Lead costs

[tinman]

Along with gathering supplies so I can start reloading I have decided to try my hand at casting my own bullets. Here is my rookie question...... I am seeing all manner of prices on lead for sale but I don't really know what I should expect to pay. I am finding it at anywhere from $.90 to $2 a pound which seems to be a bit of an extreme spread.
Also, I don't know which type of lead is more/less desirable. Ebay has gobs of stuff available with everything from ingots stamped LYMAN, boxes of wheel weights, what appears to be lead flashing for roofing applications, scrap lead supposedly recovered from shooting ranges and something called linotype from printing presses...... :?
Also, gonna be buying a melting pot, is there any particular smelting furnaces I should seek or avoid?

Any advice is appreciated......

 

[contender]

Whew! Lots to learn here.
First,,, get the Lyman casting book. It will explain alloys & such.
Lead bullets are judged by their hardness, and there are different ways to mix lead with tin etc to get what you desire.
First, decide what your bullets will be. (Pistol, rifle?)
Next, look at the application. Plinking, hunting, competition, etc.
Look at the velocities you plan to load to.
You will need to match the hardness to the velocity. (Not to throw in a monkey wrench,,, but bullet size & lubricants also come into play here as well.)

In general, many folks prefer to cast handgun bullets more often than rifle bullets. Next, if that's the desires, then in general, a lot of casual casters use straight wheelweights & do just fine. BUT,,,,,, BEWARE,,,,,,,,, All wheelweights are not created equal. There are steel, zinc, & other such crap that are not suited to bullet casting. But when you find a source of WW, you can do a testing to see if they are the lead variety, over others. (More on how in a few minutes.)
Pure lead is only good for very slow velocities & generally used for muzzleloaders.

Next, I'm going to steal a comment from sixshot here. He (as well as myself & many others,) uses a 70% lead, 30% WW mix to cast handgun slugs. Velocities are kept between 900-1100 fps for the most part, and are quite good in most applications & bullet designs. THIS IS JUST A GUIDELINE! But it works for a lot of people. Get the book & study what you need for your desires in alloys.

That said,, in general, a lot of us chase good wheelweights, pure lead & range scrap. Lynotype is great,,, but more expensive & is used to add to an alloy for most.
Costs. In general,,,, I tend to say that good known alloy such as cleaned & ready to cast WW & pure lead should be found in the $1.00-$1.25 per lb.

Now, a great place to learn a LOT is the cast bullets forum. (Also known as castboolits) You can learn a lot about alloys, how to's & whys for most casting questions & applications there. Also, many members there sell lead & you can find quality alloy's there.
Furnaces. Most of them are good, but some have a few things that make them a bit better than others. A Lee 10lb pot will work just fine as will a big cast iron pot & a dipper over a cook stove. But,,, most of us who are a bit more dedicated & do a fair amount prefer a 20 lb pot, usually by RCBS, Lyman or Hornady etc. Known names & quality. A 20 lb will get you more bullets in less time especially if you cast heavier bullets such as 200 grn & heavier. (You get it hot & casting right, use about 2/3-3/4 & you have to stop & add alloy & wait to get it up to temp. A larger pot will allow more good bullets before you start over.)

Go over to the cast bullets forum & study!

 

[Chuck 100 yd]

+ 1 ^^^ contender just about covered it.
It sounds difficult but it is NOT. Just a few pitfalls to avoid. Starting out with A Lee pot and a couple of their molds is a great and inexpensive way to get started.
I started bullet casting in the 60's and went through a couple of the expensive casting furnaces over the years and am now back to the Lee 20# pots. You can buy four of them for the price of a Used Lyman or RCBS and they work just fine. Lee molds are fine but just are not as durable as the much more expensive other brand molds that I own about 50 of. Jump in the water is great!!! Have fun!!!

Linotype is a very hard alloy that is normally used in rifle bullets used for target/match shooting and can be mixed with other lead alloys to make them harder.
Linotype is normally considered a poor alloy for hunting because it can shatter on impact with bone where somewhat softer alloyed bullets will not shatter and give better penetration on game.

 

[volshooter]

Yep Lee pot and molds. Start with the purest lead you can find, load at minimum velocities to get best groups. I started with the .45ACP, pure lead and the lowest Bullseye charge that would cycle. Still my most accurate of all. Work up to the mixed lead loads.
Any more it is much cheaper to buy hard cast than chase down lead. You will drive yourself nuts since lead is so hard to find.
I miss the days when I had hundreds of pounds of pure lead, recovered from remodeling old homes. So much easier now to buy great cast bullets.
Blame the EPA, I do.

 

[Jim Puke]

You can still find used wheel weights, without much problem...and they will produce great bullets...I have shot THOUSANDS and THOUSANDS of them...still do, only alloy that I use.

Also, you want to have a separate pot to smelt in...smelt in one pot and cast from the Lee pot. Fish cooker with a cast iron pot works great for smelting.

 

[Chuck 100 yd]

Pure lead is more difficult to cast a good bullet with than wheel weight alloy. Pure lead melts at a higher temp than wheel weight alloy and pure lead needs a small amount of Tin added to make it flow and fill the mold better. Pure lead is best for Muzzle loading guns though. The Lyman Cast Bullet handbook covers all of these things in detail. I

 

[tinman]

I gotta give y'all a big thanks for the info. Joined the Castboolits forum and it is chock full of excellent information.
There is LOTS of lead for sale on Ebay but I know nothing about how to tell what is good and what is junk. Until I understand this process a lot better I will stick with the certified products when I'm doing actual bullets so I just ordered 40 lbs of the Lyman#2 from Rotometals. While there I discovered an extra treat. I have a galvanized boat trailer that I am rebuilding and have been hoping to find a way to re-galvanize the repaired spots. While perusing the RotoMetal site I found that they also sell a galv stick that will looks as if it be suitable for that job. Thanks again to all......

PS still shoppin around for the furnace. I am leaning toward the Lee 4-20 Pro for doing bullets and will likely do the cast iron pot on a fish cooker for playing around with the unknown type metals ....... +corn

 

[Jim Puke]

tinman, spend some time on castboolits...it is your friend. If you have questions, just do a thread like this or find one of the guys that you see posting a lot...probably very knowledgeable...and send them a pm.

But, it you go there and use the search function and read, you will be able to find most anything that you want to know, without creating a thread or sending pm's.

I am no expert, by any stretch of the imagination...but if you pm me...I will do my best to help you.

Enjoy...as you are about to delve into one of the most enjoyable things you will ever do...and it will add a LOT to your experience with guns and shooting.

 

[tinman]

tinman, spend some time on castboolits...it is your friend. If you have questions, just do a thread like this or find one of the guys that you see posting a lot...probably very knowledgeable...and send them a pm.

But, it you go there and use the search function and read, you will be able to find most anything that you want to know, without creating a thread or sending pm's.

I am no expert, by any stretch of the imagination...but if you pm me...I will do my best to help you.

Enjoy...as you are about to delve into one of the most enjoyable things you will ever do...and it will add a LOT to your experience with guns and shooting.

Thank you sir..... :mrgreen:

 

[Jim Puke]

tinman, just to rev you up a little more...like you need that...hahaha.

I was thinking about casting, reloading and shooting after I posted the previous post. In the last 3 days, I have shot 150rds of 44 special that would have cost me, in my area, about $45 per 50 or $135.00, to go to the store and purchase. Using my bullets, reusing my brass that is good for at least 20 reloads, buying primers and powder....I spent about $12 on those 150rds. Now, at that price, I can and do, shoot as much as I want...whenever, I want. And, you know what...YOU CAN DO THE SAME.

Now, there are those that say we save no money by casting and reloading...but I beg to differ.

 

[dixie884]

The Lyman lettering is made when the lead is melted and poured into the Lyman ingot mold. It does not mean anything about the alloy of the ingots.

 

[volshooter]

The old wheel weights started disappearing around here several years ago. They are great for casting bullets. All the pure lead was snatched up by fishermen. I used to cast my own, 10's of thousands SWC for mild target loads. Great results but it was alot of work and now, for me it is easier just buy.
I hope you enjoy casting your own as much as I did. BTW I really loved the LEE lube (Alox?)

 

[sixshot]

Casting bullets is like that first kiss as a teenager, once you start....well you know the story! If you are just getting started find all the metal you can because its getting tougher all the time. Good WW's are really tough but they are out there. Many are now zinc, steel aluminum, etc. so they are no good to the caster. Next to impossible to buy lead or WW's from the scrap yard or tire store, the EPA makes them turn them in or get fined, so good luck with that.
You just have to keep looking but it is still out there. Sometimes a radiator shop will have some bits & pieces of solder that you can pick up for a decent price, this helps because of the tin content.
Once you get some metal gathered up buy a Lyman book, Verl Smith's book on casting & Glenn Fryxell's online book on bullet casting here on the forum. Its going to take a while to get through all this material & you don't need to know all of it to get started. Just know that you will need some type of alloy in your lead to allow you to run the velocity up at least to 800-1000 fps for handguns & that means tin, antimony, etc has to be present in your pure lead or you will get leading in your barrel after just a few shots.
The faster you shoot the harder the bullets need to be, if you are just plinking you can get by with a bullet thats quite soft, even down close to pure lead. Many millions of bison were killed with pure lead in the early 1800's with great success.
For less than a $100 a lee 20 lb. pot will get you started, other pots are nicer & more money. I have 2 Lee pots, a Lyman, an RCBS & a Magma which costs several hundred dollars & will crank out 500 bullets an hour with a 2 cavity mould using one hand!
Lee moulds are also reasonable to start, other moulds are more money & you usually get what you pay for. Custom moulds cas easily run $150 each. You wil need a lubrisizer with dies also unless you are powder coating (my choice) & a Lee sizer die will save you the cost of a lubrisizer press. I have an RCBS lubrisizer & also a Star sizer, again this last one is quite spendy, again you get what you pay for.
Usually a bullet hardness of 8-10 is enough for most handgun loads if you are just plinking, if you want to wind them up the hardness (BHN) needs to go up as well or you will get leading. Also, if you shoot a hard bullet slow you will get what they call gas cutting (leading) & thats also a problem. So, the rule of thumb says, don't shoot a soft bullet fast & don't shoot a hard bullet slow & you won't have leading.
If you can shoot in an area where you can retreive your own bullets you can melt them down again & re cast them & go right on shooting. Wecome to the wonderful world of cast bullets......remember that first kiss..............

Dick

 

[volshooter]

Sixshot, AKA Dick, you said it all my friend!
When I started casting I used a huge sand pile just so I could collect the spent rounds to recast. Back then I spent pert near 15 hours a week just casting and loved it so much. I was loading .38's and .45ACP semi wad cutters, with only enough Bullseye to make the 1911 cycle. Accuracy and cost was my thing. I still have a Auto Ordnance 1911 I bought when I was 21 that loves low power semi wadcutters. @ 20 feet I can still make one ragged hole, with that pistol and ammo.

 

[Ring3]

New prospective caster here too. I have not cast my first bullet yet but am reading, learning and accumulating as time permits. Got at least 1 ton of lead so far through scrounging. 750#s is in 1 pound ingots from Wheel weights. Rest is from flashing, lead pipe, counter balances and misc.

My source is local private owned tire shops, a small scrap buyer and just keeping my eyes open. It's available if you look hard enough.

I use a 10# Lee pot to cast the ingots. It's tight and likely slower but it works. To avoid the dreaded zinc I keep the temp near 650 degrees. Zinc, steal and the clips float right to the top. ( I try to sort most of this out before melting).

Someday I hope to make some fine cast bullets. Good luck to both of us!

 

[powder smoke]

Tinman, Plenty of good reading here this may help! ps

http://www.lasc.us/Fryxell_Book_Contents.htm

 

[Alan in Vermont]

Tinman, eBay is NOT generally a good place to buy lead/lead alloys unless it is in it's originally manufactured form. Once it has been melted down and cast into ingots it can be claimed to be anything, pure lead, wheelweights, lino/mono/foundry type and be just about anything that is heavy and melts readily.

If you buy from someone who is a caster themselves you are more likely to get what you think you are getting as opposed to some manner of "mystery metal". Castboolits has been mentioned already and that's a good source of honestly described bullet metal(s). When I get a bunch collected and rendered into ingots I sell it there myself. I clean bullets out of the outdoor berms and the trap on the indoor range at the club and sell enough to recover my costs. It sells as "range scrap" and generally makes a good alloy for handguns and rifle to mid-range 30-30 loads with the addition of around 2% tin.

 

[mikld]

Step 1. Purchase and read Lyman's Cast Bullet Handbook 3rd Edition (if you can find one, if not a 4th Edition will do). For new casters I recommend K.I.S.S.. I started with a Coleman stove, a 8" steel pot, a slotted spoon, a Lee ladle, and a Lee mold (.44 cal. SWC TL). I fluxed with saw dust and lubed with liquid alox. It was a task keeping mold temp and melt temp consistent, but that changed when I got a Lee 4-20 pot. You can still find wheel weight alloy around if you look hard (Vendor-Sponsors at Castboolits.com have lots of lead, at good prices), but don't get involved in BHN alloying yet. Lead close to WW hardness is a good place to start (I had access to wheel weights and used that alloy almost exclusively for 8-10 years).

"The only way to learn to cast bullets is to cast bullets". Heat your mold, watch the finished bullets for temperature signs (fill-out, frostyness, hanging up in mold, sprue smearing) . When I started with my electric pot, I would get 2 out of 5 keepers until I learned to watch for temperature signs, mold prep (nuttin', jes clean. No smoke, no "release agent. nuttin'), and setting a cadence.

Single most important factor in shooting cast bullets is bullet to gun fit. Slug the barrel(s) of your guns and measure/slug the cylinder throats if you're casting for a revolver. For my revolvers all bullets are sized to match the cylinder throats, and semi-autos and rifles get sized .002"+ over groove diameter to start. Many don't size Lee tumble lube groove bullets and they work fine as long as they aren't too small.

Be aware that you are starting on the most satisfying aspect of the shooting sports; bullet casting and it's often called addicting. I enjoy sitting down in front of my pot with a favorite mold heating on a hot plate and casting bullets until I feel I've done enough. No quota, rarely count finished bullets, jes enjoying a quiet time, jes me, a hot pot, a good mold, and a few pounds of lead...

 

[mikld]

Step 1. Purchase and read Lyman's Cast Bullet Handbook 3rd Edition (if you can find one, if not a 4th Edition will do). For new casters I recommend K.I.S.S.. I started with a Coleman stove, a 8" steel pot, a slotted spoon, a Lee ladle, and a Lee mold (.44 cal. SWC TL). I fluxed with saw dust and lubed with liquid alox. It was a task keeping mold temp and melt temp consistent, but that changed when I got a Lee 4-20 pot. You can still find wheel weight alloy around if you look hard (Vendor-Sponsors at Castboolits.com have lots of lead, at good prices), but don't get involved in BHN alloying yet. Lead close to WW hardness is a good place to start (I had access to wheel weights and used that alloy almost exclusively for 8-10 years).

"The only way to learn to cast bullets is to cast bullets". Heat your mold, watch the finished bullets for temperature signs (fill-out, frostyness, hanging up in mold, sprue smearing) . When I started with my electric pot, I would get 2 out of 5 keepers until I learned to watch for temperature signs, mold prep (nuttin', jes clean. No smoke, no "release agent". nuttin'), and setting a cadence. Many molds have a "personality" of their own and differ from time to time.

Single most important factor in shooting cast bullets is bullet to gun fit. Slug the barrel(s) of your guns and measure/slug the cylinder throats if you're casting for a revolver. For my revolvers all bullets are sized to match the cylinder throats, and semi-autos and rifles get sized .002"+ over groove diameter to start. Many don't size Lee tumble lube groove bullets and they work fine as long as they aren't too small.

Be aware that you are starting on the most satisfying aspect of the shooting sports; bullet casting and it's often called addicting. I enjoy sitting down in front of my pot with a favorite mold heating on a hot plate and casting bullets until I feel I've done enough. No quota, rarely count finished bullets, jes enjoying a quiet time, jes me, a hot pot, a good mold, and a few pounds of lead...

 

[contender]

In general,,, yes. Hardcast bullets are just a harder alloy. Many folks use them when they ramp up the velocity. Again,,, you still do better matching the bullet to the bore & throats. There are different ways to get harder bullets. Some folks water quench them, and others use just an alloy change. Some do both. And then the folks who powder coat their bullets have found it appears to anneal (soften,) the harder lead when you bake the paint on. But the coating is hard.