Casting, powdercoating and reloading

[ruhler]

At last warm weather time for casting, I went to a friend of mine who is working with stained glass he always give me a yearly supply of scrap lead.


To start with I always wear a faceprotection mask and breathing through a breatingmask, protective clothing and welders gloves while handling lead both from scrap and when melting/casting. And I always melt/cast with wind blowing away from me and the pot.

So got my electrical stove and cast iron pot and went to work melting some ingots of stained glass lead. It was a little windy so I had lead cooling at the edges of the pot, started to thinking what I could use as a shield. And found an old aluminium lemonade maker that was in my "good to have storage". Started up the anglegrinder and cut out the bottom and placed it around the pot and it was a success. Working as intended



Some ingots:

Got a new mold for my 357 its a Lee 2cavity 358-158-RF that I got to try so later last week I casted some to try. Ive been using this alloy its pretty much lyman #2. Mixing up the stained glass lead (bhn around 8-9) with linotype lead I got, 2parts stained glass lead + 1part linotype lead gives a bhn at around 16 aircooled. Cast at around 400-420degrees celsius. Bullet drops at .360 from this mold and weighs around 157-158grain. I will try these bullets with magnumloads to see how it goes with leading since its a non gascheckbullet i Suspect I need to have higher bhn or gascheckbullets OR other loads with lower fps, but will try them and see, im sizing to .357 and lubricate with carnuba red.

Bullets


Loaded:


About gear, I pretty much use old stuff keeping it simple, trying to salvage things I already got using old candles for fluxing, stainless kitchenspoon and such. However when I cast the bullet I use a Lee Pro 4-20 pot and a digital termometer to keep everyting consistent.
Some older gear:
An old Lachmiller lubrasizer

An old Lyman Spartan

[BruniX]

nice bullets !

[ruhler]

nice bullets !

Thanks!

[Rifletom]

Nice bullets indeed. Good looking rounds when done to boot.

[JEBar]

interesting process, well reported .... do you hunt with these rounds

[ruhler]

Couldnt resist to make 20 of them powdercoated to try them out aswell if I get leading with ordinary lube maybe coating can make it work with this alloy. But I prefer the look of ordinary leadbullets. I just adda teaspoon of powdercoat in a bucket with a lid and add some bullets and shake it for a minute and then take bullet one at the time standing them up on a silicon baking sheet. Tjen put it in a deskowen with a timer in my garage and they get baked at 180degreee celsius for about 10minutes After this I size them in a Lee push through sizer.

[ruhler]

interesting process, well reported .... do you hunt with these rounds

No I dont hunt with these rounds, it isnt legal to hunt with handguns here these bullets are for my Ruger GP100, but I do hunt with a 44magnum Henry Allweather but havent shot anything with my cast bullets. Mostly use 9,3x62 or 6,5x55 when hunting during mooseseason, 6,5x55 is the lowest caliber allowed on moose and bear beacuse of the limit of atleast 156grain at 2700joule or 144grain at 2000joule at 100meters.

I had some trouble when choosing top punch for my lubrasizer i bought lyman #429 but id didnt fit the wide meplat so good. So I made some changes I filled up the hollow in the top punch with epoxy glue and mounted it in the press and then greased a bullet and let it sink in the top punch by the weight of the handle and now its a perfect fit for the bullet. I will probably make an own flat top punch when I get near a turning machine.

[JEBar]

looking forward to your range reports using your bullets and your hunting trips with your Henry 44

[clovishound]

deskowen

First time I've heard that term.
Around here we call them toaster ovens. I like your term better.

[ruhler]

Range Report:
https://henryrifleforums.com/viewtopic.php?f=42&t=6741

[ruhler]

deskowen

First time I've heard that term.
Around here we call them toaster ovens. I like your term better.

hehe directly translated from my language

[ruhler]

While im at it this is the way I powdercoat my bullets, so why powdercoat well its like a jacketed bullet?
it doesnt need lube,
you can user softer lead alloys (and can save those hard to get alloys like linotype bars and make them last longer),
doesnt lead in barrel
it manage magnumloads,
doesnt smoke
protecting you from lead exposore
easier to store than lubed bullets

Reciepe:

First you need:
Surgical gloves to protect you from lead and the bullets from you.
Good welders gloves or something to take out the plate with.
A Toaster owen, set at 180degrees celsius,
One Silicon baking sheet on the tray.
Powder is bought from https://www.electrostaticmagic.co.uk/ I choose purple color since it been tried out by others and works well.
A dry plastic bucket with a tight lid. I use an old bucket used for laundry detergent
A bucket with water.
Bullet that are not handled by your hands, clean directly from the bullet mold, mine is casted this weekend.
Lee push through sizer
WD40
Towel

First you, take a tablespoon of powder and put it in your bucket and add bullets take about 50 at a time this is fewer just for presentation.


Close the lid and shake and rotate the bucket for a about a minute and check if the bullets are coated enough. (It doesent have to cover absolutely everything)


Then you can either pour the bullets on a mesh and sorting away the excess powder and then drop it on the plate, or you can stand the bullets up with a plier (it gives a little better visual result but its more timeconsuming picking one bullet at the time)


Then put the plate with the bullets in the owen at 180degrees celsius for 10-12minutes. ( I set the timer on my owen)


Freshly baked!


Then I just dump the bullets into the water, cooling them instantly and then pick them up and dry them on a towel.



Then next is sizing. I just add the pullet to a plastic container and then just spray a little wd40 on them and then I run them through a Leepush through sizer.



Bullets ready when the wd40 has dried out.

[Bubbas4570]

Ruhler, have you ever tried tumble lubing?

I chose that way, since it sounded much easier than powder coating, but I can see the main difference in the steps needed would be a second trip through the sizer and possibly more waiting time for the lube to dry for storage.

[ruhler]

Actually I havent, however I do have Lee Liquid Alox laying around and bullets for my 44mag I got from another caster that are tumblelubed I have tried them and they work great. The process is similar to powdercoating but powdercoating is probably less messier and faster. Its quite easy really, just casted bullets, a bucket with a lid, some powder, an owen and a sizer tool. Ive tried sizing before coating, and sizing after coating and its no difference better to save the time to just dump

Today im off to try some 44mag bullets with my own cooked lube to see how it goes.

[Vaquero]

ruhler, I add some air-soft pellets to the powder and bullets.
It causes a little more friction, and helps with the powder sticking to the bullets.
Yours looks good.

RP

[220]

Powder coating is about the only lube technique I havent tried.
The biggest advantage I can see with it is adding size to undersize bullets, the downside is it appears to be slow compared to most methods.
For coated I have been using HiTek as it is much quicker doing bulk bullets.

I still use LLA for some bulk bullets for light target work that I shoot unsized. Nothing quicker than dumping 500 in a bucket swirling and tipping them out to dry. Down side is it is messy and I find I get a buildup in my seating die, if I dont clean it ever 500 the OAL starts to get shorter.

[ruhler]

Cant quote because of forum functionality. Seems atleast as pictures can be linked?

This is the method I pretty much use, (i dont preheat my bullets though): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nRqKGBpqVjc and it really goes fast.

But I kind of like the lube-a-sizer its fun making my own bullet lube, I make from lithium molygrease and beeswax 50/50 ratio by weight. Tried some 44magnum loads at 1400fps yesterday, gaschecked bullets casted with brinell 14, sized to .431 giving a tight fit to cylinderthroats. First time I used this lube and I was surprised it didnt smoke, no leading whatsoever and Ive neved had so clean revolver after shooting not even messy on the cylinder or frame. Im really impressed how well it worked. But its quite soft lube so little messy when filling up the lubasizer and when sizing bullets.

Was shooting offhand 2hand with my ruger SBH 10,5" 44magnum 265grain Saeco Mold #432 bullets, and got good results from 25meters Ofc I choose to show my best group but to my defense I only shot two cylinders with this bullet.
http://forumbilder.se/I5C0F/img-20190504-131445.jpg

A picture of the muzzle after shooting a good "lube star" in the muzzle and pretty clean barrel:
http://forumbilder.se/I5C0F/1111ed.jpg