10 to .5 alloy

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10 to .5 alloy

Post by Johnnyjr »

I only have a small pot to cast with. If I use 10 lb of lead(soft) and 1/2 lb of old hard bullets,what do you think I would end up with? These old bullets are super hard..thanks
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Re: 10 to .5 alloy

Post by Reese-Mo »

Johnnyjr wrote:what do you think I would end up with?
You'd have 10-1/2 lbs of quite nearly super soft bullets.

The "quite hard" and "soft" are far too vague to accurately predict the outcome. Will the resultant product be harder than the "soft" stuff. Sure, it has to be. But, how hard? Usefully hard? Hard enough for what purpose? Do you have a hardness tester (highly recommended!). If you're casting that's good item to have. Even the "less expensive" Lee tester, which basically compares your indentation to a size on a chart is good. Actually... it could be better than the spring-gauge type over time, as springs will sometimes be off, or go off. Sort of like the difference between a beam torque wrench and a spring-click torque wrench.

If you find that you get a mix that's not hard enough, you can always melt it down and add more of your harder lead, wheelweights, etc.

I'll tell you that in the past, I would mine lead from our metal backstop every week, melt that lead back into bullets, and that lead was not hard enough. That was a mix of factory lead (with jackets scooped out of the mix as needed), customers cast lead, and our own already shot lead. To that we'd add about 3lbs of wheel weights per 22lbs of lead in our pot.

And for all you casting mavens out there... The range/shop casting machine was great. it had six stations, each holding a four cavity mold, and was shaped like a Ferris wheel, we called it a "windmill" for some reason. Motor driven, it controlled the pour and opening and closing and ejection of the cast bullets. I did not design that, but it was not off-the-shelf for the original shop owners. The only control was the speed control, which could be varied to a little faster on small calibers, and a little slower on 44's and 45's. The mold manipulation was via pneumatics. With it, we'd cast up a butt load of bullets. We reloaded in the neighborhood of 1.5 million rounds a year, but also sold sized/lubed or raw cast bullets as well in bags of 100. I don't know where the bags came from, but they said "Nutmeats" on 'em, and I always got a kick outta that.

Operating the machine was a little boring after the initial setup for the run of bullets. It did need monitoring in case of an issue. Just enough monitoring to prohibit doing other tasks, and not enough to make things interesting. Wire brush at the ready, sometimes you'd have to open a mold and give it a brush off. Every once in a while, an emergency shut down would be needed, if the lead pour didn't shut off automatically. Those were a pain in the ass, but not terribly horrible to deal with.
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Re: 10 to .5 alloy

Post by Johnnyjr »

Appreciate your reply,guess I'll have to try the lee tester out.
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Re: 10 to .5 alloy

Post by Reese-Mo »

Yah, they are priced at about $90... but if you're serious about casting consistent bullets, or specialized bullets, then like other reloading specialty items... a necessary evil.

And, btw, if you haven't tried Lee liquid Alox, its pretty good for anything under 1500fps or so. After that.... gas checks please.
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Re: 10 to .5 alloy

Post by Johnnyjr »

Aren't gas checks expensive. And I have tried the alox lube..thanks..
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Re: 10 to .5 alloy

Post by mr surveyor »

I'm not a caster and don't play one on t.v., but I do read a lot about casting. Just wanted to throw in the possibility of using the "pencil test" for determining lead hardness. From what I understand, various hardness examples of pencils (graphite) will make, or not make, different scratches/impressions (or no affect) on different hardness of lead. There's a lot of info about this on the web.

The necessary "set" of pencils can be assembled from pencils picked up at many different places. I can't remember the total number of different hardness pencils recommended to keep on hand, but it's around 8-12 if I remember.

Just thought I'd throw that in.


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Re: 10 to .5 alloy

Post by Reese-Mo »

Never heard of that one, but.... it sounds intriguing

Gazz cheks are cheap (or should be, barring panic mode as of late). You'll need a bullet mold that creates bullets with the necessary recess for the gas check at its base. Normal flat heeled cast bullets don't work with gas checks.

Gas checks are unnecessary for handgun bullets, except maybe some exotics at very high velocity. From memory, the old 357 Maximum was one of those that sometimes was used with gas checks. Rifles on the other hand, usually benefit when the velocities get up there a bit. Not needed on things like 38-55 or 45-70, yes, best utilized on .308 or 25-06 sort of cartridges. You get the idea, I'm sure.
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Re: 10 to .5 alloy

Post by Ohio3Wheels »

Johnnyjr wrote:Aren't gas checks expensive. And I have tried the alox lube..thanks..
Relatively speaking, yes they are a bit pricey, about what a box of bullets used to cost. When I need any, lately I've been getting them at Sage's Outdoors. At the time I made my last buy he had them and was cheaper than the rest of the usual suspects. Generally your bullet has to have a shank to crimp the check on. There are some checks made that will fit on a plain base bullet. I've never tried them.

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Re: 10 to .5 alloy

Post by Reese-Mo »

I have not bought or sold gas checks in a long time. They "used" to be about $4.50 per thousand. And I remember them being about $12/1000, but as expensive as bullets? My Lord, that's a bunch. I mean why shoot gas checks if you can shoot jacketed bullets? Yah I know that shape and size and such....
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Re: 10 to .5 alloy

Post by GasGuzzler »

Gas checks are NOT cheap. I tried Sage's aluminum checks two different times and neither did I find them to fit. They were "gator check" brand...
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