It's been a long process, but it all came together today. I originally got free lead that was taken out of an X-ray room. I decided it was time to get into casting. I build my PID controller. Bought a Lee pot, pewter, and linotype. Melted the lead down to ingots today. Weighed out some and remelted with linotype and pewter to give me a 95% lead, 3% antimony, and 2% tin. Used that alloy to cast my .356 95gr bullets for my 380. What do you all think? My only issue was out of the 6 cavities there was almost always 1 or 2 that the base didn't completely fill. Typically one of the inner cavities. I was casting at 700*.

Lead


Casting ingots


My setup


My ingots


My bullets

Grey corn sticks? Does your wife know?

Hahaha. Easiest ingot mold ever. They pour at 14-16 ounces each

Powder coated bullets. Now to size them, load, and shoot.

oh, powder coating.

I was going to say you may have a real soft bullet and you may want to harden it up by adding WW's.

not sure of the effect of pure lead when powdercoating.

They aren't pure lead. They are 2% tin and 3% antimony, but you can powder pure lead without leading.

How much thickness does the powder coating add? Is it worth the trouble? You should be able to shoot that alloy without leading anyway with just about any reasonable lube-if the size is correct.

I'm not sure about the thickness of the powder as they are sized after powder coating them. I'm just playing with this alloy. I'm going to primarily be using 98-1-1% alloys or 99-1% alloys and PC'ing them. I just figured this would make it easier for my first go around.

Perhaps try running your pot at 750-800� instead of 700� for better fill-out? I do that when casting WW alloy, and get excellent mold fill-out without adding tin which is not the case for me when casting down around 700�.

A hotter pour does seem to help with fill-out in the absence of tin. As long as frosty bullets don't bother you (they don't bother me).

Nope, doesn't bother me either.