mix or pure

[armednfree]

Here's my choices. I have been given a fair amount of lead pipe. I have range scrap that I've been using. I can't seem to get a clear picture of what people are getting casting boolits from pure lead. So, I'm thinking of mixing the pure lead with half range scrap.

The primary boolit is a 300 grain Lee GC .452 for my 45 colt rifle. Secondary is a H+G 250 grain flat base. Thirdly would be a Lee 405 grain HB for the 45-70.

I've seen what pure led does to critters with round balls and minie bullets. It is impressive to say the least. If I could get that 300 grain to shoot in pure lead with its full charge of H110 I would be very happy. I pan lube those with a 50/50 mix of alox and JPW.

[Tatume]

For your centerfire cartridge guns you will probably not get satisfactory results with pure lead. It certainly won't hurt anything to mix your pure lead with range scrap, but it may not be enough either. The problem is that pure lead and alloys that are very low in tin and antimony cause leading in barrels and don't stand up well to the stresses imposed on bullets used in centerfire ammunition. What you really need to do is find a source of tin and antimony. Wheel weight metal from "clip on" weights is an excellent and commonly used source, especially of antimony. Lead/tin solder is a good source of tin. Commercial sources of solder tend to be too expensive, but you can usually find reasonably-priced solder here, in the Swappin' and Selling forum.

Also you can find an alloy calculator here, and it is very valuable. It is an Excel spreadsheet that you input your metals, and it returns the percentage of components and an estimate of hardness. Unfortunately you can't know what is in your range scrap, which is often close to pure lead. Look here for a calculator though:

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

My personal favorite alloy is 2/3/95 tin/antimony/lead. It performs well in high performance handgun ammunition as well as rifle ammunition to about 2300 fps. I treat range scrap as pure lead when I calculate how much of each component to use. If I test the hardness later and find that my bullets are harder than predicted, then no harm was done.

Keep it simple to start; get some tin solder and add about one or two percent of tin to your alloy. One pound of 50/50 solder with 19 pounds of pure lead will make 20 pounds of alloy containing 2.5% tin.

Take care, Tom

[stubert]

I have had good luck with an alloy equal to Lyman #2 (14-15 bhn). I use it in .380, 44, 45-70, 35 rem. For high pressure loads you might want to go harder.

[Wayne Smith]

Remember that the buffalo were killed with 20-1 (lead/tin) from Remington and 16-1 from Sharps. 20-1 in your 45/70 kept under about 1500fps and you will be happy.

[tygar]

If I have wheel weights that's what I use for standard pistol with maybe a little tin or lino if needed. For mags Lyman #2 usually water dropped. For rifle up to low 2ks, #2 w/10% lino. I have no leading problems with these mixes.

[armednfree]

124877

This is what my neighbor has given me so far, weighs out to 125 pounds.

[Tatume]

Where are you located? That looks like the Virginia Blue Ridge Mountains behind you in the photo.

You really need to get some solder and linotype. If you can get just a few pounds of each you'll have enough to alloy a lot of that material.

[JWFilips]

I have what I like to call my universal alloy ( It is very similar to most folks on the forum) 50 % Clip on wheel weights + 50% Pure lead ( lead pipe Lead flashing Etc) Plus add an additional 2% tin. I will heavily "clean smelt" a large quantity of this when I can and put it up into small ingots for use in my bottom pour casting pot. Now When I'm ready to cast this mix makes up 90 % of all my boolits cast. If I want it harder I will adjust with some lino type if I have it or just "water drop" But I seldom need this even in my rifles because I don't shoot "hot" cast loads in any of my guns. & if I want to shoot softer alloy for HP boolits in pistols I can drop in some clean pure lead to soften the universal alloy.
Hope this helps

[armednfree]

That was from my honeymoon in the Smoky Mountains, Gatlinsburg. Here it is flat as a pancake almost. Where I live thousands of years ago was the bottom of Lake Erie.

[ballistim]

I had a pile of lead pipe about that size that I was given when I saw a local city pulling up abandoned water pipes when repaving a street. Lead 50 caliber round balls for muzzle loading consumed most of it as I was competing & practicing a lot at the time, some went to sinkers for catfishing & lead head jigs for walleye. I found some Linotype at the local scrapyard & mixed enough to get hardball alloy BHN with the remainder of it & still have some ingots of that left. Best lead score yet, hope to find another someday.

[armednfree]

So, if I mix it 50/50 with range scrap and add 1 pound of tin what would I get?

[Tatume]

So, if I mix it 50/50 with range scrap and add 1 pound of tin what would I get?

Assuming there is little or no tin or antimony in your range scrap, an alloy of 19 pounds of lead and one pound of tin would yield 95/5 lead/tin with a hardness of about 10 BHN. That's more tin than you need, so drop back to 19.5 pounds of lead and 0.5 pounds of tin, for 97.5/2.5 and hardness of 9 BHN.

If your range scrap has a bit of antimony, say 2% in the final alloy, and you drop back to 1% tin, you would have 97/1/2 lead/tin/antimony, and hardness of 11 BHN. This would be a very good mix for your 45 Colt bullets. It would require 0.4 pounds of 50/50 lead/tin solder, and we're guessing about the amount of antimony in the range scrap.

Get the alloy calculator and you can play "what if" with it.

Take care, Tom

[Springfield]

Depends on what is in the range scrap. I have bought range scrap ingots form 2 people on this forum. They both thought it was very soft but I had to add some pure to it for it to be soft enough for my BP cartridge guns. It tested as almost WW hardness, so you just never know.

[Tatume]

I agree, like I said:


and we're guessing about the amount of antimony in the range scrap.

[armednfree]

I agree, like I said:

That is true. Much of that range scrap is jacketed bullets. But I loaded that alloy with a 300 grain Lee GC as cast in my rifle wit 22 grains of H110 using 50/50 Alox-JPW. No leading, of course I run the bore snake through every 20 rounds or so with a bit of Hoppes Elite.

I guess I'm going to have to bite the boolit and order that 30-70 alloy from Rotometals. I'm not going with the Lyman #2 alloy, I'll go with hardball alloy 92-6-2. I'm told if you water drop them and let them age a week they get pretty hard. How true that is I do not know.

Problem is, I'm a cheap SOB

[Tatume]

I guess I'm going to have to bite the boolit and order that 30-70 alloy from Rotometals. I'm not going with the Lyman #2 alloy, I'll go with hardball alloy 92-6-2. I'm told if you water drop them and let them age a week they get pretty hard. How true that is I do not know.

If you will go to USPS.com, purchase postage for a small flat rate box, save the label as a PDF and send me the PDF as an email attachment, I will send you enough linotype and solder to make up two pots of alloy. Send me a PM and I will reply with the particulars.

Merry Christmas, Tom

[Alexn20]

I wish I had neighbors like yours!

[armednfree]

Well, 115.5 pounds of my lead, 6- 5 pound ingots of 30-70 and 3 pounds of tin come out to $161.52. That is $1.07 a pound and yields 150 pounds, don't see it getting much cheaper. I'm going to get the 50 pound lead pot at $48, but I don't count that because it will last me the rest of my life. At an average of 250 grains that's 4200 bullets. That takes a long time to get through.

[Tatume]

That 50 pound pot may be useful for smelting wheel weights and range scrap, but for casting bullets you really should use a dedicated casting furnace. The Lee series work as well as any, and are not expensive.

http://www.midwayusa.com/find?userSearchQuery=lee+furnace

Try the stuff I'm sending to you before you spend money on commercial alloy. You can get tin and antimony here on the list for way cheaper than commercial stuff.

[armednfree]

I have the Lyman furnace. This one will be easier to use outside so I can do a large lot at one time. If I melt the pipe don outside over my propane stove I'm in the open with much room to work. I want to make all 150 pounds in one day.

[pls1911]

Tatume reflects why we are at this site.... casters and shooters freely sharing information and lessons learned (both good and bad), and at times sharing scarce resources in the interest of education of fellow lead-heads, or helping someone to get started.
Danged glad to be here.
A Season's Salute to Tatume!!
Cheers to all and happy holidays!
Pablo

[selpaw]

I agree with JWFilips. If you have a stash of pure lead in one form or another and a supply of wheelweights and a general idea of their hardness and maybe some linotype metal that I buy from a printer friend you are set. you need to make sure you refine the stuff that is dirty and then sit down and figure out what amounts you need to add to the mix to get the hardness you want. You can even use this method to make use of range scrap as long as you make sure to get all the sand and **** out of the mix. Wash it good several times and when you're done tale a couple Advil and have a drink. It can be backbreaking work. Selpaw

[retread]

Buy some COWW ingots from thecaptain here on the forum and mix 50/50 with your lead and you are good to go. You could add a bit of tin to improve fillout but it probably will not be necessary.

[Down South]

I have what I like to call my universal alloy ( It is very similar to most folks on the forum) 50 % Clip on wheel weights + 50% Pure lead.
This is my mix too. Harder is not always better. I use 50/50 +2% tin for most of my handgun loads.