Pennsylvania Game News - February 2012 - 62

printing shops and other sources (look on the Internet). Some people eventually make their own blend, and that comes along with experience. A couple of guys I know even use a Brinell hardness tool for testing. But on the whole wheel weights, Lyman #2 alloy or linotype will fit 99.9 percent of any shooter’s needs, and all are certainly easy enough to find. Let’s move on to the tools that are involved. First, a heat source for melting lead into a fluid state can be as simple and inexpensive as a cast iron pot that you can use on top of your stove (it helps if you’re single), or on a stand with a propane or electric source. You will also need a ladle to pour the molten lead into a bullet mould. There are also different size (volume of lead) electric lead furnaces that are designed to keep the molten lead at a constant temperature. When working with molten metals, it is an extremely good idea to wear eye/face safety gear (goggles or full face shield), long sleeve shirt and leather gloves to prevent any burns if splashing occurs, and even a heavy duty apron is a good idea. Next are the bullet moulds that cast bullets into all sorts of calibers, weights and shapes. Between Lee, Lyman and Rapine alone there must be nearly 200 moulds to pick from. All moulds come with an oil preservative that needs to be cleaned off with a solvent (some casters will also smoke them with a match afterwards) to “ready” them to cast proper bullets. When you first look at a cross section of a mould, grooves along the body of the bullet are evident and these are meant to hold lubricant, which helps prevent leading. Fun Game answers: B, F, F, B, S, S, B, S, B B, T, R, P, E, U, N, E, U, A, T, T PEANUT BUTTER
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Also a soft surface is necessary to drop hot (but cooling) bullets from the mould onto so they don’t deform, and this can be simply a couple of old hand towels in a box. A wooden handle (I use an old hammer handle) to tap the sprue of the mould open is necessary, as well as the mould’s handle hinge when bullets need a little persuasion to drop from the mould. There is also a bullet “sizing and lubricating press” that most bullet casters use so that the bullet is concentrically swaged to an exact size and lubricated to prevent leading of a barrel. A sizer can also swage a copper gas check onto the base of a bullet. (Some competitors slug their gun’s bore and special order moulds that are .001 of an inch over what the slug measures, and then just pan lubricate them.) Now that we have our tools, let’s start preparing the molten lead by fluxing it. Fluxing serves a dual purpose, and that is to get rid of impurities, as well as keeping the tin and antimony from separating from the lead. This is done by dropping a little marvelux into the molten lead (the amount is determined by the amount of lead the pot holds), and stirring it for about one minute with the ladle until a shiny surface appears. Then, with a spoon, skim off the obvious impurities that float to the top and drop them into an empty can. The old way (which is still viable) is to drop paraffin or beeswax, allowing it to smoke, lighting it on fire and allowing it to go out, then stirring it and skimming off the top. Because lead cools quickly, its molten state should be kept at around 800 degrees F., so as we pour it into a mould it has plenty of leeway in time to fill the mould completely before cooling into a hardened state. This is where the higher cost of an electric furnace holds the advantage (which can cost anywhere from $50-$250). After the mould has been readied it should be kept on top of the pot/furnace to keep its temperature consistent with the molten lead, so the lead doesn’t cool too soon as it displaces the air and cause
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Pennsylvania Game News - February 2012

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