? pewter mostly tin, how much to add to dead soft lead to equal or better WW

[JBMauser]

I have some pieces stamped Pewter that I picked up at the local GoodWill. I am pulling out my long dormant casting gear and start casting some pills. I never stopped snatching up lead and now I have a ot of dead soft lead. My question is there a guide line, to figure how much pewter to add to a pot of lead. Also do I need to get antimony as well? Solder? I have only cast wheel weight to date.

Thanks in advance. JB

[MBTcustom]

JB,
COWW have only a negligible amount of tin in them. Less than .5% (speaking of an average as if you smelted 200lb of COWW and had them analyzed as I have many many times).

if you want to make COWW alloy out of pure, add just enough antimonial lead to bring your antimony up to 2.33% and throw in maybe .3% tin.
Voila.

That said, COWW is a pretty substandard casting alloy as is, so if you carefully bring the antimony and the tin up to 2%-3% equally (try to get 2.25%ish) you will have one of the best and most versitile casting alloys I have ever used. This is what I call House alloy because I cast everything out of it.
Air cooled and aged it runs 11-14 BHN, and water dropped it measures 27 BHN after only one week of aging. This is how I can use it for everything from 45acp at 600fps to 30XCB at 2700fps!
Thats a really broad range of effectiveness, and if I had to stick with only one alloy, House would be it.

[bangerjim]

Agree with Tim, COWW's have ~0.5% Sn....for me that is not quite enough for good casting.

I mix pure with 2% Sn and 2-3% Sb to get my 9-12 (air cooled) mix I use for everything pistole. Rifles are ~14 or so.

Then I powder coat them.

Works great!

Hardness is not as important as stressed in the olden daze. Fit is much more important that a hard (lyman#2-ish) boolit now.

Get the FREE alloy calculator spreadsheet found on this site to answer all your "mixing" questions on alloys!

banger

[RogerDat]

Pewter is generally greater than 90% tin, for casting purposes the other 10% does not matter it is just tin or Sn. Solder is also a source of tin in various percentages ranging from as low as 10% tin to more than 90% tin solder. Both pewter and solder serve the same purpose of adding tin to lead for casting.

Sometimes just a little bit of tin is added to help the lead flow into the crevices in the mold, typically referred to as "fill out". Sometimes as goodsteel points out in amounts to match the antimony which creates a good Sb/Sn alloy that enhances the lead well. In equal amounts the two ingredients are of greater value than the sum of them on their own. 2.5% Sn is good fill out but not a lot of added strength, 2.5% antimony or Sb is somewhat harder but not super hard. The combination of both mixes and makes for a very good alloy.

0.5% Sn / 3% Sb /95% lead is clip on WW's add enough pewter/solder/tin to get that tin up to 2% and it is one of the "standard" recipes. Works for most things well. Sounds like goodsteel has a slightly sweeter version of that as the "house" mix.

There is a Lead Alloy Calculator available for download in a sticky. Allows you to enter your lead, tin and other casting alloys and will total up the final percentages and estimated hardness. Tin is probably the most expensive metal in a bullet casting alloy so adding more than required for good casting is generally avoided.

Some slower pistol rounds are cast from binary (two ingredient) alloys of tin and plain lead. Typically stuff like 38 or 45 colt also some rifle cartridges that were originally black powder cartridges. Around 5% tin is 20:1 alloy some also use 16:1 alloy. The black powder cartridge shooters have their own competitions, members into that sport could advise on what works for an alloy of only tin/lead.

If you have WW's then adding enough pewter (tin) to get that 2/3/95 alloy will serve you well, 2.5/3/94.5 would cast very well and quench or heat treat to a very hard alloy. Or powder coat if you want to go that route.

[MBTcustom]

Ive never had a large batch of COWW measure more than 3% antimony (2.33% has been the norm with shocking regularity) and tin has often been nearly absent (often measuring only .05 or less).

Therefore, I simply readjust my alloy calculator to zero out tin, arsenic, and copper, so that I call COWW an alloy of two parts, comprised of only 97.67% lead, and 2.33% antimony. To this I add just enough solder to balance the mix at 95.6/2.2/2.2

The expensive way to arrive at this alloy is to buy Lyman #2 alloy and cut it 44/56 with pure lead being the greater.
I base my assertions on dozens of XRF tests of COWW and alloys I have derived from it. The only calculation that works every time for me so that I can expect the actual alloy produced to match the alloy projected ​by the calculator, is to readjust the calculator as described.

[JBMauser]

Banger Jim, where is the Alloy Calculator. I can't find it. Is it at Castpics? could not find it there either. I need to brush up on symbols. Sn and Sb is tin and antimony but I am not sure which is which. pb is lead I recall. COWW I think is wheel weights?

[kens]

Ive never had a large batch of COWW measure more than 3% antimony (2.33% has been the norm with shocking regularity) and tin has often been nearly absent (often measuring only .05 or less).

Therefore, I simply readjust my alloy calculator to zero out tin, arsenic, and copper, so that I call COWW an alloy of two parts, comprised of only 97.67% lead, and 2.33% antimony. To this I add just enough solder to balance the mix at 95.6/2.2/2.2

The expensive way to arrive at this alloy is to buy Lyman #2 alloy and cut it 44/56 with pure lead being the greater.
I base my assertions on dozens of XRF tests of COWW and alloys I have derived from it. The only calculation that works every time for me so that I can expect the actual alloy produced to match the alloy projected ​by the calculator, is to readjust the calculator as described.

If you take COWW and add 2.5% pewter, wouldn't you have your house alloy??

[bangerjim]

Banger Jim, where is the Alloy Calculator. I can't find it. Is it at Castpics? could not find it there either. I need to brush up on symbols. Sn and Sb is tin and antimony but I am not sure which is which. pb is lead I recall. COWW I think is wheel weights?

See that little white box in the upper right corner of the site? Above the "advanced search" text?That is your "little friend". Just type your query in there and a ton of stuff will magically appear.

I typed on "alloy Calculator" and on the 1st listing I got:

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

That is the one you want.

Sb is Antimony
Sn is Tin (remember the "n" on the end if you are not into chemistry as I am)

COWW = clip on wheel weights (~12)
SOWW = stick on wheel weights (almost pure)
Cu is copper
Bi is bismuth
Zn is zinc
Pb is lead

Those are the common elements you will see on here.

bangerjim

[JBMauser]

Many thanks. JB

[MBTcustom]

If you take COWW and add 2.5% pewter, wouldn't you have your house alloy??

If you take ten pounds of COWW (if adjusted the way I described) and add 1lb of pure lead, and .27lb of pewter, you have my House alloy, and it pays to use a good quality scale and be anal about getting things perfect.

Dig the link bangerjim just posted. download the calculator linked in post #1. That is precisely the calculator I use. I actually have about 4 of them, but that one bangerjim linked is by far my favorite.

[runfiverun]

OMG.
20 parts lead to 1 part Tin will give you the same bhn as ww alloy.

[JBMauser]

Thanks runfiverun, you put it in my language. I thank all of you, as I need to re-educate myself on alloy. I was just used to cleaning WW and casting. I will put some Pewter in my WW mix from now on to get a better fill. That was always a problem. I am trying out some powder coating as I saw demonstrated on Youtube with a tumbler not sprayed. I think I will just sell off one of my Saeco lubers and buy a spray gun.

As usual, I find bullet casters very helpful and willing to share knowledge and advice. Thanks to all. JB

[kens]

When you look at any alloy calculator, you may see several alloy mixes that are 11bhn.
16:1 lead/tin; monotype; and others are 11bhn.

If you have a lead hardness tester then how can you tell whether your alloy is tin based, antimony based to whatnot?

[bangerjim]

If you cannot afford a hardness tester, use the "artist's pencil system" described on here.

Do a search using the white box at the top right of the page.

It is a SWAG but that is really all you need!

banger

[kens]

Yeah, but my question is:
if hardness tester (or pencil) tells you 11bnh, then how can you tell if it is harden with tin or antimony?

[lightman]

You can't tell. All you are getting is the hardness. I guess the only way to find the alloy is to have it tested at a local scrapyard.

[jonp]

Ive used the alloy calculator and sub'd pewter in for tin more or less with good results. The bhn was close to what it should have been.

[jonp]

Yeah, but my question is:
if hardness tester (or pencil) tells you 11bnh, then how can you tell if it is harden with tin or antimony?
Does it matter?

[MBTcustom]

Does it matter?

Less than 1500fps, usually no.

[kens]

Does it matter?

yeah, a lot!!!
tin won't water quench harden
antimony does.

[MBTcustom]

yeah, a lot!!!
tin won't water quench harden
antimony does.


^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^bingo^^^^^^^^^^^^^^

Another thing that I think might be worth considering is that different alloys engrave differently, and may ride the barrel better or worse, regardless of whether they are harder or not. Hardness isn't everything (although it's one of the few things we can actually MEASURE). I suspect that having the RIGHT hardness is key to a good shooting bullet. ie: hard with what alloy?

For instance, I was shooting 30XCB @ 2650 FPS. One alloy was Linotype at 27BHN. The other was House alloy at 27BHN. House alloy shot better. If hardness is the only consideration, then why were they not identical?
In contrast, when you get on up to 3000FPS, the Linotype tends to shoot better and House alloy falls behind.

It's not just about having hard bullets. It's about having the right hardness with the right alloy, and when you start looking for accuracy, that applies to everything from 45ACP to 300 Win Mag.
Just my opinion.

[kens]

Tim,
you answered my question specifically, thanks.
Now, how do we go about identifying our alloy(s) in the garage, with our garage equipment?
Does antimony alloy ALWAYS look frosted, grainy, crystallin?
does a tin alloy ALWAYS look shiny, bright, silver?

How can we arrive at a method to identify tin vs antimony alloy hardness?

[jonp]

Water quenching to increase hardness was not the op's original question i think?

[jonp]

^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^bingo^^^^^^^^^^^^^^

Another thing that I think might be worth considering is that different alloys engrave differently, and may ride the barrel better or worse, regardless of whether they are harder or not. Hardness isn't everything (although it's one of the few things we can actually MEASURE). I suspect that having the RIGHT hardness is key to a good shooting bullet. ie: hard with what alloy?

For instance, I was shooting 30XCB @ 2650 FPS. One alloy was Linotype at 27BHN. The other was House alloy at 27BHN. House alloy shot better. If hardness is the only consideration, then why were they not identical?
In contrast, when you get on up to 3000FPS, the Linotype tends to shoot better and House alloy falls behind.

It's not just about having hard bullets. It's about having the right hardness with the right alloy, and when you start looking for accuracy, that applies to everything from 45ACP to 300 Win Mag.
Just my opinion.

Thats interesting. I was under the impression the bhn was the over riding factor. How you got there was not as long as standard boolit melt like pb, tin, etc was used. I undersrand the difference between hardness and brittleness but with lead alloy did not think it made a difference in, say, 20:1 and COWW

[MBTcustom]

Thats interesting. I was under the impression the bhn was the over riding factor. How you got there was not as long as standard boolit melt like pb, tin, etc was used. I undersrand the difference between hardness and brittleness but with lead alloy did not think it made a difference in, say, 20:1 and COWW

That's pretty much true, but there are times when tin just cannot give you what antimony does, and neither can give you what a harmonious blend of the two within the bullet metal can.
That said, I have shot many bullets made of lead and tin, and lead and antimony, but I cannot claim that I did every combination extensively, so I can't take a hard stand on anything.
All I know is that there is an exception to every rule, because the things we apply simple rules to are much more complex than the rules allow for.
I realize now that the OP was only asking how to make a tin/lead alloy as hard as air cooled COWW, probably for low velocity pistol or 300BLK, and in that situation it doesn't matter.

[runfiverun]

you have to remember that Tin is actually a different animal when it is in a lead alloy.
it adds hardness at a much lesser rate than antimony does, but it also affects the alloy differently.
when you bend that piece of pewter listening for the creak and pop sounds what you are hearing is the tin nodules actually pulling apart because they don't have the flexibility to stretch and side.

antimony by itself in a lead alloy acts much differently than it does when in the presence of tin
it actually allows the lead to slide and glide over itself much more fluidly without the brittleness usually associated with it.
now when the amount of antimony gets up in the 6% range and over then things start to change, but things change with the amount of tin in the alloy also.
if you have less than @.4% tin it changes from being a surface wetting agent [breaks through the surface of the poured alloy allowing the antimonial/lead matrix to flow better] in the alloy, to a grain refining agent affecting the internal composition of the alloy.

if you want to tell the difference between an all tin alloy and one bearing antimony drop the melted and slightly cooled alloy in water.
the precipitation cooling will affect the antimonial alloy and not the tin alloy nor a pure lead alloy.
if the antimony percentage is low like 1-2% it will take more time for the full bhn to be realized.