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Old April 2, 2009, 07:17 PM   #26
rugerplinker23
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thank you

thank you all for putting this all together i have bee tinkering with the thought of bullet casting to save some money at 35 bucks a 500 for lead slugs it wont be long before i am saving money great thread thank you again lots of great info
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Old April 2, 2009, 07:56 PM   #27
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Throw any bullet that has a rounded base back into the pot.Despite the popular belief that the nose is the most important part of the bullet.The base is what makes a bullet accurate.Or at least it is the major factor in a bullet flying true.
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Old April 2, 2009, 08:51 PM   #28
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Great Post---Very Informative & Helpful.

Thanks To All.
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Old April 2, 2009, 10:01 PM   #29
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Throw any bullet that has a rounded base back into the pot.Despite the popular belief that the nose is the most important part of the bullet.The base is what makes a bullet accurate.Or at least it is the major factor in a bullet flying true.
Agreed. Also run the risk of improper bullet obturation --> gas cutting --> you will be cleaning quite a bit of lead out of your barrel --> or
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Old April 3, 2009, 12:07 PM   #30
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Great post, you make me want to start casting my own.
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Old April 3, 2009, 12:40 PM   #31
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Now if we could just get the moderators to sticky it.....
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Old April 3, 2009, 02:17 PM   #32
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I second the sticky part. do we have a third?
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Old April 3, 2009, 08:07 PM   #33
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I second the sticky part. do we have a third?
As Hank Hill would say...."Yep".
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Old April 10, 2009, 07:35 PM   #34
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Need a fourth?

This was good stuff. Thanks a lot!
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Old April 10, 2009, 07:41 PM   #35
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Glad you could use it! Hope it helps or spurs you to start rolling your own!
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Old April 11, 2009, 10:19 AM   #36
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If you are having fill out problems I would recommend adding tin. What I did was add some solder, 95% tin 5% antimony. Adding more than 2% is a waste in my opinion. I have a roll of 1/8" round 95/5 solder. I add 24" to a ten pound pot.
CrustyFN - Thanks for the Tin / Antinomy tip!!!!! I buy my lead from a local metal recycling place in northern dallas and have been casting bullets with just the plain old lead. I've always known that it was a good practice to add tin and antinomy, but couldn't really find any to add (the metal recycling place doesn't have this - surprising). I've got probably 10-12 rolls of solder laying around, so as soon as I finish typing this reply, I'm going to do some more casting.

IllinoisCoyoteHunter - great post my friend. I have a nearly identical process that I follow, so it was nice to have my mehtods confirmed by an expert.


Rick
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Old April 11, 2009, 11:17 AM   #37
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CrustyFN my Dad uses 95/5 too. My Mother casts some of the finest bullets I've ever seen. She's patient and meticulous. The normal BHN for us here is 19, (we can get to 30) but we're very careful with the sizing process to avoid leading with a too hard bullet. The bullets come out of the mold at about 10 with the mix we use and get to about 19 after case hardening, and the final pass for lube and gas check is using a die that's one thou larger than the first sizing pass. We don't do the quenching if the bullets are going to be stored for much later use. The reason is in the link down below. Dad has read this guy for years. http://www.lasc.us/CastBulletAlloy.htm Its required reading for me. The weather is getting better so we'll be casting again soon. We do it outdoors near the relaoding room.

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Old April 11, 2009, 11:31 AM   #38
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I don't water drop either. I'm using straight WW's and with the solder added they are dropping with a BHN of 14.
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Old April 11, 2009, 11:44 AM   #39
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Great post! Just finished casting some a little while ago. My first experience with a 6 cavity mold. Once I got the mold up to temp, perfection! Cranked out 850 in 2 hrs.
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Old April 11, 2009, 08:53 PM   #40
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lotta lead

I'm going to put this here, it certainly pertains to casting. This is from a private indoor range at my gunclub. It hadn't been mined for at least 15 years.



This is the result of about 30 hours of (S)melting the range lead. We did another 8 hours today.



This is some of it, screened from the sand trap under the deflection plate.



Some more, the stick or log is from the bottom, furthest back of the deflector plate where it meets the sand. Some of the bullets slide down the plate, get jammed into the corner.



Using a skill saw to cut some of the logs so we could get them in the pot.



Here they're getting warmed up.



Final skimming after final fluxing. We were using big no-drip candles for flux. It's ready to start pouring.

We're limited to 6 images per post, so continued next post.
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Old April 11, 2009, 09:10 PM   #41
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Pouring some muffin tin ingots. We're using a Rowell #3 bottom pour ladle here. It's the biggest you can handle with one hand. Capacity is 5#, working capacity 4.5 lbs.



Here, my partner is using a Rowell #4 ladle. As can be seen, it takes two hands. Capacity is 6.5 lbs, working capacity is 6#.





Saturn loaded up ready to go home, destination "casting pot"!

The majority of the lead in the first pic in the post above is right around 12 BHN. Today we were melting some lead from the range where ONLY 22 rimfire is fired. That lead is softer, I don't have a BHN reading for it. I'm expecting from 8-10 BHN.

The 12 BHN lead will be fine by itself for 45, 40, 9mm, and 38's. I'll try to water drop some to see if it'll harden without the need to add antimony/tin.

We have well over 1,000 pounds melted, with half the range lead left to do. I'm considering a second turkey fryer and pot, keeping both going should cut the time. BTW, that fryer will melt a full pot like that in about 25 minutes. I leave about 1" of lead in the bottom before putting more cold stuff in there. First melt of the day takes about 35 minutes, it has to warm the whole shebang up.
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Old April 11, 2009, 09:28 PM   #42
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Very cool!!! I'm Jealous!
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Old April 11, 2009, 09:32 PM   #43
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Sweet ... do you want to sell any? That's what I call recycling. You should get an award from your state government.
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Old April 11, 2009, 09:32 PM   #44
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Good post Snuffy.
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Old May 12, 2009, 12:48 PM   #45
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great post

I've been considering casting and this post has helped clear away some of the mystery.

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Old June 15, 2009, 08:09 AM   #46
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Wow, lots of great pictures and useful info. Thanks for putting this together guys. Now if I just had a primer assembly post. And a how to on casting your own casings...
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Old July 19, 2009, 11:02 PM   #47
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TTT for dimebag! Hey Johnny, please make this a sticky!
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Old August 4, 2009, 12:00 PM   #48
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TTT (To The Top) for RBF420. Johnny JOHNNY JOHNNY GUEST Please make this a sticky!
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Old August 4, 2009, 04:20 PM   #49
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Pretty please Johnny.
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Old August 4, 2009, 05:34 PM   #50
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Maybe Johnny doesn't want to make this a sticky. He probably would have done it by now... or maybe he is just a really busy guy...or has something against us casters! He must be busy....I like to give GOOD people the benefit of the doubt. I'm sure he will let us know in one way or another if it has a chance at becoming a sticky. Either way, it sure would be nice to know.
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