I though I had read some where about melting pewter for casting bullets, or maybe it was round balls for muzzloaders.
Any experiance? Advice?

I came upon a bag of pewter belt buckles, don't have any intrest in weearing them, though I would ask the question.

Early pewter was an alloy of lead (up to 30%) and tin. This was hard stuff for rifle balls, but melted at a pretty low temp and could work in balls made for smoothbores. Modern pewter is usually mostly tin alloyed in various ratios with copper or antimony. About the only real use that might be made of it in bullet casting would be to add hardness to pure lead.

Being mostly tin it would be benifical as an alloy in aidiing fill out,too hard for muzzle loaders.

Yes there were pewter bullets made. Very light for caliber. I have some made in a 230 gr rn 45 ACP mold and they weigh 130 grains. The bullets made in a 158 gr 357 mold weighed 65 grains. As I recall some guys were getting 2500 fps or so with a long barreled 357.

At the going price of $18. to $25. per lb. for tin (pewter) ,I'd think twice,
yes, three times before casting it into boolets without a generous dollup of other alloy. $$$==$$$
Pepe Ray

I haunt yard sales to find the stuff....

I have thought of trying to pick some up in yardsales, but how do I tell for sure if it is pewter?

Michael Grace

By its re-pewtation.

Sorry. Couldn't resist. I don't actually know how you tell the real thing other than by what it looks like? Know it when you see it sort of thing. It might be possible to scratch test it with your knife, but the sellers will frown on that if you don't buy. Maybe you should just go to a gift shop somewhere that has some? Get used to what it looks and feels like, weight-wise. You'll probably notice most of those gift items say "pewter" on the bottom.

Being stamped "pewter" would help a lot. I couldn't tell pewter from polished aluminim. All I recall is that it feels light for it's size and both are easily scratched. I suppose if it looks old, I'd lean towards thinking it was pewter.

I've bought quite a bit of 45 ACP ammo (Aquilla) made in Mexico that could be pewter, looks like pewter anyway. The bullets are HP and weigh 117 grains. I haven't cronographed them, but I bet they are darn fast. One of our local deputies said he had shot them through a bullet proof vest, I didn't see him do it so I don't know if that is BS or not.

Bringing up an old subject, and reading Lee's chapter on bullet casting, they say the pewter has corrosive chemicals in in?, but then again, could be just their way of avoiding problems with their products?

The modern stuff is all tin, antimony, and copper, if the Wikipedia is to be believed? No lead. Too light for good bullet BC's, but nothing that should be harmful as an alloy. I suppose some of the metal foundries may use an acid flux to mix the metals, and you might want to let it sit long enough to burn that off before proceeding with mixing it with lead or whatever you intend to do with it?

If it is pewter, you should be able to bend it with your hands, that is, the thin items like plates, cups, etc. Also will melt at a low temperature, not sure but between 300-400 degrees.

Pweter melts at 400+ deg, but at a lower temp than lead.
Brushed aluminum and pewter look much alike and I can't tell them apart by weight, but aluminum has a melting point of around 1100 deg and my lead melter will do nothing with it, so I think it is safe that we cannot mix them together.

Bringing up an old subject, and reading Lee's chapter on bullet casting, they say the pewter has corrosive chemicals in in?, but then again, could be just their way of avoiding problems with their products?

Sure would like to know what the corrosive chemicals are. Ya think I might have to give up drinking beer from my pewter mug, or my wife should have to stop using the expensive pewter serving trays she has. I thing it's more wifestails being spread about.

Early forms of pewter contained lead, so you can see where it got the bad reputation. Modern pewter has no lead content!