Babbitt Alloys?

[beng]

Was told that babbitt alloys (low lead, High tin) will make the boolits lighter in casting and it takes antimony with it to make it HARD not just the tin. Will it be OK to make .357 to 45-70 castings with it? I have tryed some 45-70 and after retriving them, it showed to have good land & groove marks with no lead or tin inside. A 520gr cast boolit is at 505gr (15 less than 20-1) The babbitt was tested and came out to be, 60% tin, 25% lead and 10% antimony with a small %of "others" It melts at 400 deg. Thanks

[theperfessor]

I wouldn't waste that Babbitt by shooting it as is. Use it to blend with pure lead, stick on WWs, or range scrap. It will last a lot longer and still make great boolits.

[cbrick]

Here's an article on Babbit by CastBoolits very own Felix. It will explain a lot of your questions.

Babbit (http://www.lasc.us/FelixBabbitbulletAlloy.htm)

Rick

[Wireman134]

I wouldn't waste that Babbitt by shooting it as is. Use it to blend with pure lead, stick on WWs, or range scrap. It will last a lot longer and still make great boolits.


Tin Babbitt is a source of Sn and Sb useful in alloying boolit metals, mostly as a tin source not so much for it's Sb content. I use up to 1 oz. of a 89% Sn Babbitt mixed in a 10 lb. boolit alloy. It results in approx. 1-1.5% Sn alloy. Minimal Cu like .08%
My exact mix is 133 oz. PB, 10 oz. Case Mono type, 1oz Babbitt. (97% Pb/1.5% Sn/1.5% Sb).
Water dropped to 15 Bhn

[beagle]

I agree, babbitt is too valuable to use straight. I use it to alloy WWs on about a ratio of 1:20, babbitt to WW metal.

Many good things in babbitt and there are many different babbitt alloys and some are hard to identify so you have to kind of feel around and see what works.

What we're looking for in the babbbitt alloy is the copper. In babbitt alloy, the ratio of copper is small enough and in alloy that will alloy with the WW metal. It's impractical to induce copper alloy into our metal at the temps we use but babbitt will alloy all right.

The copper content will tend to make the alloy "tougher" and I use it a lot of .22 cast. WW alloys at 2400 FPS is about the ultimate I can get out of WW alloy bullets before accuracy starts goung south. With the babbitt mixture, I have run .223s up as high as 2800 FPS with acceptable accuracy.

Now, with pistol bullets, you're wasting your babbitt but with rifle bullets, there's a real benefit, IMO./beagle

[Cherokee]

If I had that babbitt, I would mix it with 40# of wheel weight which would give me an alloy of 2 tin, 3 antimony, plenty hard for my use in high vel pistol rounds.