I've been reloading for a long time but have just gotten into the bullet casting mode.

I've got all the equipment. Production pot, mould, luber/sizer etc.

Here is my question. I am casting 500 gr bullets for my .470NE. I'd like to be able to shoot full power loads without leading the barrel too bad.

What hardness lead would you guys go with. This is a 500gr bullets @ 2150FPS.

Also I'm sure I am going to need gas checks which I've found at several loactaion to fit the .475 bullet.

What is the trick to making quality lead cast bullets to shoot at higher velocities?

Thanks.

What alloy are you making the bullets from? When leading occurs is more complicated than simply a magic velocity number and bullet hardness. Factors that influence leading are bullet lubricant, bullet sizing, chamber throat and bore dimensions, rifling twist, presence of a gas check, chamber pressure, bullet hardness and muzzle velocity.

I have fired wheel weight alloy 500 gr gas check bullets from my 458 lott @ 2200 fps with no appreciable leading. I dropped the bullets which are cast hot and just allowed to solify into a 5 gallon bucket of water, size them to .001" over bore dia, gas check them and lube them with LBT blue lube.

You shoould be able to get just what you want from your 470. I would recomend thoroughly cleaning any jacketed bullet fouling from your bore before shooting cast, as it also can cause leading.

Paul is spot on. The most important thing is bullet/bore size. Slug your bore & size 0.001" over. Use a good, soft bullet lube like SPG & you can go w/o a gas check to 2000fps. Heat treating your bullets by dropping directly into cold water or by baking them in a toaster oven @ 400deg. When I get home I'll find a casting site that has great info. on it.

Thanks for the reply guys.

I have no idea what hardness the lead I am using is. I just took a bunch of old lead .44 bullets and melted them down.

My bullets are .001 over bore.

Can you be pretty sure that wheel weights are going to be pretty hard?

What hardness ahould I use and how do I go about finding / making the correct hardness?

It sounds like wheel weights with gas checks should be the easy way go?

I'll also start dropping them into a bucket of water I'd forgot about that procedure.

Thanks.

Greg.

Greg
After you casr your bullets, and they cool
try to scratch them with your fingernail.
If they scratch easily they will be too soft. If you cannot scratch them very easily they will probably be OK.
Anything in between and it will depend on the exact composition of your alloy, diameter of your bullets and bbl and the smoothness of your bbl.

19.5 lbs of wheel weights and .5 lbs of 50/50 solder makes a good hard bullet. I use them in my 45-70, 30-30, 308, 30-06 and all my handguns.

Here is a bunch of good info.
http://www.lasc.us/CastBulletNotes.htm

quote:

Originally posted by eddieharren:
19.5 lbs of wheel weights and .5 lbs of 50/50 solder makes a good hard bullet. I use them in my 45-70, 30-30, 308, 30-06 and all my handguns.

For the ultimate in cast bullet hardness, you can heat-treat them after sizing them. To do this, you heat them in the oven to just ten degrees or so below the point at which they begin to melt, let them "heat soak" for a couple of hours, then quench them in cold water. It is good to have an accurate oven thermometer in your oven so you can heat them precisely, and keep a record of how hot each alloy must be heated to for the greatest hardness. Bullets must be sized before hardening them, because the sizing process causes them to begin to softedn sooner than would be the case if they merely soften as they age.

Once the bullets are quenched and dried, you can lube them, avoiding any change in their diameter due to the lubing step.

Dropping bullets from the mould right into cold water accomplishes almost the same thing, but this practice should be reserved for bullets that are best shot as-cast, with no sizing after quenching.

If you shoot the bullets within several days of heat-treating them, you can size and lube them after quenching, as they will remain hard enough for a brief period after being run through a sizing die......

IF you are really intent on perfecting the use of cast bullets, I recommend Veral Smith's (Lead Bullet Technologies) book, "Jacketed Velocities" with Cast Bullets." It contains all the info one needs to use cast bullets successfully!

There is no hard and fast rule.

"leading" depends on specific alloy components as well as hardness and sizing.

Frequently sizing to be "correct" for the bore size makes them worse.

Higher tin content (easier to fill out the mould) makes things worse... because tin likes to stick to iron.
Tin like to stick to any residual copper fouling in the bore even more.

But what'll really bake your noodle is when REALLY HARD
bullets lead up the bore worst of all....

This is because setback/obturation won't affect a hard bullet as much and this allows gas leakage...
If propellant gasses leak past the bullet you'll have a mess on your hands and it doesn't matter how hard or soft the bullet is when the flames go past the lead bad stuff happens.

My experience suggests that using the fastest burning propellant that will allow you to reach your velocity goal is probably going to help.

Lead bullets will tend to leave much more fouling in bores that have exsisting copper or guilding metal fouling.
and the three most important things to avoid leading?
1)a smooth bore
2)a smooth bore
3)a smooth bore

And in case I forgot to mention it a smooth bore can help

you say you melted down a bunch of old .44 bullets?

were they cast or swaged? Swaged bullets for pistols are usually pretty soft...

AllanD