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Now my ears perked right up on that unobtainium for unobtainium trade idea
I'm thinking since this is a public view section, maybe a post what you seek, and handle the rest in pm.
Rumbler built the house as a community.
And I do like cast lead in pistols, and have a lubrisizer i can use.
Last edited by mapper; December 10th, 2020 at 12:50 PM.
I like cast lead in any kind of device a lead projectile can be used in. But lead is rapidly becoming scarce if not yet unobtanium. Another notch or two on the regulatory garotte will probably drive it completely underground if its available at all.Originally Posted by mapper
"Living life in fear isn't living life at all." ~ Winter Soldier
I may have to expand my knowledge set to casting, in the future.
I just need to pick up a few things to do that.
I got a good deal on a bunch of wheel-weight lead, a Lyman electric pot and some molds a couple years ago. I now cast for basically every gun I have the ability to reload for. Many of them are more accurate with cast bullets than factory ammo.
I also only powder coat, I don't bother with lube (I sold my lubrisizer to WinterSoldier actually), they shoot incredibly clean, and let you cheat a little with the alloy and still get good results.
Lead is still around. I have hundreds of pounds and I've never paid for any of it. It isn't as easy to get as it was at one time I'm sure, but it isn't like it's difficult either. you can still find lead plumbing boots from roofing jobs in trash piles after all.
I have some molds, some lead, à lubrisizer, but need to pick up a ladle and a pot.
Need to pick up another mold or 2.
Ill have to sort through the stuff I have, and see what I have or not.
There is a old electric pot I have, but I don't trust it until I check/rebuild the wiring on it,
The molds are all lyman, sizers are setup in 38 and 45
I think I have a Noè 124 gr 308 mold as well I got in a trade.
Just haven't gone through them before, it may be time to see what is there.
And include that education to the list.
I'll look at my lyman book and see what insights it tells me.
Dad used to cast, and reload, but that knowledge was not passed on..
The lead he alloyed in corn bread molds, but what brinell hardness it is, I don't know.
I know he used to cast 44, 45 swc, 38 dewc,
you could get buy with a old cast iron pan or bean-pot on a propane burner, whitegas stove or even an open fire if you really want to be 'Old-school'.
I've never worried too much about hardness, the powder coat acts as a kind of "jacket" that has it's own hardness. I generally do some range scrap "alloy" mixed with some pewter for mold fillout. This makes pretty accurate bullets in my handguns that don't lead.
The Cast Bullet Handbook by Lyman is well worth getting, it is full of data for all kinds of cartridges and references molds from other companies besides Lyman which is nice.
I've shot thousands of my own cast .38 wadcutters and they have beat or at least been equal to off the shelf cast bullets from Hornady.
The CE harris "universal load" of Alliant/Hercules 2400 under a cast bullet in basically all full-power rifle cartridges is accurate in everything I've tried it in as well. Unless you are loading magnum pistol, and some rifle, powder coating eliminates the need for a gas check at lower velocities.
I’ve been looking at the Lee bottom pour electric pot to get started. But I’m with Mapper I need an education on how to make Alloys correctly and know the hardness. Where do you find tin and antimony ? I asked the guy at the local scrapyard and he acted like I was speaking German and didn’t know was I was talking about.
you can buy tin and antimony ingots from places online like Rotometals
Also, if you go to thrift store and look for ugly grey dishes and cups that are able to be bent with your hands, those are pewter and contain tin and antimony. Many times they are also marked "pewter" on the bottom, and some I've bought have the alloy makeup in percentages printed on them.
The aforementioned Lyman Cast Bullet book goes into extreme detail on alloying, hardness testing and whatnot.
Also checkout Fortunecookie45lc and ElvisAmmo channels on youtube, they've helped me a lot.
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