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  1. #21

    Default Re: Lead for casting bullets?

    I have been using Dick's hardness testing method (which employs a ball bearing, a reference material, a vice and a vernier) for a year now, I am very happy with its simplicity. It works. If you are interested, buy his ebook on bullet casting, it is great value. I have an offer to anybody in the Western Cape: I have around 30kgs of soft lead (from stick on wheel weights, cast into 1kg ingots), that I would like to swop for clip on wheel weights. My yield to clean alloy is around 75%, so I would be looking to swop 30kg of soft lead for 40kg of clip on wheel weights.

  2. #22
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    Default Re: Lead for casting bullets?

    The need to measure the hardness of lead alloy, arises from the availability of scrap lead of unknown composition. Also consider that lead-antimony alloy bullets can be hardened significantly by rapid cooling. (Just drop them into water, from the mould. Use a padded chute to contain the splash.) LEE makes a lead hardness testing kit, that is used with a standard reloading press. It retails for $80, so should be available locally for under R1k. I've used it, and can recommend it.

  3. #23

    Default Re: Lead for casting bullets?

    Hi

    My grandfather casted his own .32 110 gr rounds from stick on type wheel weights and has found them to work very well.Castle lead works is very expensive.Hope it helps:)

  4. #24

    Default Re: Lead for casting bullets?

    Quote Originally Posted by A-R View Post
    LEE makes a lead hardness testing kit, that is used with a standard reloading press. It retails for $80, so should be available locally for under R1k. I've used it, and can recommend it.
    You make R1K sound cheap. But a ball bearing does it for R2. Its not my idea, I got it from the NRA and tested it to my satisfaction. I haven't tested the Lee tool, but I tested an LBT tool and a Saeco tool and found both inaccurate. When you say you can recommend it, have you tested it on material of known hardness or do you just accept what it tells you ? With both the LBT and Saeco tools I got widely different readings on the same lead samples.

    There is an accurate method that doesn't need the hardness to be tested at all. All scrap lead has been a lead product of one sort or another - roof sheet, water pipe, wheel weights, all sorts of stuff. Some are pure lead, others are alloyed. Roof sheet is mostly pure but some was made with 6% antimony. Water pipe has 6% antimony. Some lead alloy eg babbit metal, can contain undesirable percentages of copper, but in most scrap, the alloying elements are tin and antimony. The important thing is that it is almost all antimony, because antimony is the hardening agent for alloy that must be harder than pure lead. As tin is seldom needed in lead products except solder and linotype, there won't be any in most scrap.

    As antimony is much lighter than lead, more antimony = lighter alloy. That can be used to determine the content of unknown alloy. Melt a small potful of pure lead. As pure lead doesn't cast too well, the addition of some antimony will make it cast more easily. That's important because you need to cast good quality test bullets. Doesn't matter how much antimony - 5% is a good amount. Cast some bullets and select and weight twenty good ones. That is your master weight. Bullets of different alloy cast with that mould will not weigh the same as the master, and the difference will tell you exactly how much antimony is in that alloy. It is very accurate. I can cast bullets, weigh them, calculate the shortage of antimony and add the calculated extra to cast bullets exactly the master weight.

    I'm sure this is where somebody asks how the weight helps when we want hardness. The two are exactly related. But it is a lot easier to get the weight right via the antimony content than to get the hardness right via hardness testing. To put it a bit differently, if you buy new virgin materials and mix 94% lead 6% antimony, you'll get 16BHN hardness. There'll be no need to test it because that's what it will be every time. That's how I mix all my alloy. I get consistent weight and hardness over tens of thousands of bullets year after year, without a hardness tester. I don't use the ball bearing test - I don't need it - its in my book for those who feel the need for one.

  5. #25
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    Default Re: Lead for casting bullets?

    hey guys..hope it's not a problem me saying this..but im a scrap metal dealer, so if you need lead..cable, wheel weights and even sometimes bar solider i can help...the current market price is around R14per kg....i move a couple of 100kgs a week..

  6. #26

    Default Re: Lead for casting bullets?

    John Ross! Don't I wish that I lived closer to you! (Pb makes kak handluggage )

  7. #27
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    Feb 2013
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    Cape Town
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    1,617

    Default Re: Lead for casting bullets?

    Anyone know if you can use the lead from old grandfather clock weights, and clock weights in general?
    Got about 40kg worth of lead lying around in the form of weights.

  8. #28

    Default Re: Lead for casting bullets?

    Quote Originally Posted by john ross View Post
    hey guys..hope it's not a problem me saying this..but im a scrap metal dealer, so if you need lead..cable, wheel weights and even sometimes bar solider i can help...the current market price is around R14per kg....i move a couple of 100kgs a week..
    Hell no, not a problem, quite the opposite. If you were in my patch you'd have a regular customer. But I have one bit of bad news for you. Bar solder isn't much use. Contains lots of tin which isn't much use. It is so rich in tin that it stuffs up my weight = hardness calc. I won't buy it, but if I get some in a batch of scrap I might toss half a kg into a 50kg melt. That's all its good for.

  9. #29

    Default Re: Lead for casting bullets?

    Quote Originally Posted by LocknLoad View Post
    Anyone know if you can use the lead from old grandfather clock weights, and clock weights in general?
    Got about 40kg worth of lead lying around in the form of weights.
    LnL, I am sure that you could, but you might be able to get more for them if you sold them to a clock maker like Chronos (Adderly St, CPT).

  10. #30

    Default Re: Lead for casting bullets?

    Hi John, are you still dealing in lead? i need abit of lead

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