Cast Bullets - A Short and Improper History
by Jim Taylor
Lead projectiles have been with us a long time. Until about 80 years ago almost all hunting and shooting was done with lead bullets. One of the earliest records we have of lead being used as a projectile is with the Roman Army. Roman Legions had Light Auxiliary Slingers attached to them who used a cast lead "pellet" much like a bullet. They had very good range but only marginal accuracy. Early firearm projectiles were tried of cast iron and stone. Some firearms shot arrows. However lead never did have a serious rival. Lead was soft, could be easily formed to the desired shape and size and was obtainable without much difficulty. More importantly it had enough mass to retain it's velocity. The Battle of Crecy in 1346 saw the first use of gunpowder weapons. While these were small artillery pieces it did mark a new era in battle. A single small bullet could penetrate armor and kill the strongest man inside it. Even if the bullet was fired by a frail woman. The bullet brought equality many years before it was every gained politically. The 15th century saw target shooting become a popular sport. A match at Ausburg in 1508 had 919 firearms shooters and 533 crossbow shooters registered in competition. At some matches the targets were as far as 805 feet. Prizes were often as desirable as anything today. For instance, at a shooting match in Nuremberg in 1433 the top prize was a fine horse with all accouterments - equivalent to a 4WD pickup today! The lead bullet dominated every other type of projectile tried. Today's experiments with multiple projectiles are nothing new. It was tried hundreds of years ago. It did not work well then either. And in the blackpowder guns of the day the hardness of the bullet was not a problem. The soft "pure lead" projectile was desirable. Usually just enough tin was added to improve the casting quality. When smokeless powder appeared on the scene problems began to develop. Higher velocities than with black powder were now possible. But higher velocity meant higher pressures and more heat and friction between bullet and barrel. By "wrapping" the bullet in a copper alloy jacket, soft lead could be driven to very high velocities. By the middle of this century most reloaders felt if they were going to shoot bullets at any substantial velocity they would have to use a jacketed bullet, whether fired from a rifle or a handgun. In the last 35 years great strides have been made in the shooting of cast bullets. Men like Veral Smith of Lead Bullets Technology (LBT), E.H. Harrison, (along with many unknown bullet casters and experimenters) together with organizations like the Cast Bullet Association have pushed the limits of what was commonly accepted for cast bullets. Improvements in lubricants, alloys and powders have brought the cast bullet out of the Dark Ages and into the 21st century. Velocities and accuracy once thought impossible are now commonplace and performance many times eclipses jacketed bullets.
Cast Bullet Stuff I do not have the expertise to speak of everything that is available to the cast bullet shooter. In the following I will list a few things that have worked well for me. They are not THE only way to do what I speak of but rather, are what I have done.
Bullet Molds I use bullet molds from Lyman, RCBS, Herters, SAECO, NEI, and LBT. My personal opinion is that they all have their place. LBT makes about the best mold around as to sprue plate design, venting and accuracy of cavity. However I have shot some of my smallest groups from an inexpensive old single-cavity Lyman mold. My advice: "If you have a good mold never loan it to anyone." If you find a mold that works very well in your gun, use it. Bullet Lube I only use one of two lubes available. Either LBT Blue or Paco Kelly's "Apache Blue". They are very similar in makeup and I can tell no difference in them as to accuracy and barrel cleanness. Using Apache Blue I normally shoot a 190 gr. RCBS cast bullet in my 30-30 at 1800 fps with no leading problems. The bullet is cast of wheelweights from a very hot mold, dropped directly into a 6-gallon bucket of water to quench and harden them, and fitted with a gascheck. This load will shoot under 1 3/4" for 3 shots at 110 yards. If I can prevail upon Paco we will have an article one of these days in Sixgunner.com on Bullet Lubes. Alloys I have read a lot of chatter how wheelweights are not good for making bullets. I hope more people believe that since they get hard to find at times. I personally think that idea was dreamed up by some people who want to keep them to themselves. Either that or they don't know how to use them. Or worse yet, they work for a metal company......... Yes, you should melt them in well-ventilated area. There is a lot of rubber, road oil, etc. associated with wheelweights. The alloy itself is about ideal, even if it varies from lot to lot. This is due to the small amount of arsenic and antimony in them. That is the "hardening" agent. Bullets cast directly of wheelweights run anywhere from 8 to 11 BHN (Brinell Hardness Number). Since pure lead is 5 BHN you can see that wheelweights are nominally twice as hard as pure lead. Any lead alloy that contains as small as 2 1/2 % of antimony can be effectively heat-treated. The hardness increase can be quite dramatic. The "quick" way to heat-treat wheelweight bullets is to cast them from a very hot mold. I run my mold so hot it takes 10 - 20 seconds for the sprue to harden enough to cut it. The bullets are dropped directly into a bucket of cool water. I use a 6-gallon bucket. The bucket is set behind me and off to one side so I will not inadvertantly splash any water into the lead pot. MOLTEN LEAD AND WATER WILL MAKE AN EXPLOSION! THIS CAN BE DANGEROUS. IF YOU HURT YOURSELF DO NOT TRY TO BLAME ME! I have a number of 2" square pieces of foam rubber floating on top of the water to reduce splash. If you get any water into the mold cavity be sure to let it dry before pouring molten lead into it. If you pour hot lead into a cavity containing a small amount of water it will turn to steam and look for place to vent. It will blow molten lead out the sprue hole. You will get burned at the least. Seriously hurt at the worst. The bullets are dropped directly from the mold into the water. When I am done casting I get them out of the water and let them dry on an old towel. Wheelweight alloy that is heat-treated in this manner will about double in hardness. Mine average 18 BHN 24 hours after casting. They are then sized and lubed. The other way to harden wheelweight alloy is to "cook" it. The bullets must be first cast and sized to the desired size. Do not lube them. After they are all cast and sized I then stand them on an old cookie sheet and put them in the oven at 470 degrees for one hour. At the end of the hour they are taken out of the oven and dumped in a 6-gallon bucket of cool water. At the end of 24 hours these bullets will average 28 - 30 BHN - harder than linotype. They can be then lubed and loaded. PROBLEMS: Unless you have a commercial oven you really do not know where 470 degrees is on your oven. The everyday cook stove is "close" - some hotter, some cooler. You will have to test your oven with a good commercial thermometer and find just where to set it to get the exact temperature you want. Cast bullets will start to collapse someplace around 480 degrees so you do not have a lot of leeway here. Another problem is that cookstove ovens have "hot spots" - areas where the temperature is higher than others. It is disheartening to cast 300 bullets, size them, put them on a tray and cook them for an hour only to have half of them slump over like a dead cactus. Or find out all you have left is just the bullet noses standing in a bright puddle. Another problem. Lead in a cooking environment is potentially unhealthy. Your wife may object to you sticking your shiny little bullets where she want to put your steak and potatoes later. Think about it. For the best information on heat-treating bullets see if you can get hold of a copy of the old NRA book "CAST BULLETS" by Col. E.H. Harrison. The article on heat-treating wheelweights by metallurgist Dennis Marshall will be worth the effort.
Hardness Tester It is worth the money to invest in a Lead Hardness Tester. There are several on the market. When I got mine years ago there were none available to the average person. Veral Smith came up with his LBT Lead Hardness Tester. He has improved it since mine, but my old one still works fine. SAECO puts one out as do several other companies. If you do not have a hardness tester but can obtain some bullets of known hardness, simply put one in a vise, nose to nose with your bullet and slowly crank the vice closed. The harder bullet will go "into" the softer bullet. You cannot tell how hard or soft they are but it is better than trying to scratch the bullet with your thumbnail.
Sizing Bullets can be sized a lot more than the conventional wisdom says. Many "experts" say you cannot size a bullet more than a few thousandths. A lot of us did not know that however and sized bullets 'way down. I sized bullets from .460" down to .451 regularly years ago. I was shooting the Lyman #457191 .45-90 rifle bullet in a tight .45 Ruger. The bullets came out of the mold at .460" or just a bit over. I sized these bullets down to .451" and used them to shoot 4 3/4" groups at 150 yards from the old sixgun. If you do not have an inline bullet sizer and are using something like the Lyman or RCBS lubrisizer, the bullets must be sized nose-first and in stages. I ran mine through a Lee Sizing Die - the one that is just a tube that screws into your press. Shove 'em through nose first. I used several. A .456", a .454" a .452" and finally the size I wanted it. The last stage I ran the bullets through nose-first, then ran them into a lubri-sizer to lubricate them. Five steps to get them where I wanted. But they shot just fine. In those days there just was not anything available commercially. Thank God I don't have to go through that again! On the other hand, lead bullets can be "bumped up" to larger size and work pretty well, especially if you have the right dies. It has all been done by many people over the years. Don't let someone who never tried it tell you it won't work. Ideally though, if you can get by without sizing them it sure does save a lot of work. In the .30-30 I use the RCBS 180-FN mold. This casts a bullet of 190 gr. out of wheelweights. The as-cast diameter is .310". I run them into a .311 die just to lube them. The barrel is .308" and the .310" bullets work very well. If you read the old loading manuals from when cast bullets were the norm and jacketed was just starting to become popular you will find that .311" was the recommended size for all .308" barrels. I have tried the smaller diameters and they do not shoot any better than the as-cast size so why go to all that work? FREECHEC Some years ago Paco Kelly and Ed Wosika came up with a slick idea they called the "Freechec". This was a tool that you could use to make your own gaschecks out of beer cans or pop cans - aluminum cans. For just a little time invested you could produce as many gaschecks as your little heart desired. And you could, with care, seat 2 or 3 of 'em on the base of the bullet, tightening up the seal so to speak. Not only could you make gaschecks with this tool but they made a tool that produced gaschecks for plainbase bullets. Yes, that is correct. A gascheck on a plainbase bullet. Why would you want to put a gascheck on a plainbase bullet? To increase the efficiency. The base of the bullet is the steering end. If gas gets past an edge of the base it will gas-cut and cause leading and inaccuracy. The better the seal at the base the better the bullet works while in the barrel. To test the plain-base gas-checks I cast up some of the #4545424 Keith bullets of 1-40 tin and lead, sized them to .452 and lubed them with Apache Blue bullet lube but did not install the gas checks. I loaded them in the .454 Casull to 1300 fps and took them out to test. I fired 5 at some tin cans, then set down and shot 5 on a target at 25 yards. The group measured 2 5/8" center to center. I then fired 5 more at some tin cans, then set down and shot another 5 on a target. This group was 3" center to center. I fired 5 more shots, just plinking and then checked the barrel. It was leaded heavily. I cleaned the gun completely and then re-shot the above test, except I used Freechec's on the bases of the bullets. I shot 5 just plinking, then 5 on a 25 yard target. The group size was 1 3/4" center to center. I shot 5 more at some tin cans and 5 on a target and then the last 5 at tin cans. The last groups was 2" exactly. I checked the barrel and it stayed clean. It looked dirty but not leaded. One pass with a brass brush and it was clean. These bullets were extremely soft. To push them that fast without leading showed the Freechec idea has merit. Eventually I fired 29 five-shot groups with Freechec and non-Freechec bullets. The ultimate accuracy results from this test were as follows: Groups fired with bullets using a Freechec averaged 1.54" at 25 yards. Groups fired with bullets without a Freechec averaged 1.95" at 25 yards. Sadly, no one is producing the Freechec Tool today. I hang on to mine. CAST BULLET RESOURCES LEAD BULLETS TECHNOLOGY His book "Jacketed Performance with Cast Bullets" is one to have in your library. Ask for a catalog. **************** THE CAST BULLET ASSOCIATION publishes THE CAST BULLET 6 times a year Membership is $14.00 a year
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