Over the years i have collected different batches of lead. Some from my castings from years ago, my dads round balls from muzzle loaders and 25# of #6 bird shot. I have my old molds for .357 and .45 and am thinking that whatever the hardness it turns out it should be OK. Any thoughts from you guys?

For run of the mill pistol bullets, yes, probably. Cast some ingots and test for hardness and go from there. But, that's like saying "If I had two apples and you gave me two oranges, how many pears would I have?" We would need a helluva lot more info before making a cogent prediction as to the utility of an alloy made up of your odds and ends. Ie: What kind of shot, what are your old casting alloys, did your dad use pure lead for his roundballs or did he use anything he laid his hands on, etc. etc.

Excellent post and spot on!

Thanks Gnohhh,
Very good points. I really don't know what dad used but melting all of it together and sending them down the barrel will be the test. I Don't think I am going to get back into casting that much. This is just some stuff I want to get rid of and figured this is the best way.


W. Bill

as expensive as shot is these days,
i'd find a buyer for it

If it's magnum shot it will help harden up his alloy. I'd use it.

It's just a bag of #6 shot that has been around for I don't know how many years. I mostly use it for forming my leather holsters. Probably just keep it for that reason only.

W. Bill

i never did anything about it, but there use to be a guy down by douglas that had a business cleaning trap/skeet ranges.
you could buy a 50gallon drum of shot.
i often thought of doing that to get some of the hard shot with the stuff in it to harden my cast bullets. But getting a 50gallon drum in and out of my truck, and when would i ever use all of it.

They do make hardness test devices for lead, senco IIRC

I have good luck with the lee hardness tester and it's pretty affordable.

I use the pencil hardness testing method. It's very affordable.
Covered in detail on the Cast Boolits Forum.

When I acquire lead of different types, my approach is to first melt the lead of each type in a smelting pot and flux then pour the cleaned up metal from the different batches into ingots.

I segregate the pure lead from range lead from linotype from wheel weights. Then I use a stamp to mark them as they will inevitable get moved around and mixed.

Then I can easily mix up a batch of a known alloy using the exact number of ingots of various types.

It's good to have some pure lead around and the lino separate.

Any scrap lead will work for 45 and moderate 357 loads. Hotter 357 will need a more controlled alloy.

If you use the shot for holster forming, keeping it as shot would seem to make more sense.