Old notes on casting

[Grandpas50AE]

I was reviewing my old loading/casting notes from many years ago this afternoon, and I noticed some log entries that I found interesting. I thought I might share them here. In the 70's, my brothers and I were casting boolits from plain WW's and always air cooled. We cast .44's in GC (429244), .45's in Kieth-style PB (an RCBS mold), and .41's in PB for the magnum from a mold that I don't remember if it was Lyman or RCBS but dropped 215 gr. Kieth-style SWC's. Never had any problem with obturation or with leading in any of them. Same with the 358429 for the .357 mags, and we were loading full hunting loads in all of them in those days.

The first interesting log entry I noticed was in 1992, where I made an observataion that the WW alloy must have changed because the boolits were showing increased brittleness, probably due to a reduction in tin content (that when tin started getting pretty expensive on the commodity markets IIRC).

Shortly after that entry was one that indicated several shooting/handloading magazines carrying articles about WW alloy having become more brittle, with a higher ratio content of Sb / Sn.

If we extrapolate a timeline allowing for the newer WW alloy to have been on cars' tires for a few years before ramping up in the casting material pipeline, that would indicate the alloy changed sometime in the late 80's I would think.

Of course these days we have Zinc and who knows what other metals in the form of WW's, I don't have any notes on that transition.

Did any of the rest of you casting before the mid-80's notice this same timeframe? Just curious.

[slide]

I haven't been casting that long but,thank you for posting that. Very interesting bit of info. It will be interesting to see what kind of replys you get.

[raingauge]

Thinking back, that sounds about right. About the same time WW didn't seem as "clean" a lot more impurities showed up in the smelting. I was still trying to use the Lyman #2 formula, some of us still considered WW too hard, especially for rifle bullets. I dont remember exactly the ratio, but I would mix ample amounts of lead with WW, something like 2 to 1 if I remember right.

[Grandpas50AE]

In my notes I had made a post-script to add pure lead back to the mix to keep it less brittle, at that time I did not have a source for tin to even the Sn/Sb ratio. I worked until recently, and now that I have a source for tin I should be able to get back to the 94/3/3 that Ww's orignially were when I started casting.

[williamwaco]

Well! That brittle comment takes me back. But way before the '90s.

Even back in the early '60s some batches of wheel weights were very brittle.

Thr first "Hardness Test" I used ( we used ) was after smelting and cleaning up and fluxing three or four times. We would cast three or four bullets and let them cool. ( air cool ) ( at that time the thought of water around the pot was anathema.

We would then lay them on a concret driveway and smack them hard with a hammer. Most of the time they would flatten. If they did, the metal was acceptable. Some times they would crumble. When that happened, that batch was set aside until we could find some scrap lead to mix with it - usually around 50/50.


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[1Shirt]

My notes and groups fill up about 3-4 large 3 ring binders and are growing. I find them interesting and valuable, not to mention bringing a lot of great memories back to me. Mine goe back to at least 1960.
1Shirt!:p