Conicals

[alleyyooper]

Any thing wrong with casting and shooting WW hard conicals and saveing the soft lead ones for hunting?

Al

[flounder33]

They would sure load a lot different and that makes me think they would shoot different from soft lead.
Art

[Semisane]

Ought to work OK (but probably not great) if it's a good bore fit. I cast some Lee REALs with wheel weights and they were way too hard to start in the bore.

[Gm54-120]

Ive got some that a harder than pure lead and seating them past the top band is a PITA sometimes compared to a pure lead Great Plains.

Mine seem to shoot fine though once you get them down the bore. WW lead though is probably harder than mine and full of other impurities.

My caster wont even take them anymore as trade.

[cayugad]

Also being wheel weights and making direct contact to the rifling of the bore, I think you might want to check the barrel for leading after you shoot a few of them.

[HEAD0001]

WW hardly qualifies as hard lead. Yes it is a bit harder than pure lead, but certainly it is not considered as hard lead.

WW is going to cast slightly larger than pure lead. It really is that simple. If you are having a problem loading the WW then size it in a sizer. Being harder to load is not a matter of the lead being harder. It is a function of the bullet being larger.

I no longer strive to find pure lead to load and shoot, and hunt with in my MZ's. I literally have a couple of tons of WW. So I decided to learn how to use it. And to put it simply all it took was a good sizer, and a good lube. From there it is all down hill. WW will perform on game with no problem.

Barrel leading is more a factor of bullet size, lube, and initial charge of heat(shot with or without a wad to prevent bullet base flaming). And not so much lead content or hardness. After all we are not reaching the higher velocities where a gas check is required.

Bullet obturation is also a factor that needs to be considered. I have heard it said that pure lead will obturate better than WW and some harder lead. And that may be true. But obturation is directly proportional to accuracy. And I have never seen a major difference in accuracy between pure lead and WW. And if your bullet is a little over sized then IMO a softer bullet will "rifle" more than WW, so the softer lead will load slightly easier, but you will have more lead in the barrel from the bullet being torn while loading. Tom.

[MountainDevil54]

i'd just use soft lead, shoot into a sand bucket and just recover the lead later down the road.

[lemoyne]

There is one thing WW is good for if you have a mold cut that is identical to a jacketed bullet and is a hollow point bullet then you can adjust the weight to be the same by making the hollow point the right depth and shoot it in a sabot for cheap practice bullets and save your expensive jacketed bullets for hunting. The flight characteristics will be very similar but do not expect them to be exactly the same.

[alleyyooper]

Thanks for the replys.

Bought a big box of what I thought was shot shell reloading stuff. A milk jug of shot and bag of shot a couple of bags of 12ga wads a bag of 20ga wads and loose empty hulls of 12 and 20ga. Man that box weighed a bunch, had to have help lifting it in to the truck. At home I removed stuff so I could lift it out. In the bottom is a cofee can full of round balls with 50 cal wrote on the can but I think they are to small for that. I need to mic them. there are also a few conicals Pistol bullet size, short and I bet about .451. Also there was a mold with handles. Nothing I could find to id what it is just some numbers.

Tom I have bees wax so I can have some really good lube. I liked what you had to say about useing WW that used to be free for the asking.
I could spring for a sizer I think. Just have to sell more honey.

Al