threeband · Nov 15, 2020

I used to melt about 13 pounds at a time on a propane stove using a heavy aluminum pot from a double boiler, just ladling the lead into an ingot mold.

One could use a better iron grate from a barbecue grill, perhaps a bigger pot, and easily and safely melt 25 pound batches on a simple propane burner.

( I scored about 750 pounds of pure lead from a hospital radiology lab. They were bricks weighing about 26 pounds each. A bit big for my pot so I cut them in half using various saws and chisels. I still have two of the bricks I use for miscellaneous tasks, wheel chocks and string line holders, etc. The rest went to minie balls.)

Controlling Lead during Molding

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