castin bullets

[gtpkeeper]

For those who cast, where is the best place to get tin and antimony from.also i plan on reloading .38/357 jow hard do they need to be

[weebeestie]

I dont know if its the best but it it an option


http://jdrguns.com/casting/pure-tin-metal

[gtpkeeper]

http://jdrguns.com/casting
cheers for the link,
makes me wonder how much £ to make your own bullets

[Black Beard]

I got antimony from carn metals. Very helpful.

[enfield2band]

For those who cast, where is the best place to get tin and antimony from.also i plan on reloading .38/357 jow hard do they need to be

Why go to the expense of buying new materials?
You can use fired bullets from the range and recast the lead. If you cast up ingots from range scrap and they look frosty there is tin in the lead. The amount may vary but it is not that important.
In the past I have done a batch of ingots in one melt so the bullets are the same. I took it a stage further and cast some .360" lead balls with the alloy, put a ball at the bottom of a tube and dropped a metal weight down. I then measured the amount it was dented. I adjusted the alloy in the melts so that it all came out almost the same.
It was a lot of messing and it made me wonder if consistency in the alloy was necessary, so I tried bullets with a small amount of tin and gradually worked up the amount of tin in the bullet, it made no difference to the accuracy. Through experimentation I came to the conclusion that the tin only helps the lead flow into the cannelures, without it the lead would not, and the cannelures had rounded edges.
I did notice that one style of bullet would not cause leading and another style would. A bit of research revealed that the main cause of leading is the profile of the forcing cone, not the grade of alloy.
If your bullet suits the gun and the lube is effective, leading should be minimal.

[airgunnut]

Why go to the expense of buying new materials?
You can use fired bullets from the range and recast the lead. If you cast up ingots from range scrap and they look frosty there is tin in the lead. The amount may vary but it is not that important.
In the past I have done a batch of ingots in one melt so the bullets are the same. I took it a stage further and cast some .360" lead balls with the alloy, put a ball at the bottom of a tube and dropped a metal weight down. I then measured the amount it was dented. I adjusted the alloy in the melts so that it all came out almost the same.
It was a lot of messing and it made me wonder if consistency in the alloy was necessary, so I tried bullets with a small amount of tin and gradually worked up the amount of tin in the bullet, it made no difference to the accuracy. Through experimentation I came to the conclusion that the tin only helps the lead flow into the cannelures, without it the lead would not, and the cannelures had rounded edges.
I did notice that one style of bullet would not cause leading and another style would. A bit of research revealed that the main cause of leading is the profile of the forcing cone, not the grade of alloy.
If your bullet suits the gun and the lube is effective, leading should be minimal.

Your right tin is needed to help the moltern lead flow, the cost of gm hard cast 38/357 158 grains is £38 for 500,
I mix lead from the range with pure lead (flashing or pipes) i get nearly a full pan about 10 lb then cast ingots, leaving about 2 lb in the pot, the next time I cast for my .32 zylab and .44 I use these ingots, then after that I mix more scrap lead and pure to cast more ingots, so each batch is reasonably consistent but there is differences between each batch, (I don't really care as the vast magority is going through my .44 black powder pistol)

[gtpkeeper]

When you say range lead ,what the chunks you find at the backstop.or can you take as much as you want ?
At the mo I use flashing and pipes. Scrappy says that the joints on the piping have a bit of tin when they solder them.


It's the antimony that makes the alloy harder right?

[malcolmk]

Being somewhat of a peasant, a mean one at that, I take range lead from wherever I can get it, melt it, stir in a bit of candlewax to flux it then pour it into ingots. I use these as needed to cast 357 bullets for my Marlin going at about 750fps to shoot mainly at 25 yards with occasional forrays up to 50 yards and even up to 200 yards. I size and lube them with Lee Alox. I don't get any leading. There is no point shooting bullets at paper targets using very hard bullets and full magnum loads, it is a waste of money and the blast is guaranteed to make you few friends.
I also use the same lead for casting 308 bullets, gas check them and send them out of my target rifle at about 1550fps at 200 and 300 yards. Again Lee Alox sized and lubed.
In the past I have used linotype, linotype blended with pure lead, bought tin and antimony from Carn metals (great company by the way) to make my own formula and to be honest have found no difference between any of the recipes. This might just be my shooting of course.....

[enfield2band]

When you say range lead what chucks you find.or can you take as much as you want ?
At the mo I use flashing and pipes. Scrappy says that the joints on the piping have a bit of tin when they solder them.


It's the antimony that makes the alloy harder right?

How much lead you can have depends on the club.
One club I was in (an indoor range) collected the lead and sold it back to the members for a small amount of money.
The club I go to now is an outdoor range and members are welcome to dig out as much as they can.

The joints on lead pipes are soldered and do contain tin. Old flashing is virtually pure lead. Later flashing and lead water pipes are the same as airgun pellet lead. (According to my Heath Robinson test kit)
Modern lead flashing is, I believe, zinc and modern wheel weights are zinc.

Antimony does harden the lead, But do you need it? (Think of the cost).

[mag44uk]

You can get antimony off the bay.
You don't really need it.
Range lead is more than adequate.
You don't need hard bullets in an underlever for paper punching.

[gtpkeeper]

You don't need hard bullets in an underlever for paper punching.

aye thats what ill be wanting it for, but if i cant get range lead ?

[andrew375]

Don't bother with trying to mix alloys from scratch, for one thing Antimony has a significantly higher melting point and takes a lot of work to get it to dissolve in to lead alloys. As others have said, just use backstop lead, most range operators will thank you for the work of emptying the backstops. Last time I mined the back stop 40 minutes work yielded 170 Lb of alloy. I have access to a small foundry so I melt the bullets down in 20 Lb lots and cast into 4 Lb ingots. .22 rimfire bullets are a particularly desirable source as they have a small amount of antimony mixed in to control the hardness, also if you can find an indoor 25 yard small bore range you will find the bullets ready piled up in bullet catcher, all welded up into ingots! Lead prices now are so low that when a local club weighed in 2.5 tonnes of bullets they found the money didn't cover the cost of bagging and transporting it! I did however blag 60 Lbs of airgun pellets though!

You don't need really hard lead for what you are doing, in fact most commercially cast bullets are way too hard as they use type metals due to their casting characteristics. .22 bullet alloy will do for up to 1000 fps. More important is bullet fit. Bullet diameter must match or be slightly over groove diameter of your barrel. Find your barrel size by slugging it, there are plenty of tutorials out there, and measure the slug with a micrometer. If it is a marlin your barrel will likely be at least .001" over nominal size. This is why Marlin micro groove barrels have such a bad reputation for accuracy with cast bullets. If in doubt shoot as cast, do not size.

[dodgyrog]

For 38 and .357 boolits range lead (from indoor ranges normally) cut 1/2 and 1/2 with roof flashing and/lead pipe (near pure lead) is more than adequate.
Get yourself onto the forum for boolit casting:
http://www.castbulletassoc.org/forum/

BTW Cast boolits from manufacturers tend to be FAR too hard

[Black Beard]

Antimony is easy enough to mix in. Smash up the metal with a hammer, melt some high tin alloy (eg solder), mix in the antimony. Then cast it in to ingots/balls and add these when needed to range scrap. Dissolving the antimony metal takes a while but antimony alloys are much quicker.

[Black Beard]

Also wash your hands after using antimony. A small piece is enough to cure constipation.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Antimony_pill