New Guy with a dumb question...

[Dan444]

Hello.
You sure have a great site, here. I have not started casting yet, but have started collecting wheel weight lead (evil-bay) and tin ingots. I am a MarlinNut and plan to cast for my leverguns in 218Bee, 219 Zipper, 30-30, 32 Win Spl, 35Rem, 356 Win, 375 Win, 444 Marlin and 45-70. I currently buy h/c bullets (21 bhn) and they shoot great in my Marlins. I plan on using an alloy consisting of 10 # wheel weights/0.5 #tin and water quenched. I push my bullets hard and I would appreciate your thoughts on my planned alloy.....

Now for the dumb question. The lead and tin ingots are all different sizes and shapes. How do I "chop 'em up" so that I get exactly 10# wheel weight and 0.5# tin to melt down to the proper alloy? I am thinking about melting the lead and pouring it into molds to get exactly 1# ingots and doing the same with the tin in 0.5# ingots...and then taking taking ten lead ingots and one tin ingot and melting them together to get alloy ingots for making bullets. Is this the correct way to do this or is there a better way?

Many thanks,
Dan
P.S. I think that the Ranch Dog molds are going to produce super bullets for my Marlins....gotta get some some ordered. He oughta' give me the molds for free, since he inflicted me with Marlinitis a number of years ago.

[shooter93]

I use a small Postal scale...available at Office Depot....I weigh the odd sized ingots...no matter their size or shape...total the whole pile then...you do about 5 or 10 lbs at a time depending on the scale. Then divide to get to weight of tin needed and weigh it...poof...done

[grumpy one]

(snip)
Now for the dumb question. The lead and tin ingots are all different sizes and shapes. How do I "chop 'em up" so that I get exactly 10# wheel weight and 0.5# tin to melt down to the proper alloy? I am thinking about melting the lead and pouring it into molds to get exactly 1# ingots and doing the same with the tin in 0.5# ingots...and then taking taking ten lead ingots and one tin ingot and melting them together to get alloy ingots for making bullets. Is this the correct way to do this or is there a better way?


Mixing conveniently-sized ingots rather than cutting large ones is how I do it, and I think how most people do it. Just remember to use weight, not ingot size. For example I use a standard Lee mould which produces either one pound or half pound ingots, based on them being almost pure lead. A similar-sized block of tin will not weigh as much.

You do not need five percent tin to produce hard bullets. In this instance you are proposing to add five percent tin to WW, which average three percent antimony, giving you much more tin than antimony. The Lyman book (IIRC - could have been the RCBS book) advises against allowing the tin content to exceed the antimony content because of possible soft spots. I haven't verified their metallurgical assertion, but I don't know of any serious caster who uses more tin than antimony.

Water dropping will harden your bullets, but probably by an inconsistent amount. Try it by all means, but you may find you need to oven heat-treat to achieve your objectives.

[carpetman]

Dan444---Sounds like you are trying to make this rocket science---and it aint. Melt your stuff and make some bullets. You'll never know it if theres a little BHN difference.

[JSnover]

started collecting wheel weight lead (evil-bay) and tin ingots.

Ebay is a good place to find lead but an awful place to buy it, when you add the shipping charge; been there, done that. It's ok to start there (any lead is better than none, right?) but ask around and you'll find more (cheaper!) sources.
Good luck and welcome aboard!

[runfiverun]

3 % tin would suit that mix better than 5 %
water quinched should put you around 18 or so after about a week

[44man]

Why bother with adding tin? Plain old WW metal makes good boolits as is.

[PatMarlin]

Why bother with adding tin? Plain old WW metal makes good boolits as is.

I never found the need to use tin, cept when soldering.

[jleneave]

Dan444, Welcome to the site. You will find a lot of information here and all the members are great guys with more knowledge than you or I will ever know what to do with. I weigh my ingots with a digital fish scale from WalMart and a zip lock bag. It does a good job and it don't cost much either. Again, welcome to the site.

Jody

[Cherokee]

Welcome to the foum. I use the Lyman or RCBS one pound ingot mold for all my metal. Tin runs lighter but you will not be far off just using the ingots as 1# each and mixing that way. You don't need tin with WW but it does help mold fill out. I use about 1%. Lee makes an ingot mold unit that casts half-size ingots if you want.

[Bret4207]

Welcome to the asylum. Try plain WW, like the guys said, and water quench it.

[HeavyMetal]

Dan444:
I'll welcome you to the site and then tell you to go buy a hardness tester!

With pistol bullets hardness is not to critical until you push high magnum veloicity. I rifle stuff it's always high velocity compared to pistol.

I have some formula's for blending that I've been using but they do require you to have somme ideas of what itis your base metals are, wheel weights, linotype tin etc.

I don't have those with me as I'm at lunch right now but I will post those this evening.

[EMC45]

Welcome Sir! There are no dumb questions. There is actually one dumb question: The one you don't ask!