Wadcutter alloy question

[StrawHat]

I used to cast a bunch of wadcutters to feed my PPC habit. If I remember correctly, I was using a 25/1 alloy or comparable. That was for dewc. I never even attempted to cast hbwc.

Kevin

 

[MW65]

I run range scrap for mine with either button nose or dewc. Sized in a push thru and a couple trips in a very thinned out lla/floor wax mix. Works well enough for me!

 

[Outpost75]

Thanks. I have not seen that brass offered. I'll keep my eye out.

Bruce

Starline .38 Special brass is 0.010" wall thickness for 1/2" back from the case mouth.

 

[JonB]

I use range scrap if it measures somewhat soft, like BHN 8 or 9. If it measures harder, I add some soft, near pure lead, so the batch gets near 8 or 9. Back when I was casting HBWC, I use near pure (soft like 5 or 6) for those.
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Johnnyjr,
Good Luck at the Doc

Since this thread popped back up. I haven't cast any WCs for a long time. I recently got the Lee 358-148 WC mold and cast 600+. I used 7:1 or actually 14:2 (same thing) 16 lbs of alloy fills the Lee pot. 14 pure soft lead (I now have excess of that) and I used 2lbs of the sweetened COWW alloy I got from Kevin. Most of the ingots I got from him are labeled W and are sweetened with 1 or 2% tin. But some are marked marked W+ and he said they have more tin in them, I suspect they were an end of batch? ...so that's what I've been using to mix this 14:2. I measured BHN after a week, and got 8.

 

[Urny]

What Thumbcocker said has worked well for .32 and .38 wadcutters for almost 50 years that I can remember.

 

[USSR]

Starline .38 Special brass is 0.010" wall thickness for 1/2" back from the case mouth.

Little known fact: The original Hydra-Shok company in Watkins Glen, NY which invented the Hydra-Shok bullet (essentially a hollowpointed wadcutter), had their brass made by the then new Starline company.

Don