about to join the casting club,,,, Accurate molds for .72 Zues

[Zeddymon]

well i hit the buy button for a .72 Zues from https://www.aresairgunstactical.com/ and considering the cost of available ammo for it it seemed best to get a mold
seems other than custom molds the Accurate molds have the most variety and seemigly the only that can provide the .729 size needed
i got one mold coming https://accuratemolds.com/bullet_detail.php?bullet=73-570S , 570 grain .729, if the twist rate is the same as the challengers at 1:32 a nice short slug should be accurate.
on the plus side local garage will give me all the wheel weights i want, small town perks, and i will be able to use a friends melting pot until i get my own, i am off grid so i am considering the old fashion cast iron set up, unless any of you guys had bad results, if not the lee 4-20 pot can be set up at work or run off the genny so as not to tax my solar.

[BSJ]

Modern wheel weights probably aren't lead alloy.

And if you can get lead ones, they're kinda too hard for airgun uses.

[Nvreloader]

Hey Zed

You had better have a 100 lb's + of lead handy,
at 570 gr's per bullet, you are only get about 12 bullets per pound, 
at least with a 22 cal, I get about 430+ per pound. 

I am glad, I don't have a BIG Bore AG.............LOL   

I use to cast for my 44/45 calibers, they eat up lots of lead also.
Don

[EdinGa]

Hey Zed

You had better have a 100 lb's + of lead handy,
at 570 gr's per bullet, you are only get about 12 bullets per pound, 
at least with a 22 cal, I get about 430+ per pound. 

I am glad, I don't have a BIG Bore AG.............LOL   

I use to cast for my 44/45 calibers, they eat up lots of lead also.
Don

I have a 470 grain mold that drains my 10lb pot in a hurry. I only cast 15 or 20 at time because I don't shoot many of them thank goodness.

[Wayne52]

Back when I first started casting you could still go to a plumbers supply and buy 5lb ingots of pure lead, that's now a thing of the past.  I've been told by more than one person that pure lead is the best to use in air guns so that's what I've been continuing to use all along.  Zed a 56-62lb split pig ingot of 99.9% pure lead can be bought from Rotometals for $150 shipped.  That would cast up a heck of a lot of those for the Zeus

[Zeddymon]

thanks guys for all the tips,,, definately have got to buy some lead now

i have some time though, 10 week wait on the mold,, ouch, the gun will be here first and we are going to want some ammo!!! time to get some Mr holllowpoints

[EdinGa]

A 62lb ingot will give you around 760 slugs.

[Wayne52]

The Zeus is truly a big heavy beast for sure, there's not much that you couldn't hunt with it either.

[Greg_E]

Who makes hollow point molds for this platform? A friend just received his and so far the only commercial ammo is $1.60 a shot. I sent him a link to Accurate, but all of those are really heavy, what he bought for testing was Mr. Hollowpoint rounds so they are decently long for the weight. I think he got 4xx and 6xx grain HP rounds.

I didn't see anything at Lyman, Lee, NOE, or MP.

He was thinking of getting a 12 gauge slug mold, but those should all be .680 to .690 and the ammo he bought measures .733, too small. I mentioned he might be able to cast one, mount a handle, slather valve grinding compound, spin, clean, cast again. Repeat until desired size but there is a fairly large risk of wrecking the mold, so better get one cheap.

[BigBird]

Modern wheel weights probably aren't lead alloy.

And if you can get lead ones, they're kinda too hard for airgun uses.

If you can get lead wheel weights a .72 may be the best gun to use them in.  It depends on the barrel throat and barrel steel.   You may want to find out what alloy the barrel is.

My thinking says a .72 has more surface area to land area.  So the speed won't be as affected as a smaller caliber such as a .22.  Plus you don't need as much expansion with a .72.  If you can get cheap wheel weights try and use them. Add some pure lead to lower the hardness a little.

I thought the same thing until I tried some 21BHN boolits in my 44 air gun.  They worked well.  I've also used the same hard cast lead bullets in my .308.  Airforce Texan owners are using solid copper bullets too.  They have to be near the same hardness.

[Raider03]

Hi Zeddymon,
How did the 570grain .729 mold work out?
Thanks

[Greg_E]

thanks guys for all the tips,,, definately have got to buy some lead now

i have some time though, 10 week wait on the mold,, ouch, the gun will be here first and we are going to want some ammo!!! time to get some Mr holllowpoints

Don't you believe that time table, I just got my mixed design 50 cal mold (a real custom cut), I think it was 3 weeks wait. Not going to say that you will be that lucky, but I'd get on buying supplies pretty quickly. Don't forget either some kind of lube, or powder coat, or both. I'd also buy a cleaning kit that will handle that size, shotgun kits may not be big enough. Sizing dies might be useful as well, not everything drops on spec. and being over is generally better than under. Powder coat can only make up so much.

And I will echo that the 50 cal 450gr stuff I cast makes the pot empty really fast. I think I did 60 rounds and it comes out at 4 pounds. At three shots per fill (my gun) that should last a little while if they are even worth shooting.

For the Zeus, I would look for a hollow point, maybe MP Molds would have something, I haven't checked for anything that big. There was also a Russian company on Amazon selling molds that worked for the Zeus, but that might be impossible right now.

In addition to hollow point, you might want to look for hollow base, shifting the CG around might be useful, not really sure. Assuming I ever get a rifle that is worth shooting, a 50 cal hollow base will probably be my next attempt, trying to stay in the 350-400 grain range for this rifle.

[Greg_E]

Also the place I bought lead last time is having a 15% off sale on all products, might be worth checking for supplies: https://www.seabrookfishingsinkers.fish/2016/lead-ingots/

I should probably buy more myself, which is why I went and looked, seems like the price went up, no surprises there but the 15% helps. Think I may buy 45 pounds this next time. Going to not so good if I go bust on the 50cal, that's a lot of 145 grain (and smaller) 357 rounds and 27gr 25cal rounds.

[Chickenthief]

Mr. HP buys Accurate moulds: http://accuratemolds.com/ and outsource the HP operation to: http://www.hollowpointmold.com/

And please one and all do add 1-2% tin to the melt. It lowers surface tension of the lead and aids greatly in form fill out. It adds next to nothing in regards of hardness.

[Wayne52]

You need a lower temp for casting lead/tin mix.  Tin does help for fill out however I still prefer only pure lead on all my casting's. 

[Greg_E]

Many user manuals say pure lead only, so if you use an alloy, and you have a barrel problem, they might refuse warranty on the barrel.

Also part of that is because the softer lead is needed to help emboss the rifling, but the 1 or 2 percent tin is probably almost nothing to the hardness, I may have to try this because it does help to fill out the molds.

[Wayne52]

Greg there's a sticky in this child board describing lead hardness I believe 1% tin is listed somewhere in it, seems like it's 5 or 6 BHN but can't remember, everything that I cast is 4BHN pure lead.

[Greg_E]

A BHN of 6 is probably insignificant to us until you get into large bores and solid bullets where is might be harder to squeeze.

I messed up far too badly on the first lead I purchased, so for now I'm sticking to pure lead (from known sources) and I'll figure out the casting flaws through trial and error. The fishing sinker place I posted and Rotometals are really the only two places I'm going to recommend. The first junk I bought will get turned into shot for a bag, or a soft blow hammer for whacking things, still not sure what I'll do with it.

[Insanity]

a soft blow hammer for whacking things, still not sure what I'll do with it.

I have used an old broken screw driver as a hammer handle and a copper T section I cut as a mold for a hammer head.

[Wayne52]

A BHN of 6 is probably insignificant to us until you get into large bores and solid bullets where is might be harder to squeeze.

I messed up far too badly on the first lead I purchased, so for now I'm sticking to pure lead (from known sources) and I'll figure out the casting flaws through trial and error. The fishing sinker place I posted and Rotometals are really the only two places I'm going to recommend. The first junk I bought will get turned into shot for a bag, or a soft blow hammer for whacking things, still not sure what I'll do with it.

Old water pipe is pure lead too, I've got a pile of it I still need to cut up and make into ingots yet, I sill have a bunch of 1lb ingots ready to put into the pot when I'm casting.  I still have a split pig ingot from Rotometals that I haven't even opened up yet.