Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Muzzleloaders Melted lead bullets.

Hello folks. I'm new to the Campfire and this is my 1st post on the muzzle loading forum. I hope I am in the right neck of the woods for my question. So here goes. I am gonna start tackling hand loading for my Martini Henry 577/450. Gonna do the whole nine yards of sizing down 24 gauge brass shells and casting my own bullets. I have never cast bullets. I have been reading up a bit and watched some YouTube videos on the subject. My questions lie in the lead. A rather informative video said 20 parts lead to 1 part tin. This was the particular ratio for only the 577/450 and nothing else. I live in Phoenix AZ and lead ain't cheap or easy to come by. Guess I ain't the 1st guy to stop by a few tire shops and ask about buying old wheel weights. Can I use the large bags of chilled shot for my needs? Just good old 7.5 or 8s bought 25 pound bags? Is the lead mix proper of lead shot for my bullets? What about antimony? Was told it was not needed for 577/450 but more so for say like a 303 or so(it was British military videos). Can you guys point me in the right direction? Thank you DaveO.

lead alloyed already is available on ebay. don't think i'd go the shot route.

You may want to try posting your question in the Bullet Casting forum in the reloading section further down the list here on the campfire.

http://www.24hourcampfire.com/ubbthreads/ubbthreads.php/forums/18/1/Bullet_Casting

Loads of experts there I bet. Probably even a few with Martini's

Good luck,

Geno

^^^^^ What Geno said!!!^^^^^^

Good luck!!!! Sounds like fun times ahead!!!

Look up Roninphx, he's in your area, and he casts bullets, and he's a good guy with a lot of gun savvy,he will shorten your learning curve a bunch. Thank me later.

Rio7

OK guys thanks. EBay looks to be the way to go.

Chilled shot is not a good route to go..as others have said go to ebay and get some good decent alloy or pure lead.Stay away from modern wheel weights as the high zinc content is bad juju.Should you want to mix your own alloy a good source of pure tin bars is Rotometals

Clip-on wheel weights- yes.
Stick-on wheel weights are soft nearly pure lead- ok as a basis for further alloying.
Zinc wheel wheel wights- death to your alloy. Avoid at all costs.
1-20 tin/lead- a little bit of a waste of tin. 1-30 would be just fine for your needs.

If in doubt, start out by buying some soft relatively pure tin and enough tin to work up a small-ish batch of 1-30 alloy and take it from there.

In a black powder cartridge such as yours, there's no need to cast hard-as-nails bullets; soft is ok. Size them to perfectly match your throat (ignoring the groove diameter), lube them with a black powder-friendly soft lube (if shooting black powder, and there's no reason not to), fill the case with enough black powder so the bullet just starts to crush it when seating. All that = the basics for what you're up to.