My First Cast Lead Loads

[38ExtraSpecial]

woo hoo!!

i took 65 of these to the range yesterday
200 grains HP sized to .453 (bore slugs .452)
cast from air cooled WW
loaded over 4.5 grains bullseye

half lubed with javelina half lubed with BAC

i wanted to rapid fire through them and get back to what i was doing, all i wanted to do was test for function in my S&W 1911 and to see if there was any leading.

i was very happy with the results. rapid fire through 65 rounds at 10 yards was all in an 8 1/2"X11" target paper i had. it was a nice light load and i found it very easy to get back on target. Much nicer than my normal loads with 230 grains bullets.

i did have some leading in the first 1/8" of rifling. i did some reading and it seems like i might be off on a few things. i figure jumping up the load a little more might aid in getting rid of that, or i can use 50/50 alloy to possible get some better obturation or maybe a softer lube to help with that too? who knows.

i'm vey happy with the results though.

thanks to all of you here that helped me get set up and helped teach me.

 

[Dirtypacman]

Impressive, glad to hear they all performed properly and functioned in your gun.

 

[Bob J]

Nice job!

I originally had a small leading problem when casting for my 1911 as well but increasing the sizing from .001 to .002 over bore fixed it....

 

[38ExtraSpecial]

Does anyone have a .452 or .454 star sizer die I can borrow? Or a lee sizer?

A lot of people on cast boolits have suggested to try the .452

Might as well try both.

Thanks guys

 

[Carnea]

Very nice looking...job well done! Glad they also performed as you wanted.

 

[Ziptar]

Very Nice! Good work.

Bob J's got it I think. If you size to .454 you'll probably solve your leading problem. Based on everything I've read, preventing leading comes down to 90% bullet fit, 5% lube, and 5% alloy but, try out different loads and alloys too. Thats the fun part of all of this. The tweaking.

I've got both .452 and .454 sizing dies for my Lyman 45 if you want to try some sized for those and you don't have them for your Star yet. I'll slap some Carnuba Red in the grooves so you can try that out too.

Let me know, I just finished sizing a couple thousand weekend before last and was about to take the lube sizer off the bench to make room so I could load'em this weekend.

 

[38ExtraSpecial]

i would love to try some that size. pm inbound

 

[38ExtraSpecial]

alright i just pulled a few loads and they seem to be squished down a bit my the crimping.

i need to go back to the crimp die and adjust it, that should keep my sizing spot on. maybe the .453 will work after all.

they measured .452 and .4515 so that's probably the culprit. if not i'll look in to some .454 dies as the .452 doesn't get the job done apparently.

oh and they they measure .451 and .452 at the base though, and less at the front of the driving band where the mouth of the case rested. definitely over crimped. should i be shooting for .453 in a pulled round at the case mouth area? or just most of the boolit and not necessarily the case mouth?

i'll strip down my 1911 and do the thunk test with the barrel till i find a crimp that works without ruining my boolit

 

[Ziptar]

Are you using a Lee Factory Crimp Die?

Nothing outside of the crimp itself should get swaged or sized down at all with a regular crimp die.

 

[Fixxah]

Does anyone have a .452 or .454 star sizer die I can borrow? Or a lee sizer?

A lot of people on cast boolits have suggested to try the .452

Might as well try both.

Thanks guys

Two thousandths over slugged barrel size is the magic number according to castboolits and your jacketed bullets are .451 (mine are anyway). Keep an eye out for leading, they seem too loose to me but they look sweet.

Lathesmith on castboolits makes my star sizing dies to whatever configuration I want and the turnaround is quick.

I have a .452" die with single groove you can use if you want.

I dont do more that a slight taper crimp and also use the FCD with excellent results. Some traces of lead near the throat after 500 rounds isn't bad though.

 

[38ExtraSpecial]

thanks guys.

i'll adjust the crimp die. it's a standard taper crimp die from lee. not the FCD. i really didn't put much time in to setting it up properly for cast. i was a little excited to load some rounds so i just followed the normal die set up routine, not thinking of squishing a boolit.

i have a die form lathe smith. if for some reason the .454 boolits work i imagine he could polish that die out the extra .001" right?

i'm working on something weigh ziptar on the sizing. i'll let you know on the die. thank you guys for the help

as always the generosity on this forum is amazing.

 

[DukeInFlorida]

Hey! Congrats not only on making some darn nice boolits, but on the confidence (from the great training) to trouble shoot the issues that you had at the start off.

Most people wouldn't have even figured out where the leading was, and what the causes are, etc.

I'm most impressed!

You're well on your way, and I wish you continued success and happiness with your casting.

Oh, and this should be noted by all of those of you on the fence about casting. It can be done!

Hope that anyone who's interested in learning about casting will make it to the upcoming Cast Bullet Workshop!

 

[38ExtraSpecial]

thank you duke.

there is a ton of info out there to troubleshoot the details of casting, and tons of great people to help on this forum and cast boolits.

if you're on the fence please show up to the seminar and spend some time casting. you can get in to it on the really cheap with lee sizers, boolit molds and tumble lube and make some pretty good boolits off the bat. I realized quick that even if you go all out (i was pretty close to all out) you can make up your $$ in no time!

i spent about $800

in 4 or so hours time i was able to cast about 3K of the .45 ACP 200 grain boolits. that would cost about $250 to buy that, plus shipping or maybe paying more locally. mine are going to be fit to my gun perfectly though.
by the time i crank that amount of out free lead WW 2 more times i'll have paid for the equipment completely in product.
i don't even count the lube because i figure a solid stick can lube over 1k boolits so it's not really in my equation at 1.65 per stick.

show up to the casing seminar! get hooked! shoot more! use the savings to buy more guns!

 

[38ExtraSpecial]

This is the result

I fired 50 of each lube. Cleaned In between. This was a handful of extras that produced this leading.

It seems to be less now that I got the crimp set up right still a little there though.

In between the 50 rounds it only took about 8 or 10 passes with a chore boy wrapped bronze brush to clean the leading

So should I try some .454 boolits now?

 

[DukeInFlorida]

There are really three primary factors:

Not in any order:

1) Hardness of the alloy - for 45 ACP rounds, you should be running 50-50 alloy, air cooled. 50% pure lead, and 50% wheel weights. Your OP mentioned pure wheel weights. Might be too hard.
2) Sizing - Typically, .001" over your slugged size. But, as Bob J points out, he saw a dramatic improvement with .002" over slugged size. So, however that works out is what you should be striving for
3) Lube - Glenn Fryxells book covers the ways in which lube works and operates during firing. Too soft a lube or too hard a lube might hurt you.I see you are using a couple of lubes. You said, "half lubed with javelina half lubed with BAC"

I'm not a big fan of Javalena, which is bees wax and Alox. Not enough "slippery stuff" in it for my liking. BAC should be OK, because it has 50% Carnauba Red and 50% 50-50 bees wax mix. Try bumping up to full Carnauba Red (heater required) and see if that helps.

Temperature plays a role in lube selection. I like Carnauba Red, Duke's Maine Lube (a spin off of Felix Lube, recipe was handed out last workshop, but is also on line), and Ben's Red from CB forum also looks interesting. All three will flow well during firing, even in cooler temperatures. The lube needs to be able to flow during firing, towards the back of the boolit, where it oozes out and does the lubrication. It's a combination of centrifugal rotational force, and inertia pushing it to the back of the groove. If it's too stiff, it will mostly stay in the groove and not do it's job properly.

Nice short article with confirmation that hardness might be a significant factor in your instance:
http://www.grantcunningham.com/blog_files/15e296c61415e831fecfe8fddcc1dc92-414.html

 

[38ExtraSpecial]

thanks duke.

i'm having zip tar size some at .454 and at .452 for me to try both suggestions. i thought maybe the light loads might not fit the alloy but i had a bunch of guys say that they don't have an issue with leading even with very very light loads of BE with air cooled WW. they seemed to feel it was more of a boolit fit issue.
a lot of people claim good results with these lubes too.
which leads me to believe it has to do with fit, or with the sharp shoulder where the rifling starts. as you can see in this pic here. some people on castboolits suggested that it might be from shaving lead off the shoulder with the next round ironing the shavings in to the bore. i tapped a lubed boolit in to the bore a little and turned the barrel around to tap it out, and it did leave a little shaving. sounds like he might have hit the nail on the head. i'm not sure though because i know nothing about this stuff.
you can see the chamber and rifling here

 

[Ziptar]

Hmm... If thats whats causing the leading then I would guess the bullets should be sized smaller (.452) instead of larger (.454).

Agree with Duke's point about lubes, I've tried several.

I had an assortment of stuff at one point. Lyman Orange Magic and Rooster ZAMBINI, both were way too hard. Lyman Super Moly was way too soft and horrible nasty to work with. I tried some home made too, "Lith-Bee" 60% Beeswax + 40% NAPA multi-purpose lithium grease. I also tried softening the Orange Magic by mixing it 2:1 with Bag Balm (lanolin). Both of those two were way too soft and messy as all heck to work with and forget storing them, it would just be a glob. Lee tumble lube (Alox) is OK but it's messy to work with and wasteful unless you dip instead of tumble, and I didn't have the patience for it.

Carnuba Red is the ticket IMHO. It doesn't take much heat at all, I keep my heater on the lowest setting and its plenty. A desk lamp with a 100 watt light bulb a couple inches from the lube sizer would warm it up enough to get it flowing right also I'd bet. Its hard and sticky enough that it stores really well but, it doesn't come out of the groove or glob together, yet, its not sticky and messy to work with (unless its heated too much). It's $1.65 a stick, and cheaper than that even if you order the 2x6” commercial machine sticks and melt them. I can't make as good a homemade lube for $1.65 a stick.

Most of all though I get lots of lube smudging and spattering on my targets which means its flowing and doing its job as Duke described.

You'll be testing CR out soon enough along with larger and smaller sizing, looking forward to your results.

 

[Patriot]

Have you slugged your barrel? If so, what size is it? Don't assume that yours is a standard size. I've had 1911's from the same manufacturer (different models) with different size barrels. I've never had a leading problem that the correct size didn't solve. I use Magma lube which is softer than Carnuba Red but still needs a heater to use.

 

[38ExtraSpecial]

slugged at the last seminar at .452.

i can't wait to try some this weekend at .452 and .454 to see if that helps. hopefully it does so i can order up a new die and have at it

 

[Jasper]

Have you slugged your barrel? If so, what size is it? Don't assume that yours is a standard size. I've had 1911's from the same manufacturer (different models) with different size barrels. I've never had a leading problem that the correct size didn't solve. I use Magma lube which is softer than Carnuba Red but still needs a heater to use.

I had the opposite experience wih magma lube. I used to use carnauba red, but I dont like it for bulk storage of bullets...to tacky. The magma (at least the 50 sticks I just got from them) is considerably harder, and stores much better.

 

[Patriot]

I had the opposite experience wih magma lube. I used to use carnauba red, but I dont like it for bulk storage of bullets...to tacky. The magma (at least the 50 sticks I just got from them) is considerably harder, and stores much better.

I thought that also. I talked to the folks at WLL and they said it was harder than the Magma lube (I was considering getting some). That surprised me as
BobJ has generously given some bullets over time (he uses CR) and the lube seemed tackier than what I use. Anyway, I stuck with the Magma.

 

[Jasper]

WLL might be talking about commercial red....which is a harder version of their caranuba red.

 

[Patriot]

WLL might be talking about commercial red....which is a harder version of their caranuba red.

Maybe I got the message assbackwards when he told me that.

 

[38ExtraSpecial]

ok so no luck with both sizes!! i think it really is the sharp shoulder on the rifling. it makes sense. it shaves some lead off and the next round irons it in. so on and so forth.

50 rounds of ,452 and then .454 looks just as bad as the 50 rounds of the .453

i guess i need to ream the throat

 

[Ziptar]

Darn. I was hoping that would've worked out one way or another. Interesting that size doesn't matter (I never believed that until now..... ), once you get this resolved you might find you are good with .452.

I zoomed in on the picture you posted back on Wednesday. I know nothing about stuff that head spaces on the case mouth so, this might be more of a question than a statement but, shouldn't the rifling come up flush with the little lip the case mouth mates up with?

Who made your 1911 again? Do they have any opinion when it comes shooting cast in their barrels?

 

[38ExtraSpecial]

It's a s&w

From what people have said I would have no issue with leading if the throat was reamed to brake that edge a touch to create more of a gentle transition that almost swages the boolit down instead of shaving it down.
Supposedly it's about a 3 minute job with a hand ream. It takes more time to break the gun down than to ream it.
I have a call out to Greg Derr to see what can be done.