Almost ready to go with my shotshell reloading

[RooftopKorean]

Rooftop, Being in a medical field, keep an ear out for when they are remodeling an X-Ray room, its lined with pure lead in sheet form!!!!! Also plumbers rehabbing all the time are always ripping out pure lead piping. Most times they'll give it to you.
Robin

If my hospital were ever to throw it away I wouldn't be able to get it. Too much corporate bullshit involved.

I'll be hitting up my neighbor who runs a tire shop.

 

[Acer-m14]

I'll be hitting up my neighbor who runs a tire shop.

the stick on lead weights are softer lead then the hammer on ones .. ( do not use your pot to melt them down )

melt them down in some other pot to burn off the sticky adhesive and other stinky junk on them ..

flux it and then pour that into muffin pans to use to cast later .. ( cup cake cooking pan ) make nice little ingots



now a days .. them wheel weight buckets are full of mixed soft lead , hard lead , zinc and steel ..

how i know ..

5 yrs or so ago i payed 5 bucks a 5 gal pail at the car dealer for there buckets ..

i got 4 buckets from them .. all with mix weights .

i still got 2 more buckets to sort .. the first 2 gave me like 35 lbs of mixed lead

the days of wheel weights are going away ..

find a junk yard and see if they have lead .. some may not want to sell .. can't hurt to ask thou ..

Sail boat yard .. that keel is full of lead .. take a chain saw ..

 

[Acer-m14]

Rooftop, Being in a medical field, keep an ear out for when they are remodeling an X-Ray room, its lined with pure lead in sheet form!!!!! Also plumbers rehabbing all the time are always ripping out pure lead piping. Most times they'll give it to you.
Robin

i have seen info that dentist have lead too from the film waist when they do a x-ray ..

was 10 yrs ago

 

[Robin]

The old wheel weights have antimony in them, they are much harder than pure lead and will not cast to the same diameter as pure lead.
Robin

 

[repete]

Lee makes a hardness tester - cheap!. It seems to work well enough, especially for relative hardness comparison.

I had one, loaned it out to a guy I know who then up and moved!

 

[repete]

The old wheel weights have antimony in them, they are much harder than pure lead and will not cast to the same diameter as pure lead.
Robin

Yeah, but the work real good for pistol bullets.
For shotgun slugs (or balls)you would want pretty much as soft as you can get. IIRC shotgun barrels are fairly soft and you don't want to wear it out prematurely.

Also need to correct myself, I have no idea what the hell BRN is, I meant to spell BHN- Brinell Hardness Number.

 

[repete]

If my hospital were ever to throw it away I wouldn't be able to get it. Too much corporate bullshit involved.

Just as well, it's a real bitch getting it separated, scrape and then power wash the wall board off first, then melt and flux.

Check junk yards for lead, I've got nice NOS plumbers ingots from longg ago at a scrap yard $0.50 lb. Now a days anything less then $2.00 a lb seems to be a deal
RTK, do want an actual 12 ga slug mold? I know I have one somewhere around here that I've never used, not sure of the condition.

 

[RooftopKorean]

Just as well, it's a real bitch getting it separated, scrape and then power wash the wall board off first, then melt and flux.

Check junk yards for lead, I've got nice NOS plumbers ingots from longg ago at a scrap yard $0.50 lb. Now a days anything less then $2.00 a lb seems to be a deal
RTK, do want an actual 12 ga slug mold? I know I have one somewhere around here that I've never used, not sure of the condition.

Sure, hit me up with a PM.

 

[repete]

Sure, hit me up with a PM.

Pm. on it's way

 

[RooftopKorean]

First off, thanks to @repete for the Lee 1oz key drive slug mold!



I went a different route and melted down my round balls all into key drive slugs.

I also decided to buy new hulls and wads, I went with:

• FIOCCHI WAD 12ga 1-1/8oz STRAIGHT WALL
• FIOCCHI HULL 12ga 2.75" 8mm PRIMED CLEAR

I made five of each rolled and star crimped. Two out of the five, star crimps got messed up. I'm guessing I put too much pressure.

Someone on Shotgun World suggested using 20 gauge nitro cards to put under the wads.

I will be sending these out for testing to ensure pressure tolerances.

 

[RooftopKorean]

Did some star crimps on the Winchester AA hulls I had also. These I loaded to 20gr of Red dot. This seems to have come out better and was less dishing in the crimp (except one where I went too hard). I'm sure the extra powder added to the height where the wad sits.

Found some load data on Cast Boolits that was testing and did 1200 fps.

 

[repete]

I see some wrinkles, try degreasing the mold and then getting it hotter! That should smooth them right out.

 

[RooftopKorean]

I see some wrinkles, try degreasing the mold and then getting it hotter! That should smooth them right out.

That's actually from me gripping them with the mold to get it off the inside mold.