Beginner reloading .32 rounds

[oldcaster]

I never water drop because I don't want the bullets that hard. The only bullets that will water drop are ones with some antimony in them. The alloy David M mentioned would not harden but he has exactly what is needed already anyway. His BHN is going to be around 8-9 and has no antimony in the alloy. There are several different ways to achieve this hardness from different mixtures and his way is about the best but unfortunately the hardest to come by without buying it outright and it is more expensive to do this unless you have an outlet. If you can cast a good bullet with what you have, it will be about right because it can't be made too soft other than it won't cast correctly if it is too lead pure. While adding antimony will improve mold fillout a little bit, tin does a much better job. A lack of tin makes you cast at a lot hotter temperature also in order to get fillout. I noticed you mentioned that you won't have jacketed bullets in your mix but if you did, they will be of the same alloy as the 22 rimfire which are pure lead.

Years ago, virtually everyone shot the pure lead Star lead bullets which were excellent but they weren't cast but swaged just like a rimfire bullet is.

[SamEEE]

I shoot the heavier (98gr) Lapua projectile which is laser-cast, they seem to shoot nicely in my GSP.
Waterdropping is kind of moot if you have to resize at all. With such a low pressure cartridge you will not likely need that level of hardness.

As an aside I had good luck casting Air Pistol range scrap. It was kind of self fluxing with all of the bits of air pistol targets in the brew.
I had mixed results with wheel weights, although more consistency in refining larger batches of lead.

I would not recommend casting. It is a shit of a job; hot, dirty, and hazardous work.
That said, .455 is pretty fun to shoot - so there is that.

TL;DR - Lapua, Speer, H&N Saeco bullet might be worth a look.

[oldcaster]

SamEE. It is possible that you got some zinc in your mix when you used wheel weights. Zinc pretty much looks and feels the same but when mixed with lead, it is difficult to cast with. It will make a sort of foamy mixture on the top and give poor fillout. When the wheel weights are initially melted, if you keep your melt around 650 degrees the zinc weights will float and not melt and can be picked out.

The pellets you used likely were pure lead or at least most of them were because they are swaged and it is difficult to swage anything but pure lead however both Magnus and Zero swaged bullets have a BHN of around 9 - 10 and pure is around 5. Typical cast are around 15 to 17 and the reason is more about shipping something that won't get beat up than it is about accuracy. Using hard lead is typically more expensive than the softer stuff.

[Rover]

Check out this old thread, especially the last post.

viewtopic.php?f=4&t=31141&hilit=rover

[Spencer]

Re wheel weights:

after 30 years in the tyre (tire) industry, one thing was obvious - wheel weight alloy appeared to be 'whatever was at hand' when the casting machine was turned on.
A lot of wheel weights were almost pure lead, and some were so hard/brittle that they would break if dropped on a concrete floor.

If you are going to cast-your-own using wheel weights in the alloy, expect the hardness (and projectile weight) to vary.

[oldcaster]

It seems that the average BHN of wheel weights today runs around 10. Not too many years ago I would have said 12-13. Almost all of the stickons are pure lead but a few that are for motorcycles are almost pure tin but I don't see much of them around. I like to mix wheel weights 50/50 with close to pure which usually comes from rimfire ammo. Depending on what kind of bullets I am casting, I sometimes add tin. As a general rule, the smaller the bullet the more tin rich the alloy needs to be.

[jbshooter]

[quote="SamEEE"]I shoot the heavier (98gr) Lapua projectile which is laser-cast, they seem to shoot nicely in my GSP.


What is a laser-cast projectile?

[Spencer]

I shoot the heavier (98gr) Lapua projectile which is laser-cast, they seem to shoot nicely in my GSP.


What is a laser-cast projectile?

ditto

[David M]

Laser-Cast® is a registered brand name for factory-cast bullets. (Oregon Trails Laser Cast)
http://oregontrailbullet.com/

[SamEEE]

Cast by lasers, duh.

[Spencer]

Cast by lasers...

That would be interesting to find out about.

[jbshooter]

Ditto. How is laser casting done?

[JamesH]

Cast by lasers, duh.

[JiriK]

Mihec also make molds for both .32 and .38 HBWC - http://www.mp-molds.com/index.php?pr=35 ... C_4cav_gal

Have both, beautifully made ....

I ordered Mihec hbwc molds (.32 & .38) late last year. Have had them for some time now, but since I cast outdoors & it's winter.. Comments on lead alloy for hbwc?

[oldcaster]

For the most part try to keep your alloy in the 8 -9 BHN range. Since there are very thin parts on a HBWC bullet, your alloy should be fairly tin rich. Since it is hard to tell how much tin is in the alloy, I always try first and if unsuccessful I add tin but make sure you don't have an alloy that has some zinc in it because if there is very much it makes it all but impossible to make a good bullet. A HBWC should be soft because the back of the bullet should spread and make a good seal. If the bullet is real hard, it may not do it as successfully and is also more likely to cause leading. Years ago all the swaged target bullets were pure lead which is around 5 BHN and they worked real well.

[deadeyedick]

Years ago all the swaged target bullets were pure lead which is around 5 BHN and they worked real well.

With this being the case, why not use pure lead once more ?

[fc60]

Greetings,

I had one of the MIHA HBWC moulds in 32.

I used 20:1 Lead:Tin alloy.

Very labor intensive. I ended up selling the mould and went back to swaged bullets.

Attached are my test results at 50 yards. It was A Haemmerli SP-20 barrel mounted in a machine fixture.

Cheers,

Dave

[oldcaster]

Years ago all the swaged target bullets were pure lead which is around 5 BHN and they worked real well.

With this being the case, why not use pure lead once more ?

The only reason you can't is because they won't give you full fill out in the mold. There will be grooves or edges missing. If you swage the bullets, it is an advantage to use pure lead because they squeeze into position easier. One of the best alloys around is the lead tin alloy that Dave used in the next post above, higher cost being the only drawback.

[deadeyedick]

Thanks oldcaster, I have used swaged hbwc's for many years and have been close to casting my own on several occasions however the effort/potential associated health risks prevented it happening.

I am aware of the lack of fullness with pure lead, and it seems obvious that a more consistent shape would be better but if they "worked so well in the past with pure lead" even with the lack of uniformity I am curious if any testing for accuracy was undertaken to compare the pure lead versus antinomy/lead mixture. The results would be interesting, or did the change occur simply to achieve a more cosmetically acceptable and more consistent casting ?

fc60... would you mind elaborating on the SP20 barrel mounted in a machine fixture. I am curious how you made it happen.

[oldcaster]

Thanks oldcaster, I have used swaged hbwc's for many years and have been close to casting my own on several occasions however the effort/potential associated health risks prevented it happening.

I am aware of the lack of fullness with pure lead, and it seems obvious that a more consistent shape would be better but if they "worked so well in the past with pure lead" even with the lack of uniformity I am curious if any testing for accuracy was undertaken to compare the pure lead versus antinomy/lead mixture. The results would be interesting, or did the change occur simply to achieve a more cosmetically acceptable and more consistent casting ?

.

Other than spilling melted lead all over yourself there really isn't any health risk. About the only way lead levels can be elevated any significant amount is shooting indoors. Being around molten lead won't do it unless the temperatures are way above what is necessary.

Some of my most accurate bullets are from casting and the Saeco 323 100 grain bullet is in this category. There is also an RCBS bullet (32-098) that I have never tried but it looks quite similar and would probably shoot as well if it casts large enough.

The reason swaged pure lead works is because the lead when smashed into shape winds up perfect every time. A swaged bullet must have an outside coating for lubrication which limits it for velocities around 800 fps and below.

In general bullets are cast with hard lead for cosmetic reasons and so they won't deform in shipping. That goes for hard lube also. Years ago, Elmer Keith insisted that bullets needed to be hard to work well and it wound up being a mantra. The only problem is that he meant not from an alloy of around 5-6 BHN but around 8 which would have been accomplished with tin added to the alloy and what he considered hard in comparison to pure which was always used for muzzle loaders at the time.