Factory cast bullet hardness

firemn260 said:

I have several hundred 45 cal 200 gr roundnose bullets. I’m wondering what type of alloy cast bullet companies might use in high production casting. I can’t remember who made the bullets but I’m pretty sure they are not swaged because you can see where the sprue was cut off. I’m just breaking into the cast world so my knowledge is limited.

Reason I’m asking is I would like to melt them down so I can cast some .430 bullets for my 44 and 444 marlin. I’m hoping for around 18-20 brin.

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John from MD said:

Learn to powder coat your bullets. They are much more forgiving when powder coated. I trust it so that I have not used a lead hardness tester in years. I use range lead, old sinkers, remains of lead pellets etc. It all casts well and, when powder coated, I can shoot it in everything from .32 ACP to . 44 magnum to 30-06.

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Biggfoot44 said:

That said , unless you get " cowboy alloy " on purpose , at least 90% of commercial cast bullets use the modern industry standard 2% tin , 6% antimony, 92% lead , with aprox 16Bn .

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firemn260 said:

I have considered that and that’s something I would like to look into. I use gas checks for my 240gr lee swc. Probably don’t need them with my lower velocity loads but I do it anyway.
Does powder coating eliminate the need for gc for higher velocity and gas cutting? I use wheel clip on weights now but I haven’t pushed them to hard.

In my experience, shooting a gas check designed bullet with no check is not as accurate. The powder coating gives you more flexibility in lead hardness and bullet diameter. Many .44 molds will drop bullets at .429/.430 when your bore might like .432 for best accuracy. The couple thou of PC makes the bullet more accurate if it is under size. The PC skin is baked onto the bullet and is pretty hard. This allows weaker alloys to be shot at higher speeds. For my .44's made with scrap lead of all sorts, I have no leading and great accuracy out of both my Taurus .44 and Rossi .44 carbine. I can shoot 11gns of Unique, 22 grains of 2400 or 24gns of H110. (Being an old arthritic, I shoot more of the Unique loads than anything else )



I found the box and the bullets I have are oeregon trail laser cast bullets. Seem pretty hard when I compare nicking soft lead with my finger nail.


Thanks for the reply’s. I would like to learn more about powder coating.

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