Lead

[Superman]

Been collecting the wheel weights from work since August, so right at 4 month. Took the bucket home today, sorted through it and ended up with 25 pounds of clip-on lead wheel weights and 6 pounds of stick-on weights. We dont do much tire work.

 If anyone is interested, the 25 pounds of clip-on weights netted 21.5 pounds of ingots. So roughly 15% loss in weight after smelting. Haven't smelted any of the stick-on weights yet, I have about 60 pounds total so far.

[Bad Habit]

20% loss after smelting? That sounds about right. How long did it take you to melt everything down?

[Superman]

Not sure how long it took, I was doing other stuff at the same time. I smelted more than that 25 pounds, ended up with about 75 pounds of ingots. Still have two 5 gallon buckets of weights and that 60 pounds of stick-ons to smelt.

 

It looks like the Lee molds are out for 7.62x39, they are listed as .312, all my barrels are .314 and 1 slugged out to .312(US made Green Mountain Barrel). Looks like I need to get a .316 mold for them. I did pull some bullets from factory loaded ammo. Tula and Golden Tiger measure .310, Corbon and Barnes as well as most 7.62x39 bullets are listed as .310 diameter as well. I have read that some 7.62x39 ammo actually has .308 bullets.

Edited December 17, 2012 by Superman

[Superman]

Fired off a bunch of my cast boolits today. Like Caster said, what are you waiting for? I am only casting for 9mm right now, plan on casting for 38/357, 45 Colt, 7.62x39. Only have about 100 cases for 357 and 100 for 45 Colt right now. Either people dont shoot them much around here or someone is beating me to it. I am enjoying the heck out of it so far, just not sure how far down the rabbit hole I want to go. I have caught myself watching youtube for swaging videos for 223 using 22lr cases and 45 using 40S&W cases. Also been thinking about 9x25 Dillon, have been intrigued with that round ever since I first found out about it. I have a little less than 100 10mm cases saved so far, its another hard to find case around here. But I did come up with 7-800 223 cases today.

Edited December 23, 2012 by Superman

[Superman]

It looks like the Lee molds are out for 7.62x39, they are listed as .312, all my barrels are .314 and 1 slugged out to .312(US made Green Mountain Barrel). Looks like I need to get a .316 mold for them. I did pull some bullets from factory loaded ammo. Tula and Golden Tiger measure .310, Corbon and Barnes as well as most 7.62x39 bullets are listed as .310 diameter as well. I have read that some 7.62x39 ammo actually has .308 bullets.

So what do yall think of this mold for 7.62x39? Seems similar to the lee 155gr bullet.

http://noebulletmolds.com/orders/catalog/product_info.php?cPath=31&products_id=263

 

Found another mold that I like better, but dont know when it will actually go into production

http://castboolits.gunloads.com/showthread.php?167692-MiHec-311410-Brass-Cramer-HP