lead shot?
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qwerty
- Posts: 5
- Joined: Mon Oct 20, 2003 9:46 am
- Location: marine on st. croix,minnesota
lead shot?
I have aquired about 160 pounds of lead shot at a reasonable price FREE. Can this lead be used for casting bullets? Is lead shot pure lead, a tin lead mix or alloy lead mix? Can I use a lead hardness tester and be able to tell if its suitable for casting bullets? what is the (scale?) hardness for a 20 to 1 lead tin mix? WAITING TO CAST MY FIRST BULLETS.
JAMES HART
a handful of patience is worth more than a bushel of brains.
a handful of patience is worth more than a bushel of brains.
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Gunny
- Posts: 388
- Joined: Sun Dec 22, 2002 5:41 pm
- Location: California
qwerty,
I came to BPCR shooting after shooting Trap for a few years. I had a lot of shot, still do in fact. I would guess that I have around a 1,000 lbs of the stuff. I also thought that shot would be a good source for our type of bullets, the stuff is cheap at around $14.00 for a 25 lb bag. The only problem is shotgun shot is very hard, it contains aintomy and arsenic and severeal other trace elements and oh yea did I say it was hard. If you look on the bag it should say Magnum shot this means hard damn hard. I did try to cast bullets with some of this lead, results where dismal at best and I never had very good luck with the stuff. Good Luck
Gunny
I came to BPCR shooting after shooting Trap for a few years. I had a lot of shot, still do in fact. I would guess that I have around a 1,000 lbs of the stuff. I also thought that shot would be a good source for our type of bullets, the stuff is cheap at around $14.00 for a 25 lb bag. The only problem is shotgun shot is very hard, it contains aintomy and arsenic and severeal other trace elements and oh yea did I say it was hard. If you look on the bag it should say Magnum shot this means hard damn hard. I did try to cast bullets with some of this lead, results where dismal at best and I never had very good luck with the stuff. Good Luck
Gunny
shoot doesn't sound good (arsenic) guess I'll have to buy some, thanx for your replys-
Lee Stone
- Posts: 2817
- Joined: Tue Jan 07, 2003 2:27 pm
- Location: Lacombe, Louisiana, USA
- Contact:
Gentlemen;
Check aroung your area to see if there is a battery manufacturing facility. They use lots of lead.
Down here there is a company named Exide that makes batteries. They have a smelting division in Baton Rouge. Nohorse and I went there two or three weeks ago and I purchased 480 pounds and he bought some (I don't remember how much off hand) of pure lead for only 50 cents per pound (I had been paying 80 cents per pound plus UPS frieght). Anyway, you might find a source of pure lead that way. One of the nice members of this forum told me about Exide. You just have to remember to specify you want only pure lead.
Check aroung your area to see if there is a battery manufacturing facility. They use lots of lead.
Down here there is a company named Exide that makes batteries. They have a smelting division in Baton Rouge. Nohorse and I went there two or three weeks ago and I purchased 480 pounds and he bought some (I don't remember how much off hand) of pure lead for only 50 cents per pound (I had been paying 80 cents per pound plus UPS frieght). Anyway, you might find a source of pure lead that way. One of the nice members of this forum told me about Exide. You just have to remember to specify you want only pure lead.
Lee Stone
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ironramrod
- Posts: 1364
- Joined: Tue Aug 05, 2003 1:12 pm
- Location: Dakota Territory
Regarding pure lead the best I have found is scrap cable sheathing, salvaged lead water pipe, sheet roofing lead and roof jacks. Some sewer pipe joint lead is pure and some is alloy. All wheel weights are alloys. This stuff is easily obtained at scrap metal, junk or salvage yards at least in this part of the country.
The latest batch was about 700 lbs of cable sheathing that a friend of mine bought at 8 cents/lb. We melt this stuff down in a cast iron chaldron that holds about 75 lbs. using a 2" diameter propane torch, and ladle the melted lead into our muffin tin ingot mould. Works great; we did the whole 700 lbs. in about 3 hours. This is strictly an outside, warm weather job, however. Don't do this if there is any moisture on the lead, and don't do it in cold weather. Any moisture on the lead at all will immediately turn to steam and blow hot lead in every direction you can imagine; not good.
A good rule of thumb for lead purity is if the lead turns a multitude of colors on the surface when melted, then it is pure lead or almost pure. Lead alloys will not turn colors on the surface.
The latest batch was about 700 lbs of cable sheathing that a friend of mine bought at 8 cents/lb. We melt this stuff down in a cast iron chaldron that holds about 75 lbs. using a 2" diameter propane torch, and ladle the melted lead into our muffin tin ingot mould. Works great; we did the whole 700 lbs. in about 3 hours. This is strictly an outside, warm weather job, however. Don't do this if there is any moisture on the lead, and don't do it in cold weather. Any moisture on the lead at all will immediately turn to steam and blow hot lead in every direction you can imagine; not good.
A good rule of thumb for lead purity is if the lead turns a multitude of colors on the surface when melted, then it is pure lead or almost pure. Lead alloys will not turn colors on the surface.
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Timberlake
- Posts: 2063
- Joined: Tue Dec 24, 2002 12:56 pm
- Location: Born and Raised in Iowa
More on this melting lead shot. Just about everything in this thread is true. One should not use lead shot in any form. Dangerous stuff, arsenic, antimony and crap we don't even know. Annoying to me though is the fact that when I did melt some years back, I got the best looking bullets I ever melted. Looked good, but would not shoot worth a damn!
TL
TL