Casted some Lyman Plains .50 Cal

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Idaholewis

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I Casted up a few .50 Cal Lyman Plains Bullets this Morning for a Friend. As I’ve said MANY times, This is a DARN Good Bullet in Both .50, and .54 Caliber. These Lyman Plains are Every bit As good, and even Better than some of my Custom Molds :lewis: For a Hunting Bullet, Cast of Soft Lead, you won’t beat these in my opinion

YRDl2jt.jpg
 
I Casted up a few .50 Cal Lyman Plains Bullets this Morning for a Friend. As I’ve said MANY times, This is a DARN Good Bullet in Both .50, and .54 Caliber. These Lyman Plains are Every bit As good, and even Better than some of my Custom Molds :lewis: For a Hunting Bullet, Cast of Soft Lead, you won’t beat these in my opinion

YRDl2jt.jpg
How long does it take you to cast a batch like that?
 
How long does it take you to cast a batch like that?

I actually had my timer running, so i can tell you precisely :) There is 128 Bullets there, 1 hr and 14 Minutes, That’s counting the 4 Minutes 30 seconds to Get the Mold up to Temp, and running in the “Zone” I can cast 2 of these per Minute. With Pure Lead i cut the Sprue in 1-2 seconds of it Solidifying. I had a little Xtra time to this by adding back Sprues. It goes pretty Quick When you get on a “Roll” with it :lewis:
 
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I would love to see the results of this bullet shot out of the Optima V2 pistol, but all of the current owners say that any bullet weighing more than 250 grains delivers intolerable recoil after more than 1-2 shots.

Bad pistol grip design, and materials choice. Should have had a Hogue, recoil-absorbing grip as standard.
 
Looks like I found my 54 cal Lyman plains mold thanks to this forum , expect to be melt some lead next week and the deer are on notice. Is pure gonna stay stuck on powder or should I mix a little tin 40-1/30-1 ? Ed

It really depends on the Pure Lead? If by chance you have some of that really soft Pure Lead that is out there, it probably won’t hold good? That’s been my Experience anyway, and the reason i started playing with 1-40 Alloy. The Pure Lead i have been getting over at Buffalo Arms will Hold on it’s own, It tests at .031-.032 in my Cabin Tree hardness tester, Pure Lead is given a Wide Range of .015-.035 on my Reference Chart, So this Certified Pure lead from BACO is at the upper end, which is GOOD.

What i would do is test your Pure Lead to Bore fit First, if it’s questionable that it will hold the bore? It’s an easy fix to make sure it will, a very tiny bit of 1-40, or 1-30 Alloy goes a LONG LONG Way. As an example, Let’s say you have some REALLY Soft Pure Lead, And all of your Lead and Alloys are in lyman ingot Form, you could Easily do 8-10 Pure Lead, to 1 ingot of 1-40, That would Jump you up to the Top end of Pure Lead. I recently helped Ed Mehlig with this

Bullet Performance wise (Best possible Mushrooming) at Real Blackpowder Velocities and Substitutes such as Pyrodex and Triple Seven, The Purest we can keep our Pure Lead, the Better of we are.
 
What Lew said. With the pure lead that I had purchased from Rotometals it took 7 Lyman Ingot molds of their pure lead to 1 of 40-1 lead to get the hardness that I was looking for. I think the max I would go would be a 8-1 mix? But you'd need to test it out to see what works for you.

By the way if you are looking to buy Pure lead I would get it from Buffalo Arms. I found them to be cheaper than Rotometals thanks to Idaholewis on that tip! :lewis:
 
I use 2% tin added to my pure lead that's what white muzzleloader use to use, I'm lucky the guy across the street supplies Berger bullets with lead so i even get free delivery well maybe a few beers for delivery not so bad !
 
I use 2% tin added to my pure lead that's what white muzzleloader use to use, I'm lucky the guy across the street supplies Berger bullets with lead so i even get free delivery well maybe a few beers for delivery not so bad !

You are definitely fortunate! I envy you and IdahoLewis as he lives near Buffalo Arms and can just walk in and buy his supplies.
 
I was able to get a big supply of pure lead from a cabinet maker who refurbished dentist offices. The walls all had lead sheeting. He saved the old stuff for me and it was dead soft. It wasn't long before I had enough to last a couple of decades for the cost of a few cases of beer. Hope this helps as shipping lead is probably expensive.
 

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