Scrap Machine Castings for boolits?

[GabbyM]

My local salvage dealer has a box of castings of unknown material.
He gave me a sample. It melted easily and cast a beautiful bullet measuring off the Saeco scale hard. I thought it may be 50/50 tin/ lead so I mixed pure lead in to try a 1 to 20 tin/lead but the boolits came out to soft. Even if it's 25% tin it would be a gold mine. It's to hard alone to just have lead tin I think. So the question is if calcium or some unknown metal would cause a problem down the road.

Then their's the haggle over price of this mystery stuff.

[HeavyMetal]

The sample you had cast good boolits? Great! As long as it looks like all the rest are from the same maker or same type casting I don't think you'll have an issue or you'd have had it already!

I also think your on the right track with your alloy content. If it helps high anitomony content will show as a very crystilline surface while high tin will be very smooth.

Try breaking a boolit in half with a hammer and examine it under a magnifiying glass. This may also help you decide what the alloy is.

Once you make this determination you can decide how and with what you want to blend this stuff.

[beagle]

Weigh one against the weight of a bullet made from a known alloy like WWs.

Some of the machine castings were Zamak which is a zinc alloy. But during WWII, a lot of that was used for bullets.

If it casts all right and shoots all right, count your blessings./beagle

[Lloyd Smale]

what kind of castings? Could be pewter

[GabbyM]

Sounds encouraging.

I've mixed it with pure lead with good result. Zamak would make a mess like zinc I'd think?
Although if it was Zamak I could sell boolits to California. :drinks:

I did weigh boolits I cast from a 240 grain mould that drops 239gr Lyman #2. It weighed just over 231 or 232 grains, can't remember. Light weight is why I hoped it to be 50% tin. Don't know the formula for weight comparison.

I'll call the man in the morning and hope he still has it. Was a big box. Pallet size about half full. So half ton or more. Fairly large purchase with todays prices. But I can't pass on high tin content lead if he gives me a good price.

It would work best to blend with WW just for the tin. Thing is I'm out of WW with no more in sight. Plenty of soft lead around for 80- cents to a dollar per pound. This same dealer says he can back haul lino type from the foundry for me at $1.50 per lb. Mixed with 80 cent soft lead 50/50 that's $1.15 Lyman #2. Sort of shocking but not as shocking as the $4.29 diesel in my fuel tank.

[GabbyM]

what kind of castings? Could be pewter

Some sort of case cover. like a side plate to a pump. Must have been some sort of reject. Their's a couple of small brass screws in each one. It looks like aluminum.

[HeavyMetal]

Let's see if I got it right?

You cast this alloy in a Lyman mold that runs 239 grains with lyman #2, weighing the boolits you got 232 to 231 correct?

If so then I think your alloy pretty close to Lino type. It's not 50% tin or they'd weigh closer to 150 grain. Again take a good hard look at the inside of one of the boolits, don't cut it break it! If you cut it you'll only provide a sample of your blades smoothness!

Now with fragments of a boolit under a magnifiy glass try to determine how "smooth" the broken insides are. A very crystilline finsh means antimony, which I now doubt you have, very smooth finish on the broken edge means a high tin no antimony content which I think you have and quite possibly a "Babbit" metal!

Lots of stuff got babbit during ww2 and these may have even been a bearing surface or a bearing holder either would have been made of babbit metal.

If it's babbit metal you can make a lot of lyman number 2 with it by mixing with pure lead or WW!

[GabbyM]

The bullets I cast got thrown back into the pot and mixed with pure lead. I did smash one with a three bound hammer and it squished nice. Their's lots of broken pieces in the box I could look at under the glass.

The babbit sounds on tract. He did ask me once if I could use babbit for bullets. Of course he knows what he has. I'm starting to think it ma be some sort of lead tin calcium alloy perhaps with aluminum also. It's new stuff from rejects or something. Probably came in from China and failed quality control.

My memory may be off on the 232 gr from the 240 gr mould but it was at least that light. Bad record keeping. Lost the scrap paper. Maybe was 212 grains. duh

It melted at a lower temp that straight lead so theirs not much high temp metal in it like copper.

It sounds like whatever it is I'll be able to make boolits out of it. I'm a lousy salesman and hopeless buyer but I'll see what he wants for this stuff.