Lee Precision = Perfection! (well, almost)

[Gyrogearhead]

And, everyone is in formation. A full battalion's worth


Leadership in Place! Always waiting on the officers...


Yes, looking good with the guide-ons.

V-Rog, Love the little guidons. Did you have to give them a "Fall In'" command or do they just do that naturally after they get all lubed up?

Gerry

[Mr.ViperBoa]

I just started collecting lead for casting .40 s&w rounds. Should I add tin or anything else with it to make them harder, or should I just use the lead. My lead that I have so far came from xray equipment that my brother n law got for me. Not sure if that is the same hardness as wheel weights or not. Any info will help

[Gyrogearhead]

I just started collecting lead for casting .40 s&w rounds. Should I add tin or anything else with it to make them harder, or should I just use the lead. My lead that I have so far came from xray equipment that my brother n law got for me. Not sure if that is the same hardness as wheel weights or not. Any info will help

Your radiation shielding lead is probably pretty pure metal, unlike wheel weights. You will have to add tin / antimony to harden it up a bit. How much will depend on how hot you are loading your .40's. There is an optimum hardness for each different chamber pressure that will yield the minimum amount of leading in the barrel and that is what you want to shoot for. There are "look up tables" for the ratios of lead to tin for different pressures and these are the easy way to get in the ball park with your best mixture on the first melt. Here's one of the better websites:

http://www.lasc.us/SuperHard.htm

and another:

http://www.lasc.us/Fryxell_Book_textonly2.pdf

It's really not difficult if you read the directions first

Good luck,

Gerry

[Gyrogearhead]

Tin is used to help lower the surface-tension of the lead so that it flows better to fill out the cavities of the mould properly (otherwise they come out very wrinkled); it doesn't do a whole lot to harden the lead. You only need 1% - 2% of tin to achieve this - adding tin solder to lead is a common way of doing this.

Thanks for the correction, Andy. I mispoke earlier in saying that tin was needed to harden the lead. You are right, the antimony is the hardening element. Must've gotten my tongue in front of my eye tooth and couldn't see what I was saying.

Gerry

[Mr.ViperBoa]

Thanks guys. Is antimony easily accessible?

[Gyrogearhead]

Must've gotten my tongue in front of my eye tooth and couldn't see what I was saying.

I hear that; the older I get, the worse I...... something. Can't remember

Wait 'til you get my age (pushing 70 real hard). Why, last week I even forgot the Alamo!! What's-her-name keeps telling me I'm lucky my head is attached. Don't tell her I said that!

Gerry

[Gyrogearhead]

Thanks guys. Is antimony easily accessible?

To add to what Andy just said, you can get ingots of 50% antimony and 50% lead from an on-line company called "Roto-Metals" which takes all the difficulty out of mixing lead and antimony.

To give you an example of how to use this 50-50 ingot I'll tell you about my last smelting session: After I'd melted down 120# of wheel weights I bought from the friendly metal scrap dealer and poured them into nice little 1.5# bars I tested a few of them with my Lee Hardness Tester. The wheel weights came out to around 8.5 to 9.5 Brinell Hardness.

Using the tables I found I needed to add 5.3 oz. of antimony to each 10# melt of wheel weight lead in my casting furnace ( that's 5.3oz antimony plus 9# 10.7oz of weel weight lead) to get the hardness I needed. So I melted two of the ingots from Roto-Metals in a little iron pot used only for that purpose and poured the antimony / lead mix into little ceramic cups sitting on my postal scale until the needle (tare to container weight) read 10.6 oz.

Now next time I get ready to cast some boolets I'll add one of these 10.6 oz "plugs" to the pile of wheel weight bars on the scale pan and adjust the number of bars til the scale totals 10# and put that in my furnace.

Hope this helps.

Gerry

[v-rog]

You could always purchase 66 lbs of "Lyman #2" from Missouri Bullet, which is really "Hardball" (6Sb2Sn92Pb Antimonial Lead). Then you'll never have to worry about having enough antimony!

[cbunt1]

Another source for casting lead is Lead Products Company here in Houston. Last time I bought from them it was right at $2.00/# for clean ingots of 6%/2%/92% hardball alloy.

They sell it in 27# ingots which divide into 9# subingots that fit nicely into a 20# lee pot.

At $2.00/pound I consider it a bargain since it's ready to cast, needs no skimming or fluxing, and it's a consistent alloy. I do enjoy smelting wheel weights and make a LOT of bullets from WW material too, but I use the hardball alloy for the stuff I sell.

I'd love to get a steady source of wheel weights, but that's hard to come by, at least for me.

For those of you looking to either get started, or get a solid source, it might be worth putting together a group buy of that stuff and seeing what kind of discounts they would work with us on.

[Don2]

Another source for casting lead is Lead Products Company here in Houston. Last time I bought from them it was right at $2.00/# for clean ingots of 6%/2%/92% hardball alloy.

They sell it in 27# ingots which divide into 9# subingots that fit nicely into a 20# lee pot.

At $2.00/pound I consider it a bargain since it's ready to cast, needs no skimming or fluxing, and it's a consistent alloy. I do enjoy smelting wheel weights and make a LOT of bullets from WW material too, but I use the hardball alloy for the stuff I sell.

I'd love to get a steady source of wheel weights, but that's hard to come by, at least for me.

For those of you looking to either get started, or get a solid source, it might be worth putting together a group buy of that stuff and seeing what kind of discounts they would work with us on.

Hmmmm...That does not sound like a bad price to me.
Where are these guys at in Houston, I use to live there about 15 years ago and know the town (born there)and go there about every few months.!!
Could bring my truck and pick some up.
I have always used WW's, but they are getting harder to find and some guys only send their WW's to recyclers..no customer sales..!!! ( Like Discount Tire ) dang......

I have enough ingots to last me for a while, but would not mind picking some up when in Houston.

Thanks for any info.

Don2