lead hardness

[ranger1962]

This is a general question on relative hardness
What is the difference in the hardness of lead between range lead and WW ?
can I melt this together or would it be better to keep it seperate?

inquiring minds want to know Thanks

[Charlie Two Tracks]

http://castboolits.gunloads.com/showthread.php?105952-Lead-alloy-calculators

click on this link and then click on the link at the bottom of the first post. It is an alloy calculator that you can plug your own numbers into to find out the hardness (BHN) of you alloy. Wheel weights can vary and so can range lead. You can get guestimates but that's about all. Depending on what you are casting for, you can blend all your alloy together or not. I would keep it separate until I knew the hardness of each alloy. You can always blend but you can't take it back out. IMO

[Larry Gibson]

Depends on the type and quanity of bullets that went into the "range lead". My experience with lots of different range lead gathered from many different ranges is that it is generally deficient on tin and high on antimony. I add lead and tin to balance it out. I do not mix WWs with it because WWs are also deficient on tin and high on antimony. Suggest you keep the WWs seperate.

Sometimes you get lucky and the Range lead (RL) is fairly well balanced with tin and antimony. Using 10 lbs for testing/developing cast some bullets and BHN test bullets AC'd at 7 - 10 days and WQ bullets at 48 hours.

If too soft mix 2% tin with the RL and test again as above. If to hard, either AC'd or WQ'd, you can then adjust that BHN and stretch the range lead by adding a % of lead. I start by adding 10% and test as above and increase by 10% until the alloy gets too soft. You can easily do this with a single 10 lb pot of RL. Takes a little time but in the end I've always gotten good alloys from every batch of RL.

Larry Gibson