Bullet casting lead

[jim Glass]

I found I can buy a bullet mold from Lee Precision pretty reasonable for my 300 blackout. I have a bowl of used wheel weights (wheel balancing) in my basement. Can these wheel weights be used for bullet casting.

I ran the numbers on Purchased lead ingots and it comes out 24 cents per bullet for material alone. I can buy bullets for that price.

1 ounce = 437.5 grains
1 ounce = 2.9 (150 grain bullets)
1 pound = 48 bullets
5 pounds of lead = $10 or 240 (150 grain bullets)
1 150 grain bullet = 24 cents.

Just checking, thanks, Jim

[hunter63]

The short answer is yes.......BUT
All wheel weights are not the same....lot has tin and zinc and some are even steel....
A scratch test will shw you what is soft lead, easy and deep....and alloyed ..harder and surface scratch.....
Some are marked... Fe, Zn, Tn etc....toss them.

300 BO is a slow bullet so unjacketed lead should shoot fine....
I like to stay under 1200 fps for lead, then gas check them for any thing up...around 2000 fps.

Don't know about running them in an AR platform....bullet design?...feeding?...leading the barrel?....
Most of my casts are for pistol .45's (several) .38/.357's ....but do pour for the 30-30, and .35 Rem.....

Faster hunting loads are purchased as you have one shot....and it should be as close to perfect as I can get it

Lots of discussion on casting in general here:

http://www.wilderness-survival.net/f...bullet+casting

[kyratshooter]

I try to keep a couple of 5 gallon buckets of wheel weights around at all times. At one time I bought a full 55 gallon barrel from a tire store and it lasted me several years!

The lead should be fine for your sub sonic-loads or loads that do not max over 2000fps if you use gas checks on the bases. When you push them fast you lose accuracy without the gas checks in my experiences.

If you do not have a "can" there is no need to restrict the loads to sub-sonic. You can zip them up to the reload book standards, or just below 2000fps and do real well. Lead is more slippery than jacketed bullets and the pressures are always lower using lead slugs.

Wheel weight lead should be fine for the rifle loads. It is hard but that is not a relevant factor unless you are hunting with them. You do not want that expensive ingot lead anyway, it is always too soft.

Wheel weight lead is also cheap, at around 30 cents per pound at the scrap yards in my area. Go straight to the scrap yards and buy your lead at scrap price. You are melting it anyway and there is no need to double or triple the price because someone poured it into an ingot mold. Due to it being scrap I always get a lot of the stick-on wheel weights in the mix and they are soft lead, perfect for my muzzle loaders.

I use wheel weights in .30 caliber from 100gns to 180gns in a lot of rifle loads and they seem to hold up OK and give adequate accuracy.

Also use wheel, weights for most of my pistol loads in all calibers. Cast buckshot, cast shotgun slugs. First thing I usually do after buying a new caliber is order a bullet mold in that model.

In the past few years cast lead .223 reloads have replaced the need, or desire, for a .22lr in my battery. Anything a .22lr can do a cast lead 55gn .223 reload at 2000fps will do better! You get about 140 slugs per pound in .22. I never shoot the lead through the AR platforms though. I do not load them hot enough to cycle the actions.

BTW, you will always get fewer bullets per pound than the math projects due to splash, waste and that little bit you never got out of the bottom of the pot. You will always miss it by two or three slugs. No worry, wheel weights are cheap.

[cylon]

I use roofing lead for my cast rounds but then again i'm stuffing mine down a muzzleloader so the tolerances are nowhere near as fine for me.