How to maintain the same alloy mixture??

[catkiller45]

At this time I am making bullets with wheelweights and soft lead...Trying to maintain an alloy of close to 1 in 20.....Is there any method I can use to keep the same hardness or not...I know the weights are no where near being consistent so may be this is going to be impossible to do....I am using a mix of 50% soft and 50%w.w's...The alloy is close to 1 in 20 as far as hardness goes..Thanks,John:Fire:

[405]

us are in the same boat. There is no way to produce true 20:1 alloy by mixing lead and WW.... since WW has extra elements besides the lead/tin in a true 20:1 alloy. The best one can hope for is getting to a BHN # that is the same as 20:1 just as you suspected.

What I do is weigh and melt the "pure" lead first. Get a BHN # for it (mine is near pure at BHN 5). Then with the bulk WW alloy I have in small ingot form (mine runs about BHN 14) I add small weighed increments of the WW until I reach the desired BHN #. This requires casting a bullet for testing after each addtition to determine BHN. With a known weight of the "pure" lead plus a known weight of the WW alloy I then record the resulting BHN #. After many trials and enough data for a table, I can now predict how much of my WW alloy to add to certain amounts of "pure" lead to get to different, desired BHN #s. Not exact science but about as good as one can do with such mixing and matching.

[runfiverun]

you can add up all your bhn's too for instance.
if you have 10 lbs at 10 bhn ='s 100
and 10 lbs of 5 bhn ='s 50
100 + 50 = 150 then divide it by your total weight =20 lbs
so 150 / 20 ='s 7.5 bhn

[HeavyMetal]

An intersting question!

Once upon a time I played with a lot of different alloys, some I wanted and some I got because of the size of my pot.

Then one day I got a big old weed burner at a yard sale! The light went on and I purchased a large cast iron "dutch" oven!

The idea is to figure out, as closely as possible your metals, wheel weights, clip on or sticky, pure lead, what have you. Some serious guessing will need to be applied here.

Then decide on the correct mix, 30 Lbs wheel weight to 10 lbs pure lead as an example, and then write it down!

Once you decide on a basic formula fire up the pot, melt your largest "lot" of alloy first and then add the other metals while fluxing constantly! Keeping a fairly high heat, but under 890 degrees, well help the metals "blend" evenly!

Be aware this is not an exact science and you will always have some varation in batches but by making as large a batch as possible you wind up casting an "average" alloy either for fot it's make up ( 20 to 1) or for hardness ( say 18 to 22 BHN) Once you get it all melted together and have it completely fluxed pour ingots!

By making seveal large "lots" and mixing ingots from each "lot" you stand an even better chance of creating your "average" alloy configuration.

In this way I have made 2 or 3 100 LB lots of a desired hardness alloy and have had great success by blending ingots from the different lots!

A trick I've also used is to go with some form of permant marking! Steel punches and adding a lot number to each ingot works for me. I use a "mold" that makes 6 pie shaped wedges that whiegh about three lbs each. so I do have a few ingots in each lot, but not as many as if I was using one of those 1 lb ingot molds!

A lot of guys may disagree with me on the accuracy of the alloys and quite honestly this isn't a perfect answer for making alloys BUT but the system works and better than a lot of others.

[joeb33050]

you can add up all your bhn's too for instance.
if you have 10 lbs at 10 bhn ='s 100
and 10 lbs of 5 bhn ='s 50
100 + 50 = 150 then divide it by your total weight =20 lbs
so 150 / 20 ='s 7.5 bhn

The above is often said because it seems to make sense, however it ain't true. The hardness of lead tin antimony alloys is NOT in any sense linear with respect to the proportions of the three. The only source I've found for estimating BHN from the percentages of tin and antimony is from "Type Metal Alloys" By Frances D. Weaver, B.Sc. (Mrs. Harold Haywood), see: Journal of the Institute of Metals, Vol. LVI, 1935.

This is covered in "Cast Bullets For Beginner And Expert", Second Edition, which can be found and read online at: http://sports.groups.yahoo.com/group/CB-BOOK/
The book is in "FILES", the Table Of Contents is in "The Beginning". See 3.2 BULLET CASTING METALS

[Shiloh]

As stated above, the composition of each batch is a little different. I have an old heavier duty postal scale that I use for adding linotype to my WW batch. This is for rifle boolits only. It keeps things close. I cast and shoot pistol boolits from my stock of range lead and other scrap.

Shiloh

[deltaenterprizes]

For consistancy mix as large a batch as you can at one time. All industries have the same problem with batch to batch variations and all you can do is get it close. There is many more variables in your ammunition than the lead mixture in your bullet. How consistant is your primer lot,powder batch,weight of each brass case? How consistant do you grip your gun,align the sights,squeeze the trigger and place your feet in the same position? What about your gun,is it a Wilson match grade 1911 or a out the box Llama?
The only thing a lot to lot variation will do is slightly shift the point of impact on the target and the solution to that is adjustable sights.
I have been shooting cast boolits for over 25 years and with any batch I can keep them in a
5'' group at 25 yds with the same sight setting.

A mathematician did a calculation of all the variables between shots from a firearm and concluded that it is a miracle that 2 bullets hit the same target let alone form a group!