wax bullets?

[Mean Gene]

I had this crazy concept last night about substituting wax bullets used in fast draw competition in my 1860 army in place of lead. I understand this sounds tike taboo or down right harocy to a lot of you and I don't blame you for thinking that. For the purpose of plinking only on paper targets or teaching a young one about BP shooting it might not be a bad idea. The hard part might be to figure out how much powder to use so you get accuracy while not blowing up the bullet or getting it stuck in the barrel. Has anyone tried this to anyones knowledge?

 

[BrownBear]

A bud played with it a fair bit in modern revolvers. Nuff sed about that, other than to point out that casting was a royal PITA because of the cooling time needed for the molds.

His solution was ingenious and would be promising for "conical" production, if not for round balls. He located some copper tubing that was nominally the right diameter, plugged one end of each piece (about a foot long) and poured them full of wax. Plain old household paraffin wax. Allow to cool, then hold the tube under running hot water for a few seconds (time and temp unknown by me) until he could use a plunger to push out the long cylinders of wax. Measure and cut to length, and go to reloading.

 

[coloradoclyde]

Haven't shot them in a cap-n-ball, but have fired them in cartridge revolvers.... In those you only use primer force with an enlarged flash hole...No powder.....
They are expensive and pretty useless IMO...
Note: that they are still considered lethal....

 

[eggwelder]

in my fathers popular mechanics encyclopedias from the late 1960`s or early 1070`s there is a section about indoor shooting with revolvers using homemade wax bullets. i read those cover to cover when i was a kid, even made some of the projects. he still has them.
it seemed simple enough, blasting away at paper targets with wax bullets in the basement.

it was good enough for popular mechanics...

 

[don hepler]

I bought some, they were hard as candles. They are for Cowboy shooting, but might work with 2 or 3 grains and wad over powder. If you get it tight enough to seal, you might damage the bullet, trying to get it seated.

 

[wicket]

I've done it using ordinary caps and bored-out nipples. Casting the wax bullets in a Lee conical mold sorta works, but casting a rod of wax as mentioned previously sounds like a better idea. I saw a post somewhere from a guy who used foam earplugs in place of wax bullets. I'd be very careful about not getting the modified nipples mixed up with regular ones. Lot of fun to play with indoors when the weather's bad, but keep in mind that the primers produce some lead fumes. Might work to mix wax and Crisco to get something you could punch out without it crumbling. Don't shoot the family cat with the things, they pack a fair amount of zip.

 

[Mean Gene]

I did some Google search for info on the subject. I found out that C&R makes wax bullets for c&b 44cal revolvers. He said his bullets measure .451 for use in 45cal shell's, I have used C&R wax bullets for years in fast draw practice. They were the first ones I ever used so I don't know why I didn't think of them right off the bat. There wax doesn't splatter on impact and makes clean up easy, they should go into the chambers reasonably easy since I shoot .454 lead balls. He also said 3 grains of powder should work fine so I am going to experiment with this just for fun and see how it does.
Should be cost effective, $25 for a thousand bullets and 3 gains of powder.

 

[curator]

Mix commercial canning wax (paraffin) with enough Vaseline so it doesn't crumble. Use a fired .45 Colt cartridge with the primer drilled out to cut wax slugs from a 1/2" thick sheet of the hardened mixed wax. Push the wax bullet out of the cartridge case with a wood dowel. Load chambers using a .22 short case full of 3F or 4F black powder. Push bullets down onto powder charge and use regular caps.These do shoot fairly accurately out to about 25 feet although usually hit high compared to sight picture. Clean as usual with hot water. Caps do make a small amount of lead fumes so good ventilation is needed. Great for back yard shooting if the neighbors are far enough away to not hear the "pop." Definitely not safe to shoot anything you care about, but will chase away pesky Muscovy ducks.

 

[Lonegun1894]

NOT traditional... You have been warned... read at your own risk...


I use hot glue bullets in a modern .38 revolver for killing rats in my back yard. Just fill room temperature mold with hot glue, wait about 5-10 seconds to cool, drop out of mold, lube with vaseline, cooking oil, or whatever else is handy, and load into brass. Then use just a primer for propulsion. I haven't done this in a C&B though, so don't know if just a cap will give enough push, or if it needs powder, or how much.

 

[Patocazador]

I think Speer makes those plastic bullets and hulls for .357 and .44. If the plastic bullet part is tight enough in the cylinder, they could be used over and over with just the percussion cap or a few of grains of powder for power.

 

[Katahdin]

Wax/blank bullets can kill,,Freddy Prince come to mind,,,

 

[azmntman]

YA I see someone above murders the poor unrepresented rats in his back yard with em too

:rotf:

 

[Lonegun1894]

Yes, I do! And they kill em pretty dead. Here is what I have noticed though. They are deadly on rats out to 10-15 yards, but the accuracy starts to drop off at around 15 yards, and they are light enough that by the time they get to 25-30 yards, they won't break a pane of glass or go through a single sheet of news paper. So they are effective for my needs, safe in the neighborhood, and quieter than my BB gun, even though I am firing these out of a 4" revolver. Not traditional in the least bit, but they work.

Got three last night...

 

[don hepler]

C&R, that's the one's that I use. I figured 2 or 3 grains would do it. I got to try this. Just make sure you clean the bore with a brush before you go back to shooting lead balls.

The "A-Rat-a-cator".

 

[nhmoose]

Fast draw should use blanks. Easier to heal from screw ups.

 

[Mean Gene]

I was told it would need like 3 grains of powder.

 

[Mean Gene]

Yes you are right they can kill! (can't remember what happened to Freddy) a wax bullet fired from a 45lc pushed by a 209 shotgun travels at 750FPS give or take 5-10 fps.

 

[Mean Gene]

You can use a standard large pistole primer with just wax in front of it.

 

[Mean Gene]

I agree, if you get to try it first let me know how it turned out.

 

[Rick Boylan]

Wax/blank bullets can kill,,Freddy Prince come to mind,,,

Freddie Prinze killed himself using a Walther PPK pistol.

I believe you're thinking of another actor who was playing with a .44 magnum loaded with blanks and killed himself on set.

Brandon Lee (Bruice Lee's son) was killed in a mishap where a prop gun (also a S&W 44 mag) using a blank, propelled a bullet lodged in the barrel into Lee killing him.

Sorry for taking this off topic. I just wanted to set the record straight.