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Posted: 3/15/2009 5:40:12 PM EDT
| Any body shoot cast lead bullets out of there AR 9mm? Do you have any problems? |
A friend shot some hard cast in his Colt AR 9 MM carbine and another friend has shot hard cast 40 S&W in an Olympic 40 cal. AR carbine which uses Glock magazines. Neither had any issues but these bullets we make are very hard. We use a master caster and we put solder in our wheel weights when we cast the bullets. We also drop the hot bullets into a bucket of water which instantly cools the bullets. You can't scratch these bullets with your finger nail. They are very accurate hard bullets but usually we don't drive them at very high velocity, around 900 to 950 FPS max. We usually try to get the most bang for the buck in our ammo so all we want is a reliable load which will function a semi auto.
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Unless I get the ammo free somewhere, cast is all I shoot in my 9mm and .45acp Oly AR's. I cast straight wheelweight alloy and use Thompson's Blue Lube and get absolutely no leading at all keeping my loads about .2gr under max. I also size them .002" over bore diameter. From my experiences, a slightly softer bullet sized slightly oversize which will expand from the pressure when fired, similar to the Civil War era Miniball, leads less than a hard cast bullet.
I used to use very hard commercial cast bullets sized to the standard recognized sizes, but I constantly had leading issues. A softer wheelweight alloy bullet, sized .002" over bore diameter solved the leading problems. |
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Quoted:
Unless I get the ammo free somewhere, cast is all I shoot in my 9mm and .45acp Oly AR's. I cast straight wheelweight alloy and use Thompson's Blue Lube and get absolutely no leading at all keeping my loads about .2gr under max. I also size them .002" over bore diameter. From my experiences, a slightly softer bullet sized slightly oversize which will expand from the pressure when fired, similar to the Civil War era Miniball, leads less than a hard cast bullet. I used to use very hard commercial cast bullets sized to the standard recognized sizes, but I constantly had leading issues. A softer wheelweight alloy bullet, sized .002" over bore diameter solved the leading problems. This is pretty much the same way I make mine - either straight wheelweights or sometimes up to 10% soft lead gets added if I have some that needs to get used up, .356 size die (only .001" over bore), and Thompson's Blue Angel Lube. OP - If you plan on buying local/commercial cast bullets, you may need to experiment with your loads or try different bullets (of varying hardness and lube types) until you find the one that works best for you. |
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I shoot cast in my 9mm AR all of the time. I size to .356 and use Lee NRA 50/50 Alox lube. I use wheel weights and range scrap/linotype mix. I don't have any leading problems and I my loads are extremely accurate, significantly more accurate than WWB. I have several moulds, but I generally use my Lee 6 Cavity 356-120 TC, because of accuracy and because I can knock out over a 1000 bullets in less than 2 hours with the beast.
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