Bullet Casting & Coating MegaThread

[240Geezer]

MP mold came in today. 5 days from Slovenia. Impressive.
It's very nice. I just had to see it work so I put it together with two round an two penta point inserts.
It worked fine. But I don't think I had it hot enough. Looks like they dropped small. Like .354 ish. I'll try again when I have more time, this was just a function test.

 

[Jay77]

MP mold came in today. 5 days from Slovenia. Impressive.
It's very nice. I just had to see it work so I put it together with two round an two penta point inserts.
It worked fine. But I don't think I had it hot enough. Looks like they dropped small. Like .354 ish. I'll try again when I have more time, this was just a function test.View attachment 875306

I had good luck seasoning my last two MP brass molds with heating and spraying with ammonia. The brass MP molds are the best in my opinion and I hope you enjoy. I have the Lyman #314299 replacement coming but I think that will also drop small. I beagled my MP BO mold and I’ve been messing with the high heat tape size and placement…. To thin and I get finning and two wide I get restricted air venting so they don’t fill out perfectly. Throw in ladle pouring…what a combo….

 

[Jay77]

Not as perfect.

 

[Jay77]

I think I can see a line from the high heat tape.

 

[Jay77]

Yes that was a tape line and I received my #314299 and it was inspected by the same person on the same day so it should drop the same undersized bullets. I’ll give it a test run later.

 

[pastera]

Redding Reloading Equipment: reloading equipment for rifles, handguns, pistols, revolvers and SAECO bullet casting equipment - Redding Reloading Equipment: reloading equipment for rifles, handguns, pistols, revolvers and SAECO bullet casting equipmen

Reloading equipment for rifles, handguns, pistols, revolvers, custom dies, bullet casting equipment, powder measuring and weighing equipment, bullet seating dies

www.redding-reloading.com

Try an alloy with higher antimony content

 

[Jay77]

Would I be better off buying antimony directly and adding to the alloy or buying linotype to mix in?

 

[pastera]

Would I be better off buying antimony directly and adding to the alloy or buying linotype to mix in?

Linotype or Rotometals superhard

 

[240Geezer]

I had good luck seasoning my last two MP brass molds with heating and spraying with ammonia. The brass MP molds are the best in my opinion and I hope you enjoy. I have the Lyman #314299 replacement coming but I think that will also drop small. I beagled my MP BO mold and I’ve been messing with the high heat tape size and placement…. To thin and I get finning and two wide I get restricted air venting so they don’t fill out perfectly. Throw in ladle pouring…what a combo….

Could you describe your method for that process of hear cycling?
Time? Temp? # of heats?
Pretty please

 

[mac1911]

Would I be better off buying antimony directly and adding to the alloy or buying linotype to mix in?

Honestly if your going to buy alloy just buy 5lbs of Lyman #2
If it works then you can play around making up alloy.
Tin is expensive and 5% tin 5% Antimony is not easy to do if you dont know what you have.

 

[mac1911]

Honestly if your going to buy alloy just buy 5lbs of Lyman #2
If it works then you can play around making up alloy.
Tin is expensive and 5% tin 5% Antimony is not easy to do if you dont know what you have.

I will try to see if my lead alloy calculator still works on my old PC

NES member names escapes me at the moment but he tested alloy for me with the laser gun thingy
Only alloy I had that was what it was supposed to be was some hardball

The lyman # 2 I had was ony 2% tin. I bought 5 lbs of lyman #2 off midway way back . It was very good and all my lyman molds hit the mark , size and weight.

 

[240Geezer]

If you can find cheap solder like flea market or yard sale it's mostly tin these days.
I usually drop a couple of 1 lb rolls ( 63/37 Tin/ lead) in when I smelt a batch.Just to help flow out when casting.
Antimony is expensive.

 

[240Geezer]

Missouri Bullet Company

Missouri Bullet Company offers premium lead bullets at affordable prices. We make hardness optimized bullets for the velocity of the loads you shoot.

missouribullet.com

 

[mac1911]

Missouri Bullet Company

Missouri Bullet Company offers premium lead bullets at affordable prices. We make hardness optimized bullets for the velocity of the loads you shoot.

missouribullet.com

No lyman is not any of those

Missouri Bullet Company

Missouri Bullet Company offers premium lead bullets at affordable prices. We make hardness optimized bullets for the velocity of the loads you shoot.

missouribullet.com

there is so much wrong with that discription.
Lyman # 2 5% tin 5% Antimony 90% lead
Foundry type is 15 23 62

Hardball is 2 6 92

Magnum is lead shot and has no tin

So what do they really have?
Hardball , hardball does not fill out as well in my lyman molds as the certified lyman #2 I bought.

 

[mac1911]

Not sure if the pictures will show well enough. I mixed up a few different alloys with this calculator and they where very close when tested.

For the most part im running
Clip on wheel weight alloy and either pewter which is a crap shoot or the high tin solder

This is my go to alloy for 90% of my rifle casting
Pistols- I run range scrap…

My clip on wheel weight and 63 tin 37 lead solder mix 19 lbs clip on wheel weights 1 lb 63/37 solder came back as 3% Tin 2.8% Antimony 93.3% lead
To the best of my skills Brinell Hardness with the art pencil method 13

 

[240Geezer]

No lyman is not any of those


there is so much wrong with that discription.
Lyman # 2 5% tin 5% Antimony 90% lead
Foundry type is 15 23 62

Hardball is 2 6 92

Magnum is lead shot and has no tin

So what do they really have?
Hardball , hardball does not fill out as well in my lyman molds as the certified lyman #2 I bought.

Bought some of that hardball from them and dropped 5lbs in 50lbs of soft lead melt to stiffen it a bit but I really don't think it did much. I don't really think it's needed for plinking anyway.

 

[mac1911]

Bought some of that hardball from them and dropped 5lbs in 50lbs of soft lead melt to stiffen it a bit but I really don't think it did much. I don't really think it's needed for plinking anyway.

Just about anything is good for plinking.
The lyman casting manuals have several recipes in them for mixing X Y Z to get good alloy

 

[mac1911]

Bought some of that hardball from them and dropped 5lbs in 50lbs of soft lead melt to stiffen it a bit but I really don't think it did much. I don't really think it's needed for plinking anyway.

5 lbs into 50 is ? Im almost saying thats a waste , might have went from 6 to 8 maybe 9 on the harness scale?
BUT if it worked for you thats the end goal.

 

[240Geezer]

5 lbs into 50 is ? Im almost saying thats a waste , might have went from 6 to 8 maybe 9 on the harness scale?
BUT if it worked for you thats the end goal.

I never said I knew what I was doing. They didn't really get into that at the casting seminar I attended a couple of years ago.

 

[240Geezer]

I'm thinking that most people getting into this are figuring wheel weights and GTG.
I happened to score about 800lbs of lead sheet a project at work. I was kind enough to "remediate" it for them. So it wouldn't end up in a landfill and poison the groundwater. Gotta save the turtles ya know.
So when life gives you lead...
you make bullets.

 

[mac1911]

I never said I knew what I was doing. They didn't really get into that at the casting seminar I attended a couple of years ago.

Alloy is tough especially if you dont know what you have. We have to go with assumptions with out scrap ……

 

[mac1911]

I'm thinking that most people getting into this are figuring wheel weights and GTG.
I happened to score about 800lbs of lead sheet a project at work. I was kind enough to "remediate" it for them. So it wouldn't end up in a landfill and poison the groundwater. Gotta save the turtles ya know.
So when life gives you lead...
you make bullets.

Clip on wheel weights will cover a lot of applications
Stick ons tend to be softer lead.

I have no idea what wheel weights are made of in recent production. Im sure there is a lot less of anything but lead in them vs 25+ years ago.

 

[Jay77]

Found some time today to cast some. I’ve been super busy lately with work and my septic getting retired. But I was out of 314410’s. My second Lyman 314299 was worse than the first with the near cavity out of round so I sent it back. But looking at the alloy conversation above and my exploration into linotype/roto metals I was wondering if there would be interest in getting some known lead from Rotometal. I know Broc tried to pull something together years ago.

 

[Artie]

Found some time today to cast some. I’ve been super busy lately with work and my septic getting retired. But I was out of 314410’s. My second Lyman 314299 was worse than the first with the near cavity out of round so I sent it back. But looking at the alloy conversation above and my exploration into linotype/roto metals I was wondering if there would be interest in getting some known lead from Rotometal. I know Broc tried to pull something together years ago.



View attachment 878374

Those look real nice, perfect.

 

[Jay77]

Ladle pouring is the way to go…. What a difference.. at least for me.

 

[Jay77]

Tried loading some x39 with those 314410 with 9-10.5 gr of Unique and didn’t have any luck cycling the action. 9gr’s were more accurate than the 10gr and my chrono was being squirrelly so my numbers were questionable.

 

[mac1911]

Tried loading some x39 with those 314410 with 9-10.5 gr of Unique and didn’t have any luck cycling the action. 9gr’s were more accurate than the 10gr and my chrono was being squirrelly so my numbers were questionable.

FWIW I had to use “slower” powders to get consistent cyling in the Ak and SKS
Accuracy was , eh

 

[Jay77]

I had great results with 2400… I’m probably going to use the unique for some 12 gauge loads once I get rolling.

 

[mac1911]

I had great results with 2400… I’m probably going to use the unique for some 12 gauge loads once I get rolling.

2400 and H4895 should be fine for 100% cycling.
I got mine to 1700 fps before the groups really openedcup

 

[Jay77]

I found some time to load and test these yesterday. My first shotgun reloads and down the rabbit hole I go. I have a few months before deer season to work up a potential load.