Casting bismuth for shot?
 

So I plan to test some heavy bismuth loads this year in 10 ga 3.5" and I will probably end up buying a T shot mold from Martys. Every 10 ga ive owned both 2 7/8"s and the 3.5" magnums have always patterned T shot well in lead and steel(3.5"). I have seen some guys hand load large bismuth shot by casting their own and looking at the cost you can either buy 99% bismuth and mix it with tin to get the 94/6% ratio for about $12/lb. Or I could buy 10lbs of reject 94/6% bismuth shot to melt down for $12/lb so I dont see a reason to mix the bismuth and tin myself as there doesnt look to be a cost savings just adding more work/time to reloading.

I think a Bismuth T at 1200 fps will pass through a goose or probably any bird hit by one and a Bismuth T fired at that velocity is moving faster and carrying more ft/lbs of energy at 40 yards vs a Steel T fired at 1500 fps so I think the killing power is definitely there. The real question is finding out what grade of felt I will use for punching wads the price varies greatly depending on the tensile strength of the felt.

If my memory serves there was a guy on the castboolits forum dropping his own bismuth shot . You might search there and see what you an find .

go for it milt and keep us up dated on the progress....what mag ten will you shoot this load in....charlie

Charlie I plan on picking up a Ithaca mag 10 and a BPS 10, most guys seem to prefer the SP10 over the Ithaca but to me the Ithaca is a better looking gun its pure 70s nostalgia. I want to get another BPS 10 since I miss my old one and it was very left hand friendly I loved how the slide release can be operated with your trigger finger if your left handed on the BPS. As well I have always wanted to get one restocked not to change the dimensions but I just dont care for the looks of the forend and stock on them. I can make 1000 felt wads for between 40-80$ just depends on the grade of the felt. Intereslty the fiber wads I use are .790" and 20mm wad punches are easy to find which 20mm should be .787". Like for the 8 gauge I know in the 8 bore rifles guys are using just a standard 7/8s wad punch.

Wouldnt surprise me if it was this guy ive seen him on quite a few forums talking about how to cast bismuth. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z7YV9VtvPjw

Good luck, Milton. I'm a big fan of bismuth for ducks and have loaded it for my 3" chambered, 32" HE Fox for years, loading 1 1/4 oz. of 4s. In the last couple years I've bought bulk lots of BOSS factory bismuth, one in the lower pressure loads without a plastic shot cup, and the other with the shot cup and higher pressures. I'm very impressed with their loadings, though I haven't had a chance to try the higher pressure loads yet on ducks.

Those Ts ought to be big medicine on geese, for sure. How big a payload are you "shooting for"?

Well with handloads in the 10 ga magnum you can get 2oz of steel in there so I reckon 2 1/4oz of bismuth should be doable, plus roll crimping doesn't take up as much hull capacity. Tom mentions in his book he seen the best results with buffer in bismuth loads and I have read others experiences with bismuth and buffer and it looks to be a good combination. Ts are going to have alot of air space between the pellets anyhow so they would probably get the most benefit from buffering I would think. I'll have to start with a baseline and get PR to test them and go from there. I know with bismuth 2s they pattern well in the 6 frame and the 8 gauge with minimal fracturing (3-4 pellets per load) I am curious if the larger bismuth holds together better. I know some guys make patched round balls using bismuth and havnt ran into a problem with them fracturing.

I have a old Ithaca mag 10 of my dads it has downed a many of turkeys I still hunt with it some...with lead bb s it is a hammer on any thing with in 70 yards....your load of 2 1/4 ounce bismuth should be what all of us big bore shooters have been looking for...it should be a turkeys nite mare.waiting on the pattern tests results.... charlie

Heres the numbers for a steel and bismuth bb by the time they reach 40 yards. I dont have any data on the weight of a bismuth T yet but I think they most likely will past clean through a goose.

Yards fps ft/lbs
40 706 7(steel #bb 1200 fps mv)
40 780 8(steel #bb 1500 fps mv)
40 796 11(bismuth #bb 1200 fps mv)

From what ive added up I can load 2oz bismuth 10 ga loads for $2.66/rd the cheapest factory bismuth in 10 ga is currently $2.80/rd but im not reloading to try and save, the factory offerings just arent interesting to me.

Charlie we have tons of geese down here year round actually we do have a early goose season that starts the first week of September. Though I dont know anyone who would want to goose hunt in 110F weather lol.

at 110 degrees we can shootem and cook them at the same time ...ha I ve beeb on some teal duck hunts that were in the upper 90 sas you said no fun getting cooked with the goose... I too believe your loads will go clean thru a goose of average size....some of them giant canadas would be the tickit to try them loads on....charlie

I might end up buying some ballistics gel just to have something to compare them to with other data ive collected. I never see ducks locally we just have geese literally everywhere.

Milt, plenty of info on making your own ballistics gel. I want to make some to test rifle loads. Best part is you can reuse it too.

What I have been wondering about with the ballistics gel though it says its only stable up to 95F so I would have to find a way to keep it cool during testing. I am more interested in how different shot sizes react to striking bone which doing some rough math plywood is around 50% the density of bone so im now wondering if say a 1" plywood sheet would be similar if a projectile hit 1/2" of bone just as a example.

the one inch plwwood should do for testing for penertration test.....I read a book on wild fowling and they used plywood for there tests...they used the 8 ga and 4 ga guns for testing....seems like the name of the book was the esturary....it was a british book....I believe tom armbrust wrote in his book about it not sure....charlie

The data I found lists birch core plywood at .60 g/cm3 and human bone(couldnt find a source for a goose probably less dense though) as around 1.20 g/cm3. I know the T and F lead coyote loads I tested punched through 3/4" plywood at 40 yards and imbedded into some 4x4 posts at the 100 yard berm. I am interested to see how large bismuth performs, F shot is legal in GA so I could cast some of those as well. Charlie I bet the book you're talking about is Dark Estuary a member here recommended it to me awhile for some cool 8 gauge stories IIRC.

Charlie I think the Army used to use 1" pine boards for ballistic testing with the 45/70 they figured if it can punch through the board at X range then its still carrying enough energy to be lethal to a enemy. I want to say it would still go through the pine board at 3200 yards or something like that of course there was no accuracy at that range but a interesting study on the practicality of long range volley fire etc.

Milt, if you have a local butcher or processor near you they may be able to supply you with bones for testing?

Mike’s idea of using bones from a processing plant sounds like the way to go. You could mix your own ballistic gel and mold the bones into the gel to get a better idea of the penetration thru both soft tissue and bone.

I was thinking about this earlier since we do have quite a few places locally that process game meat I could mold it inside the ballistics gel probably as close as accurate you could get besides field testing. I read for geese you want around 2.5" of gel penetration but thats just for hitting vital organs I want to see what it takes to get a complete pass through.

the dark estuary was the name of that book....wish I could get a copy of this book...charlie

Charlie Amazon has a hardcover and paperback, the paper back is alot cheaper :rotf:

https://www.amazon.com/Dark-Estuary-...=UTF8&qid=&sr=


Though Abebooks has some cheaper used hardcovers
https://www.abebooks.com/book-search...ry/author/b-b/

Milton:

The best deal around is a $40 membership in the PGCA.

-Victor

ABE Books has this book. I just bought a hard cover for $22 including shipping. They have some reasonably priced and some that would be collector copies for $200-$400.

Doing a little bit more reading I seen this Bismuth alloy recommended
https://www.rotometals.com/lead-free...bismuth-based/
87.25% Bismuth, 0.75% Antimony and 12% Tin
While slightly less dense than lead it will still be more dense than steel plus it can be powder coated which some guys like doing on large shot sizes and buckshot.