What alloy and what lube to use

[Wm Cook]

First I would like to apologize for taking up so much time on the forum. A lot of my questions are elementary level but the support I’ve received has exceeded anything I expected.

Second I realize that the subject of alloy and lube are like sticking your toe in fish bowl full of piranhas.

The target is to center line me with an alloy and a lube that I can use over the spectrum of boolits I cast. Thanks to the directions in one of the above stickie’s my pot is scrubbed clean. The Hydrogen Peroxide and white vinegar brought everything back to pristine condition. My sizer is clean and ready for lube. Right now I’m just waiting for some fresh alloy to arrive to start casting again.

Alloy: I’m not a chemist and I do not have time to source salvaged lead. I’m also a purist and believer that if all bullets don’t go through the same hole there’s a 99% chance its user error. All I need in a consistent repeatable alloy heated to the right temperature, a clean mold at the right temperature and I can cast quality boolits. From all of the searches on the forum I’ve come to the conclusion that I need a brinell hardness of about 13 – 15 for my needs. That will stretch from 35 Remington deer loads to 2,600 .222 loads. All of the strings I’ve read had me a bit confused about mixing my own, so I made the decision to buy my allow from a source that has a chance of being repeatable.

I assume hardness can be tweaked by dropping in water versus dry dropping. Going out on a limb, I might be able to cast 22’s for my .222 in the 2,600 fps range by water dropping and use with my 35 Remington deer rifle by dry dropping them. Sorry to say I just don’t have enough experience to tell you whether that is right or wrong. And although my casting equipment is rapidly growing I do not have a hardness tester.

So the first big question is this; Brownell has a product that's sold as 92% Lead, 2% Tin, 6% Antimony. Is that generic enough that I can cast everything from sub sonic 22’s to 1,800 fps 35 Remington deer loads to 2,600 fps .222’s. It’s sold as 16 BHN.

Question two is about lube. I had been using some mystery lube that came with the Lyman kit that I liked very much. Not too soft, didn’t require a heater and it only took a fraction of a crank to fill the grease cavities. Very consistent and there was no oozing after you walk away. After running out of that I tried Lyman Orange Magic but hated to be futzing around with the heater (no controller added, just on or off). Then I went to Lyman Ideal (without the heater being used) and found it too soft. Not a big BIG issue because I size and load back to back. But the adjusting of the tension on the lube compression was very delicate. Too much and it left lube under the gas check. If you cast two or three without tweaking the tension the third one might not be fully lubed. Then I bought some White Label from NOE and although I haven’t used it yet it, it feels like the mystery lube I was originally using. That translates into no heat needed and you could tweak just a 1/32 or 1/64 of a crank to fill the lube rings with no oozing.

So there you go. I bared my soul and waiting for the arrows to come a flying. Thanks so much for all of the help. Bill.

PS: I’m casting for 35 Remington, .357, 9mm, 7.62 x 54 Mosin, 22 K Hornet, .222 Remington and about ready to jump into a 45LC project. My primary sport is short range Benchrest Competition with a 6PPC. But I get as much enjoyment out of shooting a 3 inch off hand group with my 35 Remington as I do shooting <.099 groups with my Bench Rest guns. Thanks again.

[DougGuy]

Hard to beat 50/50+2% with Felix, Tac1, or even SPG in a Ruger revolver. This is my favorite above all others for 44 and 45 calibers.

[GhostHawk]

"I’m also a purist and believer that if all bullets don’t go through the same hole there’s a 99% chance its user error."

I do not completely agree with that statement. By the same token no slings or arrows from me.

When they do all go in the same hole that means yes you are getting it right.

But failure to do that can have many causes, operator error is possible at every step along with other possibility's. Sometimes it just means you have not found what it wants yet.


And that can be a different bullet design, different powder, different lube, or maybe that gun just does not want to shoot.

So success is success, but failure is not always YOUR failure.


"So the first big question is this; Brownell has a product that's sold as 92% Lead, 2% Tin, 6% Antimony. Is that generic enough that I can cast everything from sub sonic 22’s to 1,800 fps 35 Remington deer loads to 2,600 fps .222’s. It’s sold as 16 BHN."

Seems like a decent place to start.

As to the lube, I have not played with many. LsStuff's Carnuba red, Ben's Red, BLL.

For me the BLL has been fast and easy and leaves my bores sparling. And the accuracy has been good. Best of all it required virtually no tools that I could not find around the house.

People get I think very "brand loyal" when they find a lube that works for them. And they will defend it against all challengers. I know I will.

What is best for you, well only you can decide that.

I would start with a proven product from LsStuff's white label lubes. You might even ask their advice. Who knows more about their lubes than they do?

In the end it is a journey, through the swamp at times, at others when the bullets stack up it is like we are standing on the edge of some awe inspiring vista. Life is good. Other times not so much.
Still it has it rewards.

Good luck to ya.

My advice, try not to get too buried in it all. Try to keep some perspective.

It is hard to remember when you are up to your tail in gators that you went in there to drain it.

Work in around the edges, it can be deep in the middle.

[Old colt]

2500+ from white label. Use it in 800p fps 45 loads up to 2000 fps 308 loads. May need a heater if your casting area is below 60 F. BAC would be another good choice.

Sent from my SM-G930R4 using Tapatalk

[Yodogsandman]

You can get salvaged lead right here on the forum in the "Swap and Sell" section. Not hard to find at all and for good prices. Clip on wheel weights is about perfect for all your uses. If you need to add some tin to fill out your mold, get some pewter from the "Swap and Sell" section.. If you need it harder, oven heat treat and cold water quench your boolits.

[jimb16]

I'm going to give you a bit of sage wisdom. Don't take anything you read or hear on this or any other site as absolute truth. All we can do is tell you what has worked for us. Every firearm is a law unto itself and what works in most cases may not work with any particular firearm. What we tell you is "generally speaking" good advise. But you will need to refine it to meet you own needs. For instance, pistol bullets don't need to be as hard as rifle bullets. Most of the time that will be true, BUT every now and again you will come across a handgun that wants very hard bullets to perform at its best. The opposite can be true of a rifle too. You will need to do a lot of experimenting to find out what your firearms want. That is what makes this hobby so challenging and ultimately satisfying when it all comes together and you do get that 1/2 inch 100 yard group.

[BigBore45]

Your on your way. I suggest start casting pistol loads in the sub 1000fps range. I don't like the 6% Anitmony for a hunting bullet. Better with wheel weights and water quenched. Casting rifle rounds for hunting vs casting bullets for pistol to shoot at targets is a leap in and of itself. Not saying it cannot be done but. Just as with reloading, no one likes to jump in and start making match ammo on a progressive press to learn. I say cast up some plinkers and work out how not to lead up the barrel and get accuracy before trying to do all that and make a reliable hunting bullet at the same time. Again, it's possible but very steep learning curve all at one. A good hunting bullet usually has less than 6% antimony in it.

[plainsman456]

I started off with wheel weights and added some tin for fill out.

As for lube when i traded for my casting stuff it came with about 5 different types of lube.

I used some and they did ok but after reading on here about 2500+ i quit changing lubes from pistol to one for rifle.

I shoot the 45 acp.up to the 35 Whelen and have had no problems with it.
I am sure that it is over kill for pistols but it keeps it simple and works.

I have played with different alloys and had some success but it is hard to get over wheel weights.

best advice i can give you is to keep it simple because if you take it to serious to a point of distraction it will cease to be fun.

I enjoy this stuff.

[runfiverun]

there are 2 secrets to lube.
the first is a consistent viscosity.
the second is in the residue it leaves behind.


as far as your alloy.
the 2/6 is fine, but I wouldn't be buying it from midway or whomever.
I would get it from a foundry without the mark up. [rotometals or whatever]
I would also get some soft lead to cut it in half with.

[lightman]

If you are buying your alloy from a foundry, the 92-2-6 will work for about anything. Another good choice would be Lyman #2 which is 90-5-5. For lube, any of the White Label Lubes will work. Nothing against Brownells but check out RotoMetals, a site sponsor that advertises at the top of the page.

Most of us, including me, are scroungers. I have always been successful casting with wheel weights. If you have the ways and means to buy new alloy, you will probably learn the art of casting easier then those of us that learned while using unknown scrap. New clean alloy will be easier to use.

[chutesnreloads]

Search the site for the book "From Ingot to Target" by Glen Fryxel.Read it cover to cover twice.Alloys are about as well covered there as any one place I've seen.I still refer to it often.Instead that 92-2-6 I would go with Lyman #2 formula 95-5-5 and then get at least an equal amount of pure lead or close to it to dilute the #2 with.Easy to hit a BHN you're looking for.Get confident with the slow moving stuff first before you try the 2000 FPS+ stuff.

[Motor]

Probably mentioned already but size is king for any cast bullet success. Personally I think 16BHN is way over kill for 45acp or any sub-sonic and if your a little small on diameter with that hard alloy you are going to get very bad lead fouling.

Like the man above stated all we can do is relate what works for us. Let me start where I started. This was with a hardness tester some lead and some linotype and Lee A-Lox lube.

I've shot 38spl alloy as soft as 8BHN but typically for all mild target work 10 to 12 BHN will do fine in everything from 38spl to even 500 S&W. I know because I've done it. The exception to this and I'm sure others will agree is the 9mm. With A-Lox lube I actually needed 15BHN for good results.

For rifle the 10 to 12 BHN works fine for sub-sonic loads. For super sonic up to what you'll be shooting your 35 Rem at (around 2000 fps) 16 BHN will work fine with A-Lox and a gas check.

That's all now history though.

A couple years ago I switched to powder coating and it simplified everything. I'm using 12BHN alloy for ALL of my loads including .223s that cycle a standard AR-15. This also includes my 440gr un-checked 500 S&W load that produces over 30k psi.

You owe it to yourself to at least look into powder coating. It's inexpensive to try and you'll like the results. But then again since you are just starting out maybe you should mess with lube so that later when you do try powder coating you'll realize how nice it is.

BTW: The 7.62x54R is a great caliber to shoot cast. Sub-sonic or super sonic. ;)

Motor

[WRideout]

For low velocity pistol loads, the alloy you described may be too hard; there are many posts and stickies on the forum about bullet obturation. I wouldn't spend a lot of money on ready mix alloy when you can get clean range scrap or other soft lead from the swapping and selling section. Any more, I use range scrap plus a little tin for all my pistol bullets; 38 spl, 357 mag, 7.62 Tok and Nagant. For years I used straight wheel weight for everything.

Wayne

[JonB_in_Glencoe]

First I would like to apologize for taking up so much time on the forum. A lot of my questions are elementary level but the support I’ve received has exceeded anything I expected.

...SNIP
Don't apologize, that is the primary reason this website is here. If someone tells you different, they are sadly mistaken.

I could offer you many suggestions about Lube, but you said, "I bought some White Label from NOE and although I haven’t used it yet it" . If that is BAC, you should be good to go, it's my favorite of his offerings for pistol and Rifle (under 2Kfps). BAC can probably be applied with a lubesizer without heat, depending on room temp. But wax based lubes adhere to the boolit better if the boolits and lube are warm.

Alloys: Today, knowing what I have learned over the last 7 years, if I had ZERO lead stashed, I would be buying and/or looking for COWW and Near pure scrap lead. If you can't find those locally, I would buy from the vendors here...those are usually priced better than anything else comparable anywhere else, as far as usable Lead alloys are concerned. COWW works for just about everything, But sometimes you want a softer alloy for low pressure loads and/or hunting, then a 50-50 blend of the COWW and soft lead is good for that. If you want a harder boolit than COWW alloy is normally, you can heat treat it for most any application you will come across.
Good Luck.


PS, just in case you are unfamiliar with COWW...it is listed along with all the other Acronyms we use in this casting hobby.
http://castboolits.gunloads.com/showthread.php?107406-Abbreviations-Acronyms-As-Used-on-This-Forum
:holysheep

[mdi]

I used straight wheel weight alloy for many years. I had access to wheel weights from where I worked, mostly truck wheel weights, so I naturally used what was free and handy. Like many I started with alox, but soon went to home made lubes (from the recipes available here). My home made 45-45-10 and my "Speed Green" work quite well. I also was led to White Label Lubes and have used a lot of their Carnuba Red for my Magnum handguns.

I have found that even with good alloy and a good lube inaccuracy and leading often occur, so I size the bullets to fit the gun they will be used in ( same diameter as the cylinder throats and .002" over groove diameter for my semi-autos as a start)...

[Wm Cook]

This is Bill again, the guy that started the thread.

Well that was an interesting read. I went through it several times and thanks to everyone who chipped in. I was able to cancel the Brownell order of 90-2-7 because FedEx lost the shipment and they declared it MIA. So I switch to RotoMetals and I'll start with the 90-5-5 Lyman #2. Since the near term objective is low velocity (<1800fps) with calibers running from 22 to 35 Remington I got the feeling that the 16bhn of the Lyman might be too hard??? At least that's what I've discerned from the above comments. So I picked up some pure lead from RotoMetals when I bought the Lyman #2 just because the timing was right. And I have to get my feet wet with starting to mix my own sooner or later. I'm not equipped to check hardness so I have to get equipment to settle that score.

I have to be totally honest and I am not saying this to boast; I'm confident that I can get nearly any rifle to shoot the best that it's capable of. All it takes is money. The trigger, action, bedding, barrel(s), powder, bullets, primers, seating depth, brass and bench technique can solve most any problem. For jacketed bullets all it takes is money, time and some experimentation. But the spectrum of variables cast shooters deal with makes shooting jacketed bullets looks bush league.

Forget the ugly sprue cut or seating the gas check square, heck just looking at a pot full of melted alloy and trying to figure out what ratio's are needed to lower the bhn of the alloy is just a little daunting for me. Now will I have the nerve to start putting a few cups of this and a few cups of that and hope I guessed right to get to the 12-14 BHN that I think is being recommended remains to be seen.

One of those you got to try it to see if you can do it. It just seems unnatural for me to fly by the seat of my pants and guess at 3 cups of Lyman and one cup of pure lead. Only time will tell there. I guess starting with a copy of "From Ingot to Target" by Glen Fryxel would help. And I almost swear I was on Amazon the other day and in one of my searches I found a Handloading (the magazine) book that summarized their articles for casting, loading and shooting. I wish I would have bought it when I saw it.

I talked to Glen from LSstuff about lube and he pointed me toward Carnauba Blue. So I think I have that side covered.

All of the ingredients should be on hand before the end of next week so I should have things in motion before the end of the year. Thanks again for all of your support.

[gwpercle]

Remember , after sizing and lubing boolits , back the pressure off the lube . This takes the pressure off the seals and they last longer.
Tip: DougGuy know's . After 50 years of casting clip on wheel weights + lead , 50/50 with a little tin for castability , does it all for me.
Fit is much more important than hardness. Most people use boolits that are TOO hard and TOO small .

Don't overthink it, this is supposed to be a fun hobby and in truth an alloy that's not exactly perfectly 50/50 +2% will work just fine !
Gary

[rockrat]

For your needs , I would think the #2 might be a bit overkill.
Check out Rotometals recycled lead, as its close to the old WW with just a bit of copper in it. I bought a bunch to use as its close to what I have been blending to use in most everything from pistol to 2000+ fps rifle use. I air quench the pistol and water quench the rifle stuff. Sometimes I also water quench some pistol as I use the same boolits in a few rifles. If its anything like my blended alloy, it should get pretty hard when WC
Lube-----I would recommend White Label Carnuba blue lube. If I only had one lube to use, this would be it.
Otherwise, the 92-6-2 "hardball" alloy" would be a bit overkill on pistol, but should work OK, and it would be fine for rifle use. As you said, AC for the 35 rem and WC for the 222.

[Wm Cook]

This is Bill again, and I'm feeling more and more like a total rookie.

How in the dickens do you measurably quantify 50/50 wheel weights and lead with a little tin when your looking at a melting pot that's 3/4 full of something else. Do you drain the pot every time? Do you then add ww and lead by weight (say 9 lbs each) then add a pound of tin???

I'm having a hard time understanding the casting definition for "a little bit of...". Sorry for being slow but I'm willing to work hard enough that I should be able to figure this out. Thanks, Bill.

[Old colt]

Not sure on the 3/4 full but you could pour a muffin tin full and let it cool. Drop it on the concrete and see if it 'rings' when it hits would give you a rough idea on hardness. Or try molding a couple. As far as keeping your mix the same make ingots of your different alloys and drop in the same amount of each when it will fit in the pot. If changing alloys cast until the pots about empty and add different alloy, the small amount in the bottom shouldn't be an issue. Add tin straight to the pot, depending on the amount needed a cheep kitchen scale will work.

Sent from my SM-G930R4 using Tapatalk

[Wm Cook]

I was just a bit surprised that over the years there hasn't been data gathered that gave specific target weights of of the variables in alloy.

Example: Lyman #2 is said to be 90% lead, 5% Tin and 5% Antimony. To duplicate that a 10lb top off to your pot would need 9lbs of lead, 8 ounces of tin and 8 ounces of Antimony. That in turn should equal a BHN of 16. So if you wanted a hardness of 12 you would instead use XX% lead, X% Tin and X% Antimony. That I could measure and I know I could repeat.

I guess I'm just kind of puzzled that things are so subjective. What I'm looking for for sub MOA with my rifles is 180 degrees away from Cowboy Action Shooting and more like BP Silhouette competition. I think. I'm chasing single MOA with my rifle loads but for handgun COWW and a little of this and a little that would be perfectly acceptable. That I can understand winging it.

As a Benchrest Shooter I'm used to turning neck thickness to the 10th of an thousandths. All loads are weighted to the tenth of a grain and seating depth / lands adjustments are made in .002 increments.

For casting all of my 22 cal boolits that I shoot are weighed and shot +/- 0 grains. Typically on a bell curve I might find two weights that may be consistent (example 42.3 grain and 42.4 grain). All the rest goes back in the pot for recasting. Then the 42.3's are shot as a group, then the 42.4's are shot together.

Thanks for letting me vent. And I still love the variables. Keeps my mind young. Merry Christmas, Bill.

[nh7792]

The 92/6/2 is your most common casting alloy, and most your commercial mold manufacturers (Lee, Lyman, RCBS) make their mold to the 92/6/2 specs. Used to be Lyman #2 was the go-to alloy, but that changed a while back (from what I noticed) If you have the funds, the 92/6/2 would be your best bet for a multiple use alloy, and as you get more educated on alloys and what BHN is best for certain calibers, you can start adjusting as you need to best suit each caliber ya cast for.
As far as lube goes, there are thousands of different recipes on here. Find the one on here that matches what you used first and you can make your own.

[chutesnreloads]

Sounds as though you started with Rotometals with the same thought in mind I did.At first I didn't worry so much about uniformity of my alloys...just cut off what looked equal size pieces of #2 and pure ingots.......now I have a scale.You should be able to find a downloadable copy of "From Ingot to Target" somewhere on this this forum...it's where I found it........probably in the stickies.Take your time and enjoy your addiction.

[chutesnreloads]

Yes.....look in the Classics and Stickies section and look for the Glen E. Fryxel Fans thread.......lots of good reading just in there