HA2 20.1 – Casting Lead Projectile
Like any Saturday, exactly at seven in the morning, Hide arrived at the shooting range through the hidden lift, and went straight to the armory. Over there, he found Takeo was preparing guns, ammo, and equipment for today simulation.
“Morning,” Hide casually said before helping Takeo with the preparation.
“Morning,” Takeo replied. “What is our plan today?”
“As usual, raid simulation, cleaning the shooting range, recycling ammo in the workshop, rest, and then endurance training at night.”
“What about Shizuka’s request for second sparring match?” Takeo curiously asked.
“We did our first sparring just yesterday. Let’s do it again on Tuesday.”
After slightly nodded two times Takeo said, “It will upset her.”
“It will, but let her be.” Hide took a deep breath before continuing, “And just between you and me, honestly, fighting Shizuka in a spar when she has a motive for revenge is scary.”
A rare amusing smile instantly bloomed in Takeo lips. “To be fair, I think the way you knocked her out at yesterday sparring is too brutal.”
“I didn’t plan it. It was instinctive reaction as soon as the pain kicked in,” Hide explained. “My body just moved on its own.”
“I see.”
Actually, Takeo wanted to know what kind of training that Hide had gone through, to the point he possessed such a sharp and swift instinctive reaction. However, in the end he decided to suppress his curiosity.
Then, Shizuka arrived in the armory and she immediately walked over to Hide and Takeo with rush steps.
“The bastard Katayama just sent me a text,” Shizuka said as soon as she arrived in front of Hide and Takeo.
“What did he say?” Hide asked.
“He wants me to accompany some guests in a lunch tomorrow, and offer me a generous tip.” After heaving a deep sigh Shizuka added, “He said I only have to pretend as a uni student, wear nice clothes, put sweet smiles all the time and no sex will be involved in this job.”
“I assure you. The job will definitely involve some nasty intercourse. They will drug you first, or they will just let their guest bang you with the help of his bodyguards to suppress you,” Hide firmly said. “It’s their main MO when they want to introduce the nasty side of adult industry to a new girl.”
Dark cloud in an instant filled Shizuka’s forehead to the brim. “Fuck!! I already accepted it.”
“Hide,” Takeo said. “Is it normal for Katayama to put forward the schedule on a girl he has interest with?”
“Nope, as far as I know he works like a clock, precise and methodical,” Hide replied.
“Can you guess why he put forward the schedule this time?” Takeo asked another question.
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“Maybe Kamui has super important guest that ask for fresh and inexperience beauty, but this guest only put his request in the last moments.”
“What should we do?” Shizuka worriedly asked. “We have not completed our preparation yet.”
“No choice. We have to carry the job tonight.” After pausing for a moment Hide turned his gaze to Takeo, “Will Kamui hold weekly meeting tonight?”
“They will, but they will hold it at 7:00 pm, an hour earlier than their usual weekly meeting.”
“Let’s hit them tonight then,” Hide firmly said, and then he turned his gaze to Shizuka. “However, I can’t guarantee everything will go smoothly. If you are not ready, say it now. I don’t mind to execute the raid alone while you support Takeo.”
After heaving a deep sigh Shizuka said in determined tone, “I will assist you to carry the raid. Kamui is a problem I bring to us.”
“Okay. Let’s proceed as we planned,” Hide calmly said. “Carry the last simulation, cleaning the range, and then prepared the gun, ammo, and equipment for tonight.”
““Got it,”” Takeo and Shizuka replied almost at the same time.
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In the raid simulation it was clearly visible that Shizuka was very tense, but she cleared out her workload smoothly. Her shooting score also experienced a drastic increase. And when cleaning the shooting range Shizuka started to become casual and relax.
After that, along with Hide and Takeo, Shizuka went to the workshop with her usual happy-go-lucky attitude, and as the three entered the workshop Hide turned his gaze to her.
“How do you feel?”
“Alive and kicking like a goat,” Shizuka casually replied.
“Good, today your job will be casting lead projectile.”
Question mark in an instant popped up in Shizuka’s forehead, “Do you mean I will not make lead core and brass jacket?”
“Yeah,” Hide firmly replied. “Making jacketed projectile take a lot of time, while we need 4-5 hundreds untraceable rounds for tonight raid. So, we will use the cheap and easy to produce lead cast projectile to meet the amount.”
“What about the lethality level?” Shizuka curiously asked. “Lead cast projectile is not as good as jacketed projectile, isn’t it?”
“If it’s only for scenario at 10-15 meters, I can make cast projectile that pretty similar like our jacketed projectile both in trajectory and lethality, so we don’t need to change the way we shot.”
“Got it.”
“What about me?” Takeo asked. “What is my workload today?”
“We still have lot of fresh gunpowder and primer I made from scratch a few days ago, so I will make the untraceable cartridge case, while your job is putting everything together into ready to use ammo.”
“Got it,” Takeo firmly replied.
“And because you still have some time until the lead cast projectile and cartridge case are ready, please clean through fully 5 VP9, 30 spare magazines, and 3 sound suppressor. Make sure no residue, sweats, or fingerprint on them.”
“What about the other equipment?”
“We will prepare it together once we finish our work here.”
“Okay.”
Wasting no time Takeo went to armory, while Hide took Shizuka to a workbench and prepared the casting kit. It was basic casting kit consisted of 10-pound electric pot, small ladle, bullet sizer/lubricant, three-cavity projectile mold, small hammer, and an 8 liter polymer bucket filled with cold water up to two-third.
After that Hide took lead ingot, tin, antimony, and some other material that Takeo and Shizuka bought from King’s Hardware. Then, while weighing everything and divided it into five polymer bowls evenly Hide explained the basic knowledge on how to properly casting lead projectile.
“Pure lead is too soft to face the high pressure from modern smokeless powder. You have to alloy it with a small amount of tin and antimony to produce the hardness you need.”
“What is the ratio?” Shizuka curiously asked.
“95.5% lead, 0.5% tin, and 4% antimony is good ratio for handgun round, but I have my own recipe.” Hide paused for a moment before adding. “You don’t need to remember the ratio right now.
I have made sure each bowl have the correct ratio, you only have to use it bowl per bowl to produce the alloyed lead, and when you need more, I will prepare another bowl for you.”
“Got it.”
Wasting no time Hide then turned on the electric pot and warmed it to ensure it was totally dry. After that he poured the mix on one of the bowl into the pot. Slowly but surely, the mix melted and bonded together. After gently stirring the fully melted mix, Hide then showed an example how to cast the projectile.
“Shift the sprue plate on the projectile mold to close to cavity. Then, bring the mold just a few centimeters above the pot, warm it for a moment and keep in mind that if the mold is not warm enough the melted lead won’t smoothly flow into the cavity.
Then, you can use the ladle to scoop the melted lead and pour it into sprue plate to fill the cavities in the mold.
Put a little excess of melted lead in the sprue plate, and when this excess dried up, it’s a signal that you can use a small hammer to strike the sprue plate to cut the excess lead.”
Clang!
A low but sharp impact echoed to all direction as Hide stroke the sprue plate, made it shifted to the side, and exposed a smooth surface of projectile base. Then, Hide moved the mold right into above the polymer container before opening it and let the newly lead cast projectiles fell into cold water.
“Water quench the fresh lead cast projectile will increase its hardness. Some gunsmiths deem that this step is not necessary for handgun projectile, but it’s a vital step for my recipe.”
“Okay.”
“Lead cast projectile also age and my projectile has shorter shelf life compare to others. You can store it only up to two weeks. If you fire it after that, you will need extra hard work to clean the barrel.” Hide paused for a moment before adding, “However, up to 15 meters, my lead projectile has more penetrating power and far deadlier than common lead projectile.”
After nodding her head Shizuka asked, “What about the lead excess? Do we throw it away?”
“No, you can put it back to the pot and melted it.”
“Okay.”
“If you have no other question, give it a try.”
Without delay Shizuka repeated Hide’s steps in casting lead projectile, and Hide supervised her until she used all mixed from the first bowl and poured in the second bowl to the pot. Once he was sure Shizuka had settled with her task, Hide went to carry his own workload.
*****