Home Forums Reloading Bullet Casting Advise needed

I do not know much but that was my thought as well.

The 300s cooled quick and I could inspect them pretty fast. The 500s I had to weight quite a while before I could inspect them.

I traded off on the molding first one then the other to give the 500s time to stiffen up before I dumped them.

Wait a week and retest bet they test the same. Clint

OK I mixed 5#s of my hard alloy with 100#s of pure lead today and went from an approx. 1:20 to a mix approx. half way between the 1:20 alloy and pure lead. 6 to 7 brinell.

Will this be a good alloy for a modern 45-90 shooting smokeless and or Black Powder.

I made up 105#sand marked it to dedicate it for this rifle.

A "modern 45-90" is really a Muzzle Loader that uses a cartridge. 500 gr bullets should not work as a correct 45-90 was an express rifle using 3-350 gr bullets.

In my 45-70 Browning High Wall with black or 1000 fps smokeless loads (400 gr Lee plainbase) I just use pure lead as I do in my .452 Whitworth replica muzzle loader with a 450 gr PB Pedersolli mold (aka exact copy of Lyman)

Spg lube and oversize SAECO lube sizing die that only lubes. Either will kill anything that walks in NA.

Suggest you get Mike Venturino's books on BPCR shooting, a wealth of been there done that knowledge.

P.S. if you already have the 45-90 keep it. If you don't buy a 45-70.

Up Date on my problems

I just cast up some more 300 and 500 gr slugs today with a much softer alloy.

I had my die's checked and had a .462 die made up to squish them to the .460 dia. in stages.

I coated both the first 500gr slug and the .462 die with alox.

And the same thing happened. I smashed the slug so much that I had the take the die out and with a punch drive the slug back out. I did this twice.

I changed out the cupped punch for the gas checks with a flat punch. and what do you know every problem went away.

I set the machine up for the 300gr gas check slugs and used the cupped punch for them with no problem.

My conclusion is when you size and lube the heavy hitters use a flat punch to push em.