Big Batch of Hot Lead

[Smokepole]

A neighbor gave me a bunch of barrel weights from his seine nets for making bullets.  It was finally some great weather for making some ingots today.  I scored the dutch oven at a garage sale for $8... almost too nice to use, but hey.  There must be about 100# or better of weights.  The BHN of the finished product turned out to be about 10.5, so I'll have to add a few pcs. of linotype when I cast.

Here's a pic of the barrel weights.  They get stuck on the lead line and can be hard to remove.  It took us a few hours to pull these off the rope.

[Smokepole]

It took quite a while for the crab cooker to melt down huge pots of lead.  Glad it's over.  Now I can enjoy making some .357 & 44mag bullets when I get time.

[Smokepole]

I found a cup cake tin and a corn bread muffin tin for making ingots.  I made some corn shaped ones so I would have some smaller pcs. for mixing alloys.  Besides, they look cool. 

I have my molds lubed up & ready, so hopefully in the next few days I'll have time for some casting.

[Smokepole]

Good supply of lead, ready for bullets.  Not sure how long it'll last.  Been doing a lot of shooting lately.

[rasbo]

good score,we needed some lead the other day for our drill rig and couldn't find any

[jasnt]

Nice score!  Last year a friend gave me a 5 gal bucket of wheel weights and another gave me 100lbs of dive weights. Turned out to be about 180lbs in 1lb ingots.  It's getting harder and harder to find lead at a decent price let alone free

[Smokepole]

Nice score!  Last year a friend gave me a 5 gal bucket of wheel weights and another gave me 100lbs of dive weights. Turned out to be about 180lbs in 1lb ingots.  It's getting harder and harder to find lead at a decent price let alone free

Sounds like you are set for a while.  Now that I got my stash piled up, I'm looking for my next score.  Nice find on the diving weights.  Wheel weights are getting to be a pain, wading through all the crap!

[jasnt]

Nice score!  Last year a friend gave me a 5 gal bucket of wheel weights and another gave me 100lbs of dive weights. Turned out to be about 180lbs in 1lb ingots.  It's getting harder and harder to find lead at a decent price let alone free

Sounds like you are set for a while.  Now that I got my stash piled up, I'm looking for my next score.  Nice find on the diving weights.  Wheel weights are getting to be a pain, wading through all the crap!

you got that right! At least half the wheel weights these days are steel or zinc.

For hardening I use lead free soder. With the ww I add 1.3oz of soder to 4lbs of lead. I don't have a hardness gauge but that gets me to where I need.
If I remember right that's upping the tin by 2% and a little antamony as well

[Smokepole]

I have some linotype I'm gonna try.  I want the hardness around 13, so I'm gonna try 10:1 lead/linotype & see how close it is.  I have a hardness tester, so I'll be able to see if I'm in the ballpark.

[Special T]

I use wheel weights for the buckshot i pour. it works prett darn good for that. Most tire weights are mandated to be turned into for recycling since the are considered a Haz Mat.

[Smokepole]

Well I did some casting today with my 44 Keith 429421 mold.  I was having trouble keeping the mold hot enough, and breaking it in.  It is a mold that was made for NOE Molds.  It is aluminum and it was a little cool outdoors today.  I got some descent bullets and some marginal ones.  Real tough to get this jagged bullet design to break free of the mold, even after smoking it.  But it is a good looking bullet.  This batch will be good enough for targets.

Then I tried a new mold made by Lee.  It is a popular .358 150 grain round nose bullet mold.  I smoked it & lubed it with beeswax after cleaning off the oil residue.  Every bullet came out perfect -- one after the other.  I'm thrilled with this Lee mold.  So easy to open & close, and the bullets fall right out.  it will be a great target bullet for my wife's Ruger Blackhawk.

Well, it was a short session, so I only got about 125 of each.  Gonna try loading a few & seeing how they work! 

[jasnt]

They lol good on the Elmer Keith 429421 one of my favorites! I have 2 of those one Lyman the other I don't remember, both hollow pointed but I've made multipul pins for extra deep hp and non-hp.  What lube do you use?

[Smokepole]

I make my own lube.  3 parts beeswax & 1 part full Synthetic 2 cycle oil.  Makes good sprue lube, but seems like straight beeswax works best for me.

[jasnt]

I've been using lee's tumble lube and it seems to work ok but I been having a heck of a time with my 9mm. If I keep em slow I'm fine

[Smokepole]

I've been using lee's tumble lube and it seems to work ok but I been having a heck of a time with my 9mm. If I keep em slow I'm fine

What alloy you using?