Bullet Casting 102: Rendering

Now that we have our raw materials, we can’t just melt it and start casting bullets; our lead supply contains many impurities we need to clean out first. While some people refer to this step as smelting, it’s more properly termed rendering.

Safety

Before we go any further, I need to talk about safety. We’re dealing with molten metal at over 700 degrees Fahrenheit, which can cause terrible burns and permanent injury if we’re not careful. In addition, some of the gasses this process emits are not healthy either. I shouldn’t have to say this, but this process should be done outside in dry weather.

My recommendations for protective gear are as follows:

• Heavy shoes, preferably leather
• Heavy cotton clothing (don’t wear synthetics, they melt)
• Heavy leather heat-resistant gloves (welding gloves work well)
• Full face shield
• Hat which will fit under the face shield
• Leather or heavy cotton canvas apron
• Respirator

One other safety item: Do not, under any circumstances, allow any liquid to get into the melt! When water converts from liquid to steam, it increases in volume 1,600 times, and this reaction can empty a twenty pound pot of lead in an instant. In the hobby, we call this "Getting a visit from the Tinsel Fairy."

While we make light of it with this name, it’s no laughing matter.  Simple precautions, such as putting the metal in the pot before heating to evaporate any water, making sure scrap metal doesn’t have any closed chambers, and keeping a heavy cover on the pot during the melt can reduce this risk and protect our delicate skin, eyes, and lungs from molten metal and unpleasant gasses.

Equipment

Depending on the amount of casting we’re planning to do, the equipment needed can be fairly minimal. To get started, all you need are:

• Propane or white gas camp stove
• Small cast iron pot
• Slotted spoon
• Ladle
• Ingot molds

For those who go on to casting in larger quantities, a table with a propane weed burner for heat and a cut-down propane tank for a pot can work quite well.

The author's original and upgraded rendering setups

Much of this equipment can be sourced from thrift shops and yard sales. For ingot molds we can use muffin tins, so long as they’re steel or cast iron. Avoid aluminum, as the lead can melt its way through with disastrous results. There are of course purpose-made ingot molds, but they’re generally more expensive.

A yard sale ingot mold.
The author uses this one for pewter.

Process

The first step involves melting the lead to a liquid state. This usually occurs between 700 and 750 degrees Fahrenheit depending on the alloy. A high temperature thermometer is useful here.

At this point, we need to get our alloy casting clean. Remove any dirt or debris such as wheel weight clips, range dirt, and bullet jackets. This one’s easy, as all these things are lighter than molten lead and float to the top to be skimmed off with our slotted spoon. 

Then we need to make sure any oxidized lead on the surface is reduced back into the alloy. Some people use a small amount of candle wax for this, but let’s wait on that.

Next is fluxing which removes any dissolved metals we don’t want (aluminum, cadmium, etc) while retaining the tin, antimony, copper, silver, etc. that’s in there. According to some researchers, one of the best materials which can perform all these actions is good old sawdust. Avoid sawdust made from pressure treated lumber or plywood, as it has some nasty chemicals we don’t want.A layer of sawdust sprinkled on top of the molten alloy, allowed to char, stirred through and then skimmed off, can result in nice, clean, well balanced, alloy.  

Once we’ve done this once or twice, we can ladle the molten lead into our ingot molds. Eventually, we should have a nice collection of lead alloy appropriate for bullet casting and formed into ingots.

A batch of pewter ingots, fresh from the mold. 

I’ll go over bullet casting equipment and the casting process in a future article. In the meantime, browse the Cast Boolits online forum for more information.

Staging a CAT Tourniquet

Not actually Erin.

Picture by KJ Photography

& is used with permission.

David talked about the importance of having an authentic CAT tourniquet. I have a follow-up to that post, and it's one of the laziest posts I've made in that it's just a video, but the topic of that video is of utmost importance: Is your CAT tourniquet staged properly? 

If it isn't, you could lose valuable seconds when deploying it which might mean the difference between life and death. Take the time now to ensure it's ready to go. 

The Chlorine Shortage

Clean water is essential for life. Chlorine is one of the easiest and most common ways to disinfect (kill microbes) water, and has been covered several times here and on other blogs. I even showed the basics for making your own chlorine bleach, and there is a post in the archives about a solar-powered bleach producer.

Chlorine is a basic industrial chemical, used in a lot of processes, but a majority of it (~60%) is made in two plants. One of those plants burned last year, and the other was recently flooded. This has put pressure on the market; as supply goes down, prices go up. Add in the quarantine-based surge in home swimming pool construction and you can add increased demand to further raise prices. 

What does this mean for a prepper? 

• Since most municipal water plants use Chlorine gas as a final disinfectant for the water they supply, we can expect higher costs for our drinking water.
• Some places may try to get by using less Chlorine, which raises the potential for bacteria in our water.
• Household bleach prices will rise and availability will drop.
• Swimming pool bleach will follow household bleach.
• Suppliers may switch to imported Chlorine, which raises costs and means more transportation. 

Chlorine is a gas at normal temperature and pressure, and is shipped as a liquid under pressure. Pure Chlorine stores well, but once converted to household bleach it has a shelf-life measured in months. (Pool bleach lasts longer, but is chemically different.) Stockpiling bleach is a waste of money, so if you're counting on using it for water purification you need to either make your own or investigate other methods. Erin has written about Potassium Permanganate as an alternative method of water purification (it has other uses, too) so give that some thought.

Some other things to consider:

• Conserve water if you're on a municipal system. Reducing the demand will ensure they can treat what they are pumping.
• Have a backup water purification system on hand. If your city declares their water unsafe, they will usually enact a "Boil Order", so keep an eye on the local news. Use the search box and look for Reverse Osmosis for my recommendation.
• If you have a swimming pool (a great way to store lots of water), check with local suppliers for a season's supply of chemicals. Look into alternative methods, which is outside my realm of experience.
• Keep a supply of drinking water on hand. Having been through a few floods and other disasters, you won't get much warning before they shut down the water supply.

We live in a connected world where a failure at one location will have ripple effects that can affect you and yours. Do what you can to avoid the worst of the problems.

Prudent Prepping: TQ, or Not TQ

The dust has settled and the First 72 Hours have passed. Follow along as I build a long term plan via Prudent Prepping. 

I carry at least one tourniquet in various bags and first aid kits, and with a second set of bags to fill, I ordered two more CAT tourniquets directly from North American Rescue after having previously bought them through Amazon, which resulted in some discussion among BCP authors and others about whether or not I was getting the 'Real Deal' when buying from Amazon sellers. 

So I looked up one of my earlier Amazon purchases and found a YouTube video in the post discussing how to detect a counterfeit North American Rescue CAT goods. I recommend watching the video if you have ANY doubts of the authenticity of your tourniquets. I'll wait.

 

You're back? Good, because I needed to watch the video again myself, just as a refresher on to how a phony looks compared to the real thing. It appears to my amateur eye that my tourniquet bought back in 2018 is a genuine NAR CAT when compared to the two purchased directly from North American Rescue a bit over one month ago. Take a look:

North American Rescue CAT

The top is my 2018 purchase and the bottom is my latest buy. The things specifically mentioned in the video linked above are:

1. Printed information on the band. You can see the labels on both and the serial/batch/mfg run are easy to read, plus there is a very big difference shown between the two.

2. The red tip and how it is attached to the black band. Both are deeply bonded into each other and match.

3. The printed TIME on the hold down strap. Check.

4. Embossed printing on the black plastic panel, which I can't seem to get a good shot of with my phone. Also a check.

So, while there certainly are counterfeit North American Rescue CAT's out there, at least the two different samples I can get my hands on appear to be genuine. 

One last thing I want to mention is North American Rescue's 25% discount on Community Preparedness supplies!  May is Stop The Bleed month and everything the average person might need is on sale.

Recap and Takeaway

• Two CAT tourniquets purchased directly from North American Rescue, $29.99. 
• While that is more than what you can find them selling for on Amazon, with NAR having a big sale all May the discounts bring everything in line with online prices.
• I'm still behind my self-imposed posting schedule and hope to catch up and possibly get ahead in case I have more excitement in my daily grind.

* * *

Just a reminder: if you plan on buying anything through Amazon, please consider using our referral link. When you do, a portion of the sale comes back here to help keep this site running!

If you have comments, suggestions or corrections, please post them so we all can learn. And remember, Some Is Always Better Than None!

NOTE: All items tested were purchased by me. No products have been loaned in exchange for a favorable review. Any items sent to me for T&E will be listed as such. Suck it Feds.

 

Bullet Casting 101: Alloys

Back in 2015, Ray Davies wrote an excellent guest post on the basics of bullet casting. Since it’s been a while, I’d like to review this topic and go into more detail. 

While detail-oriented, bullet casting isn’t especially complicated, or at least doesn’t have to be. As with reloading, casting bullets may not save us money, but it should allow us to shoot more for the same amount of money spent.

 

Bullet Alloys

Bullets are one of the consumables in ammunition reloading, and are possibly the most expensive after the brass cartridge casing. They are generally made up of either a lead core surrounded by a copper alloy jacket, or unjacketed lead alloy. 

Unless we’re shooting a black powder firearm, we really don’t want pure lead; it’s too soft and at even moderate handgun velocities, the bullets will smear and deposit a coating of lead inside the barrel. The best alloy for bullets is mostly lead with small amounts of tin and antimony added. Arsenic, copper, and silver have also been used in bullet alloys, but tin and antimony are the most common.

The addition of Tin (atomic symbol Sn), between two and five percent, aids primarily in reducing surface tension which improves mold fill-out as the molten metal will more closely follow the contours inside the mold. Antimony (atomic symbol Sb) added in the range of three to six percent is used to improve the hardness of the alloy, which aids in creation of bullets that retain their structural integrity when fired down a barrel.

Wheel Weights
One of the best starting alloys is clip-on lead wheel weights that used to be found in every tire shop and garage in the country. Sadly, many states have banned the use of lead wheel weights and most are now steel or zinc.

Important Note: 

Lead and zinc do not get along! 

Even small amounts of zinc can contaminate the mix, rendering it unusable. 

A box of clean wheel weights.

An easy test is to scratch the weights with a pair of side cutters. If they leave a nice mark with little effort, it’s lead; if they barely scratch the surface, it’s probably zinc or steel. Put them aside, and you might be able to bring them to your local scrap yard.

Clip-on lead wheel weights already have about half a percent of tin and around three percent antimony in their makeup. These can be used as-is in low pressure, low velocity handgun loads such as .45 ACP; however, fill-out and bullet hardness may be less than desired.

More Sources
An excellent source of tin and antimony is pewter -- real pewter, not food-safe pewter found in restaurant supply houses. Pewter is mostly tin with some antimony, and adding a small amount of pewter to lead can greatly improve both fill-out and bullet hardness.

Pewter: a good yard sale find

Another good source of bullet lead is found in range backstops, so ask range management about the possibility of scavenging some lead from the backstop. Many ranges have contracts where the backstop is cleaned every so often; if your range does this, see about getting in touch with the lead removal company. A couple of five gallon buckets of range lead can go a long way.

Important safety note:

Do not ever use lead plates from old car batteries! They can release fatally toxic gasses when melted. Avoid them at all costs.

There are other sources of bullet lead, but I think you get the idea.

References

There are many commercial sources for reloading both jacketed and unjacketed bullets, but one of the best references on bullet casting can be found in Glen Fryxell’s free online book From Ingot to Target (a pdf version may be found here), with second place going to the Lyman Cast Bullet Handbook.

Finally, here’s a downloadable lead alloy calculator which allows you to calculate how much of what metals to add to your alloy for a particular bullet hardness, called the Brinell Scale. It’s a spreadsheet and can be opened in Excel or OpenOffice.

The Millbank Bag

Not actually Erin.

Picture by KJ Photography

& is used with permission.

Have you heard of a Millbank Bag? I certainly hadn't until last week; I believe they're more prevalent in the UK than over here, as they were originally  developed at the Royal Army Medical College in Millbank, London.

The principle behind it ought to be familiar, however: it is simply a tapered canvas bag which, when properly soaked, serves as a prefilter to remove sediment and other particles from your water before you filter or boil it. This also serves to increase the lifespan of your filter. 

To use it:

1. Soak the bag in water to cause the canvas fibers to swell. 
2. Fill the bag with water.
3. Hang the bag using the attached cord. 
4. Wait until the water is running clear.
5. Place a bottle, pan, or other water collection device underneath. 
6. Filter, boil, or chemically sterilize the collected water. 

https://tinyurl.com/4a3y56xa

When you're not using the bag as a prefilter, you can use it to carry items. 

You can purchase a 5 liter/1.3 gallon Millbank Bag made in the USA for $32.25 ($26.50 for the bag, plus $5.75 shipping) at Millbankbagsusa.com. 

Here's a Millbank Bag being used by Dave Canterbury. 

A Millbank Bag is a lightweight, multipurpose item which deserves a spot in every prepper's Bug Out Bag. 

Doxxing Prep

Doxxing, or "dropping docs", is a fairly new threat, which started to become common in the 1990s and has evolved into an everyday occurrence today. Put simply, doxxing is digging up and releasing private information on a person as a form of threat, punishment, or revenge. 

We all have skeletons in our closets. Nobody is perfect; mistakes and poor judgement is part of being human. If you do or say something that offends another person, which is almost a given in today's cultural climate, you run the risk of having your personal information published. Blackmail is another popular option, something usually reserved for those with money or public opinion to lose. Revenge is as old as history and has countless causes. 

Be Prepared for Doxxing
 you have to take stock of your skeletons and decide if they are big enough to have a serious impact on your life if they are paraded in public. This is becoming more difficult because the perpetually offended are digging deeper and searching for anything that their target may have done at any point in their life. The causes of offence are also morphing into some truly bizarre stretches of reality; things that were innocuous 40 years ago are enough to ruin a career today. Certain words and activities are now "forbidden" even though they were in common use in recent history. 

Make the Doxxer's Job Harder

• Watch what you post on the internet, because it's extremely difficult to delete anything once published online.
• Modify what you share publicly and privately. Your friends are less likely to share personal information than a random person in your neighborhood group or page. 
• Choose your social media with care. Research their security and privacy policies. Remember that if you're not paying for a service, you're not the customer; rather, you're the product being sold. Ad revenue pays for most social media, so personal information is what they gather.
• Stop doing stupid things. This is to reduce future exposure, but some people think they're special and can get away with things. Unless they're major politicians, it doesn't work that way

What If You're Targeted?

If you become the target of doxxing, your options are limited.

• Fight back. Doxxing the doxxer is a valid reaction, but they can be hard to track down. They also are likely to have less to lose, so it may not have much effect.
• If the doxxer is a public figure, get a lawyer involved. You won't be able to delete anything they said or printed, but you might be able to hurt them enough financially that they stop.
• Ignore it. If a perpetually offended idiot digs up a speeding ticket you got 20 years ago and tries to make it a hanging offence, smile and go about your life.
• Ridicule can work if the doxxer has a sense of shame. This is becoming more rare since society is moving towards an "anything goes" mentality; a society where there are no sins will have no sense of shame. 

It's up to you to decide if doxxing is a serious threat to you. Our circumstances are all different, so take some time for self-reflection.