Casting my own, any advice?

[davederrick]

For shooting Black Powder, add nothing to it, you want it a bit soft. Only use tin in your lead to harden it if shot in a nitro round.

As a rule of thumb, scratch the final cast ball with a fingernail, if it leaves no marks its too hard. If it leaves a deep gouge, its too soft. If you get a small scratch, its about right.

[Tech7]

Hi, I don't cast anymore but in the 70s/80s I used to make .22 air rifle pellets with a LEM Splitzer mould recycling my old pellets into new "Air Bullets".

A tip I was given then (and that I have seen a few times since on US reloading sites) is to use old wheel weights to make your ingots they have just the right alloy mix for casting your own balls. Just take a trip down to your local tyre shop (the little ones that sell second-hand tyres are a good bet) and for a few beers and a friendly chat you should be able to pick up buckets of the old used weights which get thrown away when a wheel is rebalanced after fitting a new tyre.

Melt the old weights, remove the scrap steel tags and cast ingots ready to use to make your own balls and bullets. Test the ingots by scraping them with your thumbnail, you want to be able to scratch the metal but not to leave a deep gouge. If the mix is to hard add some 100% pure lead to make the alloy softer.

Hope this is of some help, good luck with the casting.

[slowcoach]

Soft is good. That ball gets squeezed down to bore size from the chamber as it's blasted up the tube. Think parrallel sided egg (???). That is what the .44 and .36 'balls' shot from my pistols looked like after being retrieved from a 9ft water filled cattle trough.
Roofing lead is ideal, just de scim the crud after molten with either bees or candle wax added to the pot.

[davederrick]

Most wheel weight these days are zinc.

[Tech7]

If most wheel weights are now zinc, this will be a non starter, it’s a shame as this was an easy source for me, but its been 20+ years since I did any casting and I guess everything changes.

I did try a piece of lead water pipe (old waste pipe), but this was a real job to get to melt down, and produced tons of waste slag, in the end I felt it was not worth the effort.

[andrew375]

DO NOT USE WHEEL WEIGHTS FOR THIS APPLICATION! You need pure lead only, wheel weights have 3% Antimony. That slight difference is all that is needed to strain the ramming lever on the revolver.

[uk_biker99]

Thanks for all of your replies gents (and ladies?).
This place really is the fountain of all knowledge!
Troddenmasses, will nip over at some point and get a few lessons from you and keep my eye out for some cheap kit (though on reflection space is a bit of an issue at the moment, shed is rammed with summer kids toys).

Thanks again everyone,
Keith

[thibben]

Keith,

Also found using a carpenters pencil to 'crayon' the top of the mold and both sides of the spruce plate (including the feed cone) helps the sprue drop off.

If you're using scrap it might be better to also smelt down all your base lead, flxuing it to get all the crap out (Marvelux is ideal for this, no smoke or smells) then cast it inot ingots. this way, when you add new lead to your casting pot you do not change the consistency of the mix.

Just a thought.

T

[mat BRC]

i go to a local roofing place and buy the lead there, any impuraties you dont want then just dont flux the lead, its not nessary for balls only casting bullets as the flux only helps mix, ive got a lee production pot iv and im realy impressed, ive made a cupple of thou balls in .454 and36 (cant remember exact) the main thing is to keep your lead at a good temp, make sure your moulds are warm, youll notice when there too cold as they will ripple the lead, and if too hot you'll get a blue marble effect i call it, if you get this leave the mould cool down for a short while, hope this helps

[davederrick]

and if too hot you'll get a blue marble effect i call it

So thats what causes it !! You learn something new every day, thanks bud.

[mat BRC]

no probs, ive lernt from a weeks worth of casting to many haha, fair play the chairman of my club gave me some gret advice, easy when you get into it, and saves a bucket load of cash

[john paul]

Used roofing lead - Perfect for lead balls, as said previously add nothing.
If you have a supply of lead just get the stuff and get casting it really is easy

Both my moulds are double cavity (BALL) LEE.

[troddenmasses]

I cast quite a lot of different calibres, including .44. When you have some spare time, pop around and you can have a go at casting some stuff. I mostly use Lee stuff - no need to ask Kranks for a catalogue, it's all on the internet at

http://www.leeprecision.com/

specifically

http://www.leeprecision.com/cgi/catalog/browse.cgi