Greetings,
I recently purchased 100lbs of lead from poster name Masek77. I was very pleased with the rapid responses I received (e-mail) from him with questions that I'd had about his product and ordering. His original solicitation posting can still be read.
He claims:
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"Perfect for cast bullets. Formulated specifically for casting. Better than Lyman 2. Better than Linotype. Way better than wheel weight lead and "range" lead.
The BRN hardness is approximately 15.5. This lead is an alloy of several metals, including lead, tin, antimony, and arsenic. It is mixed under extremely high pressures to produce the properties required. This lead is made specifically to be poured into very complex molds with an absolute minimum of scrap due to incomplete filling of the mold."
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I received the lead via USPS in just a few days after my payment had cleared. It showed up in a combination of cornbread muffin-tin ingots and Lee ingots. I verified and found that I had a few ounces over 100lbs.
I casted bullets with it on New Year's Day, and made about 600 of my SAECO 196gr 30cal bullets.
First a bit of background:
The Lyman Number 2 Alloy that I had used previously was from Dillon (the Blue Press guys) and dropped bullets between 195.9 and 196.5 grains, assuming I did my job consistantly. The visual inspection reject rate was about 1 in 10. The appearance of the bullets was kind of a clouded silver/grey, and the rejected bullets almost always had not filled the top band completely. These were weighed (rejects) and determined to be about 0.5gr lighter on average. -I inspect with a magnifyer.-
Masek77's claims above were substantiated by me. The melt required no fluxing, and looked like liquid chrome. There was no cloudiness in the pot or on the bullets. My mould has never popped bullets out so freely and with so little effort. They came out bright and shiny. I've check weighed them and found that they were lighter than the #2 alloy with a range of 193.9gr to 194.5gr, with about 80% of them at 194.4 or 194.5gr. The bands were filled completely and had nice, sharp shoulders. The lighter bullets had a ripped off sprue, instead of cleanly sheared, as I was rushing a few, apparently. My visual reject bucket has 14 bullets in it, with 6 added that were under (voids?) or over weight (mould blocks not tightly closed
). I've not verified the hardness, but have noted that the ingots and bullets make a distinct "ring" when dropped, which is similar to the Lyman #2 alloy castings.
I'm very pleased with Masek77's product and now that I've used about 17 pounds of it, I hope that I can get results at the range that make me as pleased as I was at the casting bench.
Dean
