Quote:
Originally Posted by Bill Douglas
I hope you don't breath the fumes.
A friend who casts his own pistol bullets goes around the tire centers and gets old lead wheel weights for free. He said this lead has just the right properties for pistol bullets.
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Yup, that's exactly what I do. Wheel weights are about 97% lead and 3% antimony, which render them pretty ideal for pistol bullets. One of the happy little happenstances with this mix is that they are also able to be hardened post-casting. Some "water quench" them by dropping them straight into a bucket of water, some heat-treat them in the oven. Either results in a somewhat harder bullet. Myself, I just shoot them as cast.
For my match rifle bullets (used in long range black powder competition), I spend some money and buy my lead alloy from a local foundry. I use a 20:1 lead/tin mix for these, with no antimony. The tin hardens them just a little bit but, more importantly, makes the alloy fill out the molds for these big bullets (500 to 540 grains in .45 caliber) better.
Quote:
Originally Posted by javadog
Are there any parting lines visible on the bullets, where the two mold halves come together? Ever do any hand finishing on any of them, or do you just case them as cast.
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Good question. You would be amazed at how nicely these cast - there is hardly a visible parting line at all. Not enough to affect anything.
The next step after casting is to apply the bullet lubricant and, if necessary, size the bullet a bit. Most molds cast a bit oversize for their given caliber. We can actually play with this a bit by varying the alloy, as different alloys shrink more upon cooling. Pure lead casts the smallest bullets, and adding an alloying metal increases their size. The bullets shown above, for the .357 and .44 magnums, come out of their molds at .359" and .431". I size them to .358" and .430".
Here is a photo of the Lyman lubricator/sizer that I use. Pulling down on the big handle (at the top of the linkage and large ram, exiting the frame to the top left), the ram forces the bullet down into a sizing die that is held under that hex nut. When down inside the die, the lube is forced into its lube grooves. The left side of this thing houses the lubricant, and turning the spindle (with a wrench) sticking up out of it forces a piston down into it. The lubricant is then forced over to the sizing die part of the press on the right.
Here is the sizing die. The lube enters it through the holes in the side. This is really two pieces, the outside ring is the die and the inside is a piston, or a plunger, on which the bullet is placed. This is pushed down into the die along with the bullet. Once the bullet is sized and lubed, raising the big handle then raises the black steel u-shaped strap that runs from the press handle and linkage all the way underneath the die, which pushes up on the bottom of the plunger inside the die, pushing the now sized and lubed bullet back out.
My pistol bullets all cast oversize and get sized and lubed in this manner. My match rifle bullets all cast at the size I will be shooting them, so they don't get sized. I still run them through this lubricator/sizer, but I use a sizing die that is the diameter of the as-cast bullet. All I'm really doing, then, is lubricating them.