A little casting help

[Spaceghost]

OK, I know about the castboolits forum, I am too lazy to join another forum and hoping I can get some answers here.

I plan on casting some bullets by using pewter added to lead to make my alloy. Anyone have any idea what ratio I should mix pewter to lead to use for 9mm rounds I plan to powder coat after casting? I will be using the Lee six cavity mold that is made for traditional lube with just one groove.

I know this question is a little out there, just hoping for some advice.

[bohoki]

pewter is not a really defined alloy but a little will go a long way so 1 part pew to 10 parts lead the tin seems to make the lead wetter and fills out cavities better

make dang sure its pewter and not zinc

you aren't melting down your civil war chess set are ya?

[Spaceghost]

Thanks! I was guestimating a 1 to 10 ratio, maybe 1 to 9.

[CGT80]

Rule of thumb from cast boolits is up to 2% tin for your wheel weights. It depends on how much tin that pewter has. I cast without the extra tin. If it doesn't come out good, then I add some.

If you are serious about casting, just go to castboolits. Just go lurk over there. I did for a year or two before I joined, so that I could post. Just search the forum or read through the threads. You will learn a ton.

[Spaceghost]

Thanks CGT80, I have been lurking there and manned up and order tin ingots and some of the super hard alloy for antimony. Going to start out right, then fool around with pewter once I get the hang of things.

[koehn,jim]

If you have access to shotgun pellets they have antimony in them and are an easy way to add it.

[CSACANNONEER]

You're going to cast and then powder coat? Are you planning on sizing and lubing them after powder coating them?

[Spaceghost]

Powder coat then resize. No lube needed, the powder coat acts as lube.

[CSACANNONEER]

Thanks, I wasn't sure if you were powder coating for looks or using a it for a lube of some sort. Are you talking about powdered moly or something similar?

[meaty-btz]

Resizing is best done after powdercoating indeed as the coat will add to size and in a home environment it won't be 100% consistent regardless.

If you really dig PC as much as I do eventually you should look for a lube-less mold. I really should get one but tumble lube mold is what I've got and don't feel like finding someone with the skill to cut it for me.

No need to lube PC boolits. The PC is slicker than just about any coating. No, it does not melt in the barrel. No the powdercharge flame front does not melt the coating. No it does not strip off in the barrel.

Actually I took a dirty gun with lead and copper in the barrel and fired PC bullets through it.. the result was that the barrel was cleaned of all the lead and copper, only carbon was left from that range session. It appears the PC acts something like a clay-bar does on car paint and it picks up as flakes and such any thing in the barrel. Likely due to the obduration pushing the coating into contact more firmly and deeply into the grooves. Not all at once mind you but over several hundred rounds it restored a mirror shine to the barrel. Which is what most of us report after cleaning the carbon is our bores start to look mirror shiny.

As for alloy? You need harder alloys for higher velocities mostly to keep the bullet from coming apart due to forces. It is likely that you will get better accuracy out of a softer alloy with the PC preventing leading. Only way to know is to shoot and see what your gun likes the best. Different powders will perform differently.

Commercial cast bullets are hard to make them stay pretty in shipping, not because they need to be that hard for shooting.

According to MR-Pencil I have something close to Lyman #2 and so far it shoots great. I will report on non-GC rifle and gc-Rifle to see which is better and if I need to harden my alloy for the rifle or not.

You want an alloy that works for you, not one that works for me or someone else. Test your application and find the best fit. That might be 20-1,Hard-Ball, Lyman #2, Electrotype, Linotype, or Superhard/Ultrahard. Or something you whip up yourself that is in between one of those "main" alloys.

Thanks, I wasn't sure if you were powder coating for looks or using a it for a lube of some sort. Are you talking about powdered moly or something similar?

Nope he is talking about baked powder coat, of the type used in other applications. The only kind I don't recommend is Epoxy but vinyl and polyester work pretty damn well and recovered bullets by others show with proper curing you have no coating loss. Once it is bonded you have to melt the bullet to remove it.

[SonofWWIIDI]

Thought for sure this was gonna be a thread about this:

[Germz]

^I see what you did there.

[Spaceghost]

Meatybitz hit the nail on the head, as usual. I plan on starting with roughly lyman #2 alloy for 9mm and 45 use. Of course if I decide to start casting rifle rounds I would plan on something significantly harder.
I am starting with the harbor freight gun and powder to start and plan on changing things up from there, if I like it.

[johnny1290]

Thought for sure this was gonna be a thread about this:

LOLOL! That looks familiar..

edit: FWIW I used to cast boolits and started with the 6 pot die. I really should have begun with 2. Since I was inexperienced I tore the die up.

This whole powderecoating thing is very interesting. I got tired of the smokey bullets and leaded barrels, and labor, if I'm honest.

Please keep us posted on this!