making your own 20 or 30 to 1

[Turboman]

HI
Im new to casting and shooting the big bores was just curious,Rather than buy your lead already made up does anyone buy pure lead and add the antimony to make the mix??If so where do you find the additives to mix with the lead?
Sharps rock all others just go Bang.
jeff

[mooman76]

If you mix 50/50 WWs and pure lead, that will get you in the ballpark.

[missionary5155]

Plumbing Supply... Some hardwares (the older mom and pop stores are the best ) they should have Pure lead, pure Tin, and maybe several joint mixes.
I use an old spring type fish weight gauge. It weights up to 35 pounds. So for 20-1 I put a palstic bag on the hook and add pure lead to 20 ponds... then add 1 pound of tin. 30-1 I hang the plastic bag add 30 pounds lead and add 1 lound of tin... 40 - 1... 40-1 casts just about as good as 20-1 in my opinion.. I just give it a few more degrees... although I tend to run my pot HOT no matter what is in it. I use 30-1 and now more 40-1 in my revolvers Up to 1000 fps and 44-40 wimmy SRC and have NO lead problems with a 50/50 beeswax + axle grease. With BP 2F I use beeswax and Olive oil about 50-50 .
I also like the 50-50 ww and lead mix. It holds up well to magnum loads and does a good job mushrooming up close.

[13Echo]

If you want to make a lead tin alloy it's easy; just weigh out the lead and tin and melt together. Adding antimony is another matter as it has a much higher melting point. It is best to get the antimony already alloyed with lead. It is possible to add metallic antimony to lead and let it slowly dissolve in the melted lead or use a special flux to help it alloy. The "Antimony Man" (google him) can sell you the alloyed metal as well as pure metal and the proper flux. Or you can do as suggested and use wheel weights as a ready source of alloyed antimony.

[Dale53]

Just to set the original poster straight - 20-1 refers to twenty parts lead and twenty parts tin. The suggestion to weigh out twenty pounds of lead and add one pound of tin is sound.

Many times, when trying to calculate smaller amounts (when adding to a pot that is partially full, as an example) people forget that we have 21 parts to deal with and end up with errors (it IS important if you are trying to maintain consistency). If I am going to add lead/tin to a partially filled pot (say I need about 9 pounds to fill the pot) you divide by 21 parts with a calculator - that gives you .4285 per part with lead being 20x.4285 = 8. 57 lbs. The tin content needed will be .4285 lbs. As a practical matter, I would go with 8.5 lbs of lead and convert the .4285 lbs of tin to ounces (.4285 x 16 = 6.8 ounces). I normally add the lead to the pot and when it is melted, using an inexpensive postal scale for weighing tin (it is much more accurate than the kitchen scale I use for the heavier amounts of lead) I just weigh a bar of tin (or partial bar) and gradually melt off the amount I need in the molten alloy. Just stick it in the pot of alloy, and check the remaining weight until you have it.

All of this sounds much more complicated than it is. Takes only a minute or so to do after the lead melts. It is also quite accurate. I have two scales at the casting bench - an inexpensive kitchen scale to to weigh lead and an inexpensive postal scale to weigh tin.

There are a couple of good ways to keep your alloy consistent. One is to use your smelter and make a large amount at one time. Then, having marked your ingots carefully (you DO mark your ingots with the proper alloy, don't you?) then you just add a pre-alloyed ingot to the pot when needed. That way it'll always be the same consistency alloy until you run out of that batch.

However, I shoot lots of different calibers from BPCR to Schuetzen to target velocity pistol to magnum loaded pistols and smokeless powder rifle loads. This requires different alloys for each discipline. Rather than trying to keep a big number of different alloys I have just a few:
1 - pure lead
2 - tin
3 - Wheel weights
4 - Linotype
5 - Misc. salvaged types

When I need BPCR lead alloy (I use 30/1) I just melt the appropriate amount of lead, then add tin. I fill the pot each time (about 20 lbs working alloy). I then keep those bullets together.

If I run two pots, I just do the same but keep the results of each pot separately. That way, the bullets will be consistent weight. I strive for +or- .6 (six tenths of a grain) with the big bullets (over 400 grs). Schuetzen I strive for +or- .2 grs. Pistol bullets I just run and visually inspect (experience has shown me that once everything is up to heat, that those short fat bullets cast extremely well and I only need to visually inspect).

Sorry for the long post, but hopefully it will be helpful.

Dale53

[Buckshot]

.............The way I treat my tin is to melt it into drops. I merely use a 3 lb coffee can half full of water and lay a bar of tin on a ledge above the can and apply a propane torch to teh bar of tin. It melts off and makes small drops. There IS a danger here in that some of the drops have hollows and may retain water. I merely pour the tin drops into a colander to get rid of 95% of the water. Then spread the tin on aluminum foil on a cookie sheet. Place in the oven at 150* for a couple hours and I guarentee it WILL be dry.

These drops are very easy to measure out. With 437 grs in an ounce of lead for a 20-1 mix, for each ounce of lead add about 22 grains of tin. For 7 lbs of lead you have to add 5.6 oz of tin. Seven pounds = 7x16oz = 112 oz x 22gr tin = 2464 grs of tin. So 2464 / 437grs = 5.6 oz. For the whole 20 lb batch the math comes to 7040 grs of tin, but 7000grs or 1 lb is close enough. It's easy enough to figure the math. A 16-1 mix would call for about 27grs of tin per ounce of lead.

.................Buckshot

[catkiller45]

You do not want antimony in your mix..Lead and tin is all you want or need...The antimony makes a harder alloy....My thoughts only...Others should agree on this..

[John Boy]

One each Strap Decoy Anchor Mold ...
http://www.knutsondecoys.com/images/rig_images/doit_1885strapmold.jpg

One each PVC Pipe Tubing Cutter ...
http://www.plumbingsupply.com/images/pvc-pipe-tubing-cutter.jpg

Plus a scale that measures at least 16ozs

Cut up the SN into chunks and add to melt for ratio

[jerrold]

big boar I guess you mean 45 cal et.all. I weigh 25 lb. of smelted roof flashing lead on a bathroom scale and add one 1 lb. roll of lead free tin solder from Granger. They once had the tin for about 6 of 7 bucks a roll.:drinks:

[405]

You do not want antimony in your mix..Lead and tin is all you want or need...The antimony makes a harder alloy....My thoughts only...Others should agree on this..

I believe you are correct! By definition a 20-1 alloy is 20 parts lead to 1 part tin, a 30-1 alloy is 30 parts lead to 1 part tin... and so on. All the 20-1, 30-1 and 40-1 alloys are very soft for use in low velocity, low pressure loads and blackpowder loads. The BHN hardness standard for 20-1 is 10. The BHN for 30-1 is 9 and the BHN hardness of 40-1 is 8.5. Pure lead BHN is 5. Antimony is one of the ingredients that significantly hardens a lead alloy and is not used in the 20-1, 30-1 or 40-1 alloys. Mixing wheel weights into any alloy will likely add antimony, tin, lead and who knows what.

I've seen reference to "20-1" mixes that use 20 parts wheel weights to 1 part tin. Whew that really confuses things!!! The other confusion I see is calling Lyman #2 alloy the same as 20-1 alloy.

The best policy is to use the standards as published in various sources like the Lyman reloading handbooks, etc.

Everyone ends up with lead alloys and smelts of unkown elements. Scrap lead, range lead, free lead, experimental casting alloys and the like. I never turn down free lead so end up with all manner of unknown alloys. Instead of giving it away or selling it to the salvage yard for pennies on the dollar I just smelt the stuff into batch lots, test the BHN and stamp the BHN number on the ingots/batches. A lot of it ends up around 14-15 BHN so is useful for most mid-pressure loads.

[zampilot]

Good advice!

PS: ""You can't have no idea how little I care"- Montelius Walsh "

I watched that movie last weekend at deer camp!