Casting your own

[benne]

Hi peeps,

I am thinking about casting my own boolits, (cost is obviously a factor) but more from a hobbyist point of view. Having a look round, the ideal bullet mix appears to be lead/tin with antimony and an ideal material appears to be scrap wheel weights however, due to certain directives, environmental legislation etc. these are being replaced with ‘safer alternatives’.

If I go down the route of casting my own, lead and tin (I can obtain from the scrappy) but antimony would appear to be tricky, does anyone know where I would obtain this or an alternative mix of materials for bullets.

Any advice would be appreciated

Thanks

[ovenpaa]

Ah, you need to talk to Dodgyrog or Dromia, they seem to have some form of alert system that pages them when people mention lead/castiong/antimony/boolits/church roofs so I am sure they will be along very shortly

[dromia]

Best to start at the begining.

What firearm are you going to be shooting your cast boolits from?

What velocities are you seeking to achieve?

What purpose will you be using the boolits for?

What ranges will you be wanting to shoot them at?

[dromia]

BTW I'd do a search of this site as a lot of this has been covered in previous threads. :ugeek:

[benne]

Dromia

Thanks for the fast response, I have answered the questions below, but in all honesty I had not given a lot of thought to the velocity. As the bullets would be used in the rifle I would need to cast a harder material due to the increase in velocity?

Once again, thanks



What firearm are you going to be shooting your cast boolits from?

.357 LBR & Marlin Underleaver rifle

What velocities are you seeking to achieve?

Have not considered velocity in detail yet however, I would like to achieve some accurate loads for comps & some full magnum loads for fun.

What purpose will you be using the boolits for?

Target practice/competitions

What ranges will you be wanting to shoot them at?

At this stage, 20, 25 & 50m indoor & outdoor

[dromia]

Regarding alloy then all you will need is lead with some tin say around 2% for good castabilty, at the low velocities you will be shooting at soft alloys work best hard alloys give leading. Range scrap, wheel weights what ever so long as it isn't too hard if you can scratch it with your thumbnail then it should be OK.

You will need to fit your boolit to your rifles throat/groove diameters so a chamber slug will need to be taken from your rifle. There is a very good article in the Library on how to do this. Once you have done that then we can look at boolit/mould selection, sizing if necessary, and lube options.

All you need is a suitable heat source a gas camping stove is fine, a cast iron pot for smelting and casting usually got cheap from car boot sales, a suitable ladle Lyman and RCBS do good ones do not use the Lee, an old spoon for stirring and taking off impurities, a dry stick for fluxing, a good pair of gloves, eye protection, and something to make ingots for your alloy steel yorkshire pudding trays are good, again car boot sales.

Antimony is used for hardening boolits along with arsenic for heat treating, unfortunately antimony also makes the boolit brittle so not such a good solution. Hard boolits are used to make up for poor boolit fit.

Remember in cast boolit shooting "Boolit fit is King".

When I make high velocity alloys for over 2,000 fps then I like to have a touch of copper in the alloy to help bring malleability to the brittleness of the antimony, but you have no need to worry about stuff like that for your application.

Commercial boolits are hard cast so that they will transport without damage not because they shoot better.

[benne]

Dromia,

Thank you - I will let you know how I get on.

I'm off to the church roof to get me some lead

[dromia]

Forgot to say for the LBR we will need chamber mouth, forcing cone and groove diameters.

[dodgyrog]

For LBR and Underlever rifle you would probably get away with range lead which should have some tin and antimony in. It's a good starting point. You could probably cut it 50/50 with scrap sheet lead or lead pipe and get a good result.
I'd recommend the Lee 158gr RNFP as a good starter mould (6 cavity is a worthwhile investment). It's the boolit shown under my name.
Sizing the boolit to fit the weapon is important and should be done with the correct dies after you know what size you need.
Where in the country are you?