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I finally cast some good bullets today. I started on this project clear back last winter. I decided I would take my .358 caliber rifles and pistols and start casting for them. I'd been doing pure-lead bullets for my muzzleloaders, but this was considerably different.

I had all sorts of things get in the way. Mom got sick and went in the hospital twice. That wrecked two windows I'd set aside in my schedule between big projects at work. The last hurdle was late last summer; I could not get a good fill in any of the molds.

I finally decided it must be the alloy. I was using Wheelweight mixed 50-50 with pure lead. I ordered some pewter off Ebay. The fellow never shipped the stuff, so I had to contest the transaction. I finally ordered new pewter a month ago, and it arrived during the middle of deer season.

Today, I had time free, and the weather was warm and the rain was holding off. First I cast the 5LB of pewter into .53 cal round balls, then I mixed the 50-50 alloy and added one ball to the pot for every 10lbs. That was the trick. All of a sudden, I had boolits! The failure rate was amazingly good too, I had 1 bad boolit for about every 20 good.

I did about a hundred each of Lee 125 grain 125 RF, Lee 158 grain SWC and RCBS 35-200-FN -- just enough to play around with the Lee Lubrisizer and load up some test rounds.

The main project is trying to get a good gas-checked loads for a Marlin .357 lever and a Rem 7600 in 35 Whelen. Secondarily, I have several 357 Mag pistols, that I hope to keep fed. My goal was to have the Whelenizer converted to lead for this season, but I'll just have to wait a year.



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Good on you. I hope your Mom is okay and I will get out to the garage and follow suit. I am using a NOE 158 grain hp mold for the 38 spc. I will use a harder alloy when I get enough brass and nerve to try it in 357.


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Oh, Mom's OK, but two hospitalizations knocked the stuffing out of her. They put her on Hospice, so she'd get more care, and the problems have abated. She was at our place for Thanksgiving.

However, it was a time consuming problem. At first, I thought I just wasn't getting the molds hot enough, but cranking my Lee pot to the max would still give me gnarly boolits. The pewter fixed all that, and it dramatically changed the melting temperature. I can cast now at 5 or 6 on my Lee pot instead of 8 or 9 for pure lead. In fact, I had to experiment, because the sprue was taking much longer to solidify.

Question for y'all: the one thing that I see is that when I cut the sprue, some bullets have sharp edges and some are a little rounded right at the base. Most often, it will be one bullet has 100% fill and the base is flush and the other bullet in the 2-bullet mold has a slight margin. It seems to be nothing as the gas check covers it up. However, what is this, and is it significant and is there a way to control it? Or am I just being an anal newbie?


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I've been having the same fill-out problems when using straight WW's. I haven't ruled out alloy temp being low, due to the fact that I don't have a thermometer. I'll be getting one in the near future, though.

I've seen the slightly rounded corners on the heel of some of my bullets, too. Not sure what the cause is. Possibly bad venting on that cavity of the mold?


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Bad venting, too loose sprue plate, low temp, wrong alloy, etc. No matter the cause, I don't use such bullets (what's a "boolit"?) even though the gas check covers it. A partially rounded edge equals an unbalanced condition no matter if it can be seen or not, and as such will not fly true- to one degree or another. Remember, the base of the bullet is the steering end, and any anomalies there are bad juju. If the bullets have a perfectly uniform rounded bottom edge, that would be a different story- but that ain't gonna happen.


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Gno has it right, the sooner you remelt ALL non perfect bullets the sooner you will get consistant results. The other thing is turn the heat all the way up and use Brakeclean on your mold (make sure it is all evaporated though) before any casting. As to loading, water dropped CO (clip on) wheelweights will do 2200 fps w/a good lube, I use LBT's Blue for everything. As with anything there are a myriad of details in the casting ect. of lead bullets but the above items should get you a good start. Muddy

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OK. I'm going to segregate some of the best bullets from the rest, and then test and see. The gas checks cover the defect, and for the most part the defect is surprisingly symmetrical.

I'll also give the brake cleaner a try.

While I all have you: Does anyone know the ballistic co-efficient on a rcbs 35-200-FN? I guessed 0.195 for planning purposes. Where does one go to look that up? RCBS does not have the info.


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BC .243 +/-

What tin does is not so much a matter of changing melt temp, but of lowering surface tension in molten lead. It doesn't take a lot of tin to make things work, typically 2% by weight is enough.

I think the most common cause of rounded bases is a cold sprue plate. When heating the mould, put the sprue plate down.

A suggestion to you Luddite types....get a farkin' thermometer. Life is too short to spend it fixin' up the mess your guesses created.


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for your bullets not filling out, make sure you have and adequate sprue puddle.

You don't have enough pressure on the lead flow to fill out the mould. Holding the mould closer or farther away from the spout may solve the issue.

Once you get your mould casting nicely, don't clean it. Especially don't use brake cleaner on it when it's hot. The fumes are not nice to you.

your 35 whelen is going to be a totally different animal when it comes to shooting cast bullets. Plan to start from scratch when you do. Give me a shout and I can help with the whelen when you are ready as I have lots of experience with mine. For the whelen, I would water drop your bullets then size the same day if possible, then let them set a week then load and test. You may not get good accuracy with the same alloy you use in any of the other 35 cal guns you mention.

Your 357 mag rifle should be fun too, just use 357 mag loads and same loading technique and you should be good to go.


Whatever you are willing to put up with, is exactly what you will have.

When your ship comes in. ... make sure you are willing to unload it.

PAYPAL, sucks and I will never use them again. I recommend you do the same.
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As a matter of fact, I have a fellow who is going to build me an automated thermostatic control. He's building one for himself and said he'd do the same for me if I give him the cost of the parts.

So it's a cold sprue plate, huh? Dang! I had a girlfriend in college who accused me of that-- right about the time I dumped her. Cold sprue or not, always take the chicks out to dinner when you dump them. They won't make as much of a scene in public. If they take it nice, pay the check. If they make a fuss, stiff 'em.

That makes sense-- about cold sprue plates. In general, the defect in the base showed up on whatever bullet I cast last of the two, and the best way I found to keep it from happening was to let the alloy continue to drip on the sprue for a bit. As I remember, that was the problem with that girlfriend too-- gave me a case of something that made my sprue drippy.

Ah memories!

Blammer: I will let you know soon. Actually, we can start right here: I was planning on H4895 for a powder, starting load of 42 grains. Am I on the right track?



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Yep, WQWW's sized then aged about a week.

start a little higher, say 48gr then go up one grain increments.

My accuracy was at 51grains.

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Whatever you are willing to put up with, is exactly what you will have.

When your ship comes in. ... make sure you are willing to unload it.

PAYPAL, sucks and I will never use them again. I recommend you do the same.
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Wow! 84% of MAX?
I'm not doubting you, but that puts it close to 358 WIN velocities. If I'm not mistaken, it'll also mean less recoil than my 30-06!

The beagle was extremely flatulent last night, and ended up waking me up at 0400, so I gulped down coffee and headed down to the secret underground loading facility to size. I call her The Dog of My Dreams, because she'll let loose so bad I have dreams of suffocating. While I was sipping coffee, I ordered a Lee Hardness Tester off EBAY.

I was right about one thing: the defect in the bases was small enough that I could not tell anything was wrong after applying the gas checks. Visual inspection could not detect it. I needed to measure with the caliper.



When I first got the idea for all this, somebody suggested I try the 200 grainers in 38 special case for the Marlin Lever. 357 Mag would be too long, but 38 SPC would work. Any of you have any luck with that sort of load?




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I have loaded the rcbs 35 200 in 357 mag cases for my 357 mag lever gun.

Worked fine for me.

At the 357 mag velocity I felt the bigger meplat of the 360180 NOE worked much better. On the last deer I used my 357 mag rifle on, it did the job.

The RCBS 35 200 with the smaller meplat needs to be pushed a bit more than the 357mag can do, to make it really effective.


the 35 whelen I'm shooting crono'ed at 2475fps. smile


Whatever you are willing to put up with, is exactly what you will have.

When your ship comes in. ... make sure you are willing to unload it.

PAYPAL, sucks and I will never use them again. I recommend you do the same.
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Originally Posted by DigitalDan
BC .243 +/-

What tin does is not so much a matter of changing melt temp, but of lowering surface tension in molten lead. It doesn't take a lot of tin to make things work, typically 2% by weight is enough.

I think the most common cause of rounded bases is a cold sprue plate. When heating the mould, put the sprue plate down.

A suggestion to you Luddite types....get a farkin' thermometer. Life is too short to spend it fixin' up the mess your guesses created.


I asked Santa to bring me one this year. I've been trying to get along by using a infrared thermometer, but readings are just not consistent enough.


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I'm back. This cast bullet project continues to move at a snail's pace.

In the interim, I have acquired a Lee hardness tester. I wanted to test it out. What I've found is that that the bullets I cast three weeks prior have a BHN of about 24.5. I then went on to test a few other things to make sure I was doing it right. A pure lead ingot I keep on my gunsmithing bench measured 8. Some Minie-balls that I had trouble jamming down the barrel of my Hawken 20 years ago measured 11.


Assuming the 24.5 measurement is correct, I'd like to know:

1) Is this TOO hard? If I'm going to load the 200 grainers for the 35 Whelen, I figure this should be just fine. I'd have to anneal the tips if I wanted to take them hunting.

2) Is this too hard for loads for the Marlin lever? For my Blackhawk?

The recipe I used to get to where I am now (24.5 BHN) was as follows:

1 ingot of pure lead
1 ingot of the mystery WW alloy
1 50 cal round ball of pewter

1:1:1
Cast and dropped into a bucket of water.

In adjusting the recipe, what BHN should be the target?
What would you suggest as a next step? 2:1:1? 3:1:1 ?






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I would not worry about your BHN THAT much.

take what you got and shoot it and tell us how it does.

you can always shoot them into wet newspack or milkjugs of water to see how they expand or what they do with your load and your gun.

You just don't want them too hard, otherwise they will shatter when they hit.


Whatever you are willing to put up with, is exactly what you will have.

When your ship comes in. ... make sure you are willing to unload it.

PAYPAL, sucks and I will never use them again. I recommend you do the same.

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