Dark Skies
Member
I just bought a Lee bullet mold for casting 125 grain flat nose .357 bullets for putting through my Winchester 1894 carbine. The only place I'll be shooting these loads are on a 25 yard indoor range. We can only shoot lead rounds on this range and aren't allowed to use gas checks - so my loads will be pretty light.
Eventually I'll be using lead gathered from the range trap but it's just been cleaned out and so I won't be able to grab any till the next clean up in a few months time. In the meantime I'm planning to use alternatively sourced material.
Somewhere in my garage I have a four inch square box of wheel weights kicking around. I was also planning to go scrounging more wheel weights from the local car breakers yard. Finally, I have a big tin of various bits of lead pipe and old airgun pellets I figured I could utilise.
I've had a look on the net and there's a confusing array of favourite mixes including the use of tin to get hardness up. After a lot of reading into the subject I soon found myself in a can't see the wood for the trees scenario.
So ... bearing in mind I want to keep things simple and don't fancy having to buy in tin ...
Could I just use wheel weights on their own or will they either be too hard or not hard enough for my use? If I were to lump in my scrap lead and wheelweights in a 50 / 50 mix would this be too soft and likely to lead the barrel?
All advice gratefully received.
Eventually I'll be using lead gathered from the range trap but it's just been cleaned out and so I won't be able to grab any till the next clean up in a few months time. In the meantime I'm planning to use alternatively sourced material.
Somewhere in my garage I have a four inch square box of wheel weights kicking around. I was also planning to go scrounging more wheel weights from the local car breakers yard. Finally, I have a big tin of various bits of lead pipe and old airgun pellets I figured I could utilise.
I've had a look on the net and there's a confusing array of favourite mixes including the use of tin to get hardness up. After a lot of reading into the subject I soon found myself in a can't see the wood for the trees scenario.
So ... bearing in mind I want to keep things simple and don't fancy having to buy in tin ...
Could I just use wheel weights on their own or will they either be too hard or not hard enough for my use? If I were to lump in my scrap lead and wheelweights in a 50 / 50 mix would this be too soft and likely to lead the barrel?
All advice gratefully received.