Bullet Alloys for Black Powder

[Henry4440]

When you cast your own bullets for black powder shooting, which alloy and hardness do you use.


For my Henry 44-40 and my Sharps 45-70, i use a 20:1.

[Driftwood Johnson]

Howdy

I actually vary my alloy a bit, depending on which mold I am using. This is because the shrinkage rate varies with the alloy.

The basic problem is, Lee molds have a fairly large range for what they call in spec.

I have a real good supply of pure lead scraps. When I cast for the PRS 45 250 grain bullet or the J/P 45-200 for 45 Colt and 45 Schofiield I run about 25/1 lead/tin. I add about 4 ounces of tin to every ten pounds of lead. This alloy shrinks just about right so that when I size my bullets to .452 I am not removing too much of the surface features.

However my Mav-Dutchman mold drops bullets out a little bit larger than I would like with that alloy, so I cast them from pure lead. No tin added. Pure lead shrinks the most on cooling and I then size them to .428.

[Noz]

Wheel weights for my MavDutchmans and pure lead for my 454 RB.
I shot 1/3 Linotype to 2/3 wheelweights in my high powered pistols.

[Mako]

Right now no harder than a wheel weight and as close to pure lead as I can get.

A friends and I got 2 partial buckets of wheel weights for $15 each and have rendered them down to about 150lbs of ingots.

I want as close to dead soft as I can get and still use the cheap wheel weights so I bought 50 lbs of pure lead for 95 cents a pound shipping included to add to the wheel weight ingots.  I ran a 2:1 ratio (2 pounds of lead per 1 pound of wheel weights) as a trial.

This should be somewhere between a 66:1 to 70:1 alloy, I want to determine if I can tell any practical difference between dead soft and an alloy above 98.5%.

~Mako

[hellgate]

I got a #25 ingot of salvaged scrap lead from generous friends (cable sheathing etc.) that is probably about as hard as 20:1. I mixed it with a bag of reclaimed hard 8% antimony bird shot at a 50/50 mix. Hope I did the right thing. I'll use it for 158gr RN .357 bullets in the rifle. I only use dead soft or near dead soft (sheet lead) for the .454 round balls. I only use dead soft pig lead for 58 cal minies.

[Ranch 13]

For the most part I use 20-1, some bullets I do use #2 alloy for.

[Wills Point Pete]

 For my .45 Colt 250 grain PRS and the same weight RNFP Lee bullet with that one skinny little grease groove I never go harder than about 20-1, mostly softer. I managed to get a slew of near-pure scrap lead and I usually use it about 50-50 with reclaimed wheelweight ally. For that I add a pound of tin to fifty parts lead. It seems to be about the least amount of tin I can add and still get the free flowing, mould filling advantages of tin.

If I were shooting long range stuff I'd be more careful with my alloy, as it is I can get around two and a half inches at a hundred yards with my 24 inch Model 92 clone with a tang sight and a good rest. Since I only shoot BP in it for SASS, I have no real reason to refine my loading more than that. At least with BP. I have one smokeless load that shoots closer than that but this is the BP forum.

The reason the cap and ball guns like the dead soft lead is to be kind to their loading mechanisms. The older alloys for the ca'tridge guns was so soft because ot the wild variances in bore size in the same load, gun to gun. The softer the bullet, the easier it is to slug up to oversized bores and squeeze down to minimum bores.

To the best of my knowledge, the only widely available commercial pure lead bullets are the Remingtons with that ugly black lube. Still, if one wants to experiment with some dead soft lead bullets without buying a big batch of lead, those Remingtons start looking good.

[rickk]

For muzzleloaders I use as close to pure lead as I can scrounge.

For anything that goes into a cartridge pistol, I have all the range lead I can dig out of a Savage Arms "Snail" bullet trap available to me for free so I use that. Free is always good, and Snail traps make for really clean lead as range scrap goes. It typically measures softer than #2 alloy, probably because there is a significant percentage of jacketed bullets mixed in with a larger percentage of cast bullets. For my cannons I use this stuff as well, simply because my cannon balls weigh over 2# apiece and "Free is good".

For rifle shooting I still have a few hundred pounds of Linotype that I can add to my range scrap to harden it up if I feel the need to. I was there when a print shop closed up about 15 years ago and "helped the guy out" by taking about 300 # of type away. It's gotta be getting next to impossible to find now. Do they still use Linotype machines any more?

Pure-ish lead is usually easy to identify in it's original form - pipe, flashing, cable sheath. All Xray shielding lead I have found to date has been pretty soft as well. Pure-ish lead can be marked easily with a fingernail for quick ID method.

The composition of range scrap varies from week to week, depending on who is using the range.  If we let cops qualify there one week, there will be lots of jacketed bullets in there so it will be a softer alloy. The weeks that leagues shoot there is will be mostly cast bullets, closer to a #2 resulting mixture. Anyway, not being 100% sure what I am shoveling out from week to week, when I am cleaning it up I cast a few samples and check them in a Saco hardness tester to see what I got.

[rickk]

Driftwood,

If you ever want to trade some of your "pure lead" stash for some harder range scrap, I would trade ya 3# of range scrap to a pound of pure lead.

I've got "a lot" of range scrap.

[john boy]

When you cast your own bullets for black powder shooting, which alloy and hardness do you use.

Henry, several ...
CAS centerfire reloads - WW with either a hardness of 13.5 or 15.4 Bhn
C&B Balls - pure lead, Bhn 5.0
BPCR Long Range- mostly like Ranch 13, 1:20 alloy - Bhn 7.8
BPCR Gallery loads - 1:40 - Bhn 8.5

[Springfield Slim]

Anything in the 9 Brinell hardness works well. I use that same alloy in my wife's smokeless cowboy guns and it also works fine in my 45 auto. Just remember, bullet to bore fit is more important then lead hardness. If it is too small it will probably be less accurate and lead more.

[Mako]

Anything in the 9 Brinell hardness works well. I use that same alloy in my wife's smokeless cowboy guns and it also works fine in my 45 auto. Just remember, bullet to bore fit is more important then lead hardness. If it is too small it will probably be less accurate and lead more.

Slim,
What do you think the alloy is in the bullets you sell us?  I think I remember you telling us once but I have forgotten.  I wanna know because they work great.  Do you use the same for the EPP-UG bullet and the balls?

Regards,
Mako

[Jefro]

I use a  BH of around 10 for my BP and smokeless, Wlid Bunch also, never had a problem.

Jefro

[Cuts Crooked]

I've always jist used WW metal fer CAS loads. 20-1 stuff fer my 45-70 target loads, and 30-1 fer my hunting loads.

I never got into the whole "brinnell hardness" thing fer targets and hunting loads, I just weight the lead and the tin and mix it by weight. Of course, I ain't no champion BPCR shooter, but I'm satisfied that my loads will shoot as good as I can hold em.

[Dick Dastardly]

There's two different and divergent missions here.  Most of our cast bullets travel only to SASS distance targets.  Then, there's BPCR shooting.  Most SASS long range matches don't go beyond 300 yards.  Then, there's the rest.

True long range BPCR shooting is whole nuther discipline.  So, as you read the posts to this thread, keep in mind your mission.  Don't put your money on the mahogany for more performance than you need.  In other words, WW metal will serve most of your needs just fine.  Beyond that, buy pure metal  and mix it to exact specifications.  Pay thru the nose and then hold your nose up high as you shoot SASS main match distances.  There's a Cadillac waiting for you in the parking lot. . . . Not.

There are at least two distinct missions floating on this thread.  One for SASS main match shooting and the other for long range BPCR shooting.  The only thing they have in common is lead.  All else is subjective.

DD-DLoS

[Bryan Austin]

There's two different and divergent missions here.  Most of our cast bullets travel only to SASS distance targets.  Then, there's BPCR shooting.  Most SASS long range matches don't go beyond 300 yards.  Then, there's the rest.

True long range BPCR shooting is whole nuther discipline.  So, as you read the posts to this thread, keep in mind your mission.  Don't put your money on the mahogany for more performance than you need.  In other words, WW metal will serve most of your needs just fine.  Beyond that, buy pure metal  and mix it to exact specifications.  Pay thru the nose and then hold your nose up high as you shoot SASS main match distances.  There's a Cadillac waiting for you in the parking lot. . . . Not.

There are at least two distinct missions floating on this thread.  One for SASS main match shooting and the other for long range BPCR shooting.  The only thing they have in common is lead.  All else is subjective.

DD-DLoS

Ok, so what should the mixture be for
1. Self Defense less than 25 yards -winter clothing-summer clothing
2. Deer Hunting at less than 100 yards
3. CAS rifle less than 100 yards
4. CAS 7-10 yards

[Blackpowder Burn]

20:1, BIG Bullet, and a case full of Holy Black.  Universal recipe for rifle or revolver!   

[Dick Dastardly]

Howdy Jack,

The flip answer would be "whatever I had in my gun at the time".  Although that's true enough, all of those scenarios could be well served with a healthy application of wheel weight alloy.  It's cheep, it's soft enough to obturate without shattering and it's readily available.  Each could be ideally served by a special alloy, but all together would be well served by wheel weight alloy.

So, in answer to your question, all those targets being inside offhand shooting range, probably your favorite Big Lube®LLC bullet cast of wheel weight alloy and pushed along by a compressed charge of Holy Black would get the job done handily.

Now, for targets beyond 300 yards and out to 1000 yards you'd want to carefully tailor your alloy to the gun, bullet design and conditions.

Now that that is clear as mud, your next question?

DD-DLoS

[Fox Creek Kid]

Ok, so what should the mixture be for
1. Self Defense less than 25 yards -winter clothing-summer clothing
2. Deer Hunting at less than 100 yards
3. CAS rifle less than 100 yards
4. CAS 7-10 yards

1.  Gold Dots or Federal HST
2.  30-30 Win.
3.  44-40.
4.  Anything that starts with a "4".

But seriously, the alloy doesn't matter much until you get past 150 - 200 yds.

[Bryan Austin]

1.  Gold Dots or Federal HST
2.  30-30 Win.
3.  44-40.
4.  Anything that starts with a "4".

But seriously, the alloy doesn't matter much until you get past 150 - 200 yds.

THANKS DD, thats pretty much what I hoped! All I have is wheel weights for now cept for........

Hey Fox, you mean like this?