What to do With Pure Lead?

5

5shot

Active Member
I never saw those days around here. $20 would get you half of a 5 gal bucket if you were lucky. I did get a pile from a friend of my dads though, for nothing. Maybe 20 gallons. Certainly not enough to keep me going til I die.
 
Rick

Rick

Moderator
Staff member
I only paid for WW once and that was the very last bucket I got, they had been free for years. That last bucket was $20 for a very full bucket of cleaned and sorted weights from a truck tire place, it was all cleaned up because they were going to reuse them and then CA changed the law banning lead weights. Don't know what that bucket weighed but two guys trying to pick it to put it in the truck pulled the handle off and split the bucket open.
 
35 Whelen

35 Whelen

Active Member
I have read many articles by others who have far more experience than me and hunting with cast. If you mix you WW with pure at a 50:50 ratio, it apparently makes for a very good hunting round, holds together really well
 
Ian

Ian

Notorious member
Heat treated to around 20 bhn it holds up pretty well to 2400 fps in a .30-caliber IME.
 
fiver

fiver

Well-Known Member
lifetime depends on how many rounds you shoot a year, times that how many years you got till about 75 or so, then times that by 200grs average bullet weight.
then add in another 20 years just in case.
 
Winelover

Winelover

North Central Arkansas
Lifetime supply depends on many factors. I probably have several lifetimes worth, since I recycle my bullets. Helps when you have your own backyard range.

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Roughly six months worth of shooting................couple hours of sifting.
 
A

abj

Active Member
No such thing as a lifetime supply of lead for a bullet caster.(grin). I would get every lb of lead I could get, especially soft. I like to build my alloys from pure using superhard and pure tin. My COWW's are just for back up. Also COWW are going away fast, pretty soon all of us will be building our alloys from pure lead. Even pure lead stream is starting to slow at the recycle shops in north GA. and COWW is almost not seen anymore.
Tony
 
462

462

California's Central Coast Amid The Insanity
I'm down to 750-pounds of clip-on ingots and 300-pounds of stick-ons, a 5-gallon bucket of stick-on weights, and probably 300-pounds of bullets in all the calibers and weights I normally shoot.

For about 2300 ingots, my cost was two cases of soda and 200 Lee 358-158 RNFN bullets.
 
P

popper

Well-Known Member
Got about a 100# left of various Roto PB, should do me for lifetime supply. Anymore and the kids would get to make a bundle selling it.
 
Reloader762

Reloader762

Active Member
5shot said:
A local guy has cable sheathing for $0.90 a pound. In my rifles I generally shoot CWW + 2% Tin. If I need harder, I water drop. I still have several hundred pounds of CWW, and I am not sure what I would need the sheathing for.

Thoughts?
Click to expand...

I mix 50% pure with 50% COWW and a bit of Tin, powder coat and shoot it in all my handgun loads including 38 Special, 357 Mag., 9 mm, 45 ACP with no issues. You can quench the bullets right from the mold if using traditional forms of lube or after curing the PC and it will harden the bullets up past COWW hardness fairly decent if needed. I can also apply a gas check and have no issues shooting the up in the 1800 to 2K fps. range in rifles using the same mix and quenching.

The last and only PB I have ever bought cost me 30 cent a lb. at the local scrap yard for a 100 lb. roll impulse buy I guess. All my other PB an various lead based alloy I got free for the asking, those were the good old days an at least I got enough stashed back to last me as long as I will be shooting.
 
Reloader762

Reloader762

Active Member
My 50/50 45 ACP recovered HP's
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Rally

Rally

NC Minnesota
Welcome and nice Elk Rootmanslim. Bet that was a job rolling that one over in that brush.
 
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