opinions on boolit alloy

[steel_pounder]

Hello guys. I have been lurking here for about two years. I have a 45-70 and shoot 550 grain postell from a Hoch nose pour mould.

My question is concerning my alloy. I just melt whatever I can get and then adjust it to the hardness I want. Is there anything wrong with this? I start with WW and then add pure lead or linotype to lower or raise the hardness.

[RobS]

Nope, nothing wrong with what you are doing; different alloys for different load development. It sounds like you are keeping your lead/alloys separate and then mix them as you go which is good so you can adjust your boolit alloy for what you need/want.

[steel_pounder]

I will usually do this with four or five hundred pounds of alloy at a time. then pour smaller ingots that melt in my casting furnace easily. It gets to be a pain in the butt to melt that much lead four or five times to get the alloy right.

[captaint]

What you're doing sounds good to me Pounder. I think most of us separate when smelting - blend when pouring boolits. Works!!! enjoy and welcome to the forum. Mike

[geargnasher]

Umm, you didn't say what kind of propellant you were planning to use, that makes a huge difference with regard to alloy selection.

Gear

[Ole]

I use 50/50 water dropped in my .450 Marlin and it seems to fit my needs. I shoot everything from 1250fps to 1800 fps and use just the one alloy.

[stubshaft]

Nothing wrong with that as long as it works for you!

[steel_pounder]

Umm, you didn't say what kind of propellant you were planning to use, that makes a huge difference with regard to alloy selection.

Gear

I am shootin 67 grains ffG Goex with about .250 compression and a .030 vegetable wad boolits a run through a .459 sizer and lubed with black magic lube. if I really concentrate on trigger control this shoots Just under an inch at 100 with three holes touching most of the time. I weigh my boolits and group in groups of +- .2 grainsand keep the whole bunch inside of a grain ie.. the lightest batch to the heavyest is 1 grain differance.

I guess what I am really asking is does the alloy reall matter as long as the hardness is the same? with the **** that you get melting WW I was just wondering.

[RobS]

yes alloys of different mixes can have a big difference. Water dropped WW alloy of 20 BHN will match lino in hardness, but lino will shatter on bone etc. for hunting where as heat treated WW alloy will be ductile to resist shattering.

Adding tin to an alloy can make it "tougher" in nature and keep hollow point boolits together better which allows them to retain their weight.

[steel_pounder]

Thanks RobS. I am shooting targets and Silhouettes so am not worried about mushrooming and such at this time. I will probably hunt with it in the future some time and will be sure and use a suitible boolit for that.

[montana_charlie]

I guess what I am really asking is does the alloy reall matter as long as the hardness is the same?
What does "really matter" mean?

In your opening post you described your mould and listed the metals used in your alloy(s). You siad you mix and match to obtain your desired hardness.
In your third post you described your load and it's accuracy capability, which sounds pretty good.

If you only have access to tree metals, and if always use a mixture that produces the same hardness, you are probably always using about the same amounts of each metal.
It would be a logical 'next step' to discover exactly what ratio of those three gives you the hardness you always look for.

But, asuming that you CAN get a particular hardness by using varying amounts of the three metal ingredients, is that the difference that you want to know about?

Let's say that one 10 BHN alloy has a good slug of lead, a lot of WW, and a little bit of lino...whereas another with the same 10 BHN is all lead and lino, with no WW.
Is it that the kind difference you are wondering about when you ask if "the alloy really matters"?

CM

[steel_pounder]

Charlie, yes that is what I was wondering.

[white eagle]

although the bhn's the the way you got it differs
so you go for 15 bhn
you can use ww and lead/tin
or you could use lino/lead
two identical #'s but two greatly differing alloys with,in my point of view,different applications
one I would use for hunting
one I would not use for my first choice hunting but would be inclined to punch holes with

[Lead Fred]

I smelt 405-540s with just WW watered dropped. for 45-70. The 405s get up to 1750fps, but the biggins dont get close to 1400fps.

I mix 1:1 lino & WW water dropped for 30 cal. Im known to push them to the limit.
I tried lino water dropped, and they were way to hard & brittle.

[montana_charlie]

Charlie, yes that is what I was wondering.
I would answer this way (and remember that I don't use WW or any other source of antimony)...
You have three metals present in all of your 'materials'. The antimony has a much more detectable hardening effect than any tin which may be present. So, I think you could ingore the tin content for the purpose of this discussion.

That leaves you with just the lead and antimony to consider.
If two alloys have the same hardness, and they contain nothing but lead and antimony, they must have equal amounts of both...even if one had a lot of WW in it and the other relied on lino for it's hardness.

So, the route to create them may have been different, but the nature of the finished products indicates that you are not dealing with two alloys...so there is no difference to worry about...meaning that it "doesn't really matter".

CM

[steel_pounder]

I would answer this way (and remember that I don't use WW or any other source of antimony)...
You have three metals present in all of your 'materials'. The antimony has a much more detectable hardening effect than any tin which may be present. So, I think you could ingore the tin content for the purpose of this discussion.

That leaves you with just the lead and antimony to consider.
If two alloys have the same hardness, and they contain nothing but lead and antimony, they must have equal amounts of both...even if one had a lot of WW in it and the other relied on lino for it's hardness.

So, the route to create them may have been different, but the nature of the finished products indicates that you are not dealing with two alloys...so there is no difference to worry about...meaning that it "doesn't really matter".

CM

Thanks Charlie. That is kind of what I was thinking but I thought about it too much and decided that I should ask someone.