Lets talk alloy

[Jeffery8mm]

I got a few questions for you more experienced guys about the use/need for alloying your melt.
I have been casting for just about a year now. 38spl, 44mag, 30cal, and 45-70. So far my boolits consist of straight WW lead. The tape weights and all other foriegn stuff is also removed.
I have killed 3 deer with 45-70 and one with the 30-30. All straight ww. The boolits preformed great. All deer were real dead real fast and complete pass through. I actualy like the cast boolit performance better that the jacketed stuff!!
All of my pistol stuff is for general dirt pit plinking. My 30cal and 45-70 is for short range woods hunting.
Accuracy is also very acceptable.
Is there any advantage that I may be misssing out on by not adding tape weights or something? I really like the simplicity of just using the straight WW.
Just wondered what others did.
Jeff

[jdgabbard]

The stick on weighs tend to be of near pure lead. So they will actually soften up your alloy a bit. I would just save them up and ingot them separate. You may have a use for pure lead later down the line, or you might know somebody that shoots black powder. Those guys always need pure lead.

[grumpy one]

Stick-on weights come in two flavours: near-pure lead, and lead-tin (with the tin at something like 2%). You can distinguish between them by doing a twist-test - the difference is quite apparent. I separate the pure lead, then mix the lead-tin stick-ons into my clip-on WW in order to increase the tin content, which improves both castability and toughness quite markedly. Around here the 'naturally occurring' proportion of lead-tin stick-ons seems to be 25% of the total WW supply, which turns out to be remarkably close to an optimum alloy when you mix them together. I hope to post something on this if I ever manage to get my alloy samples analyzed.

[missionary5155]

Greetings
Personally I like my boolits as soft as possible that the load I am using.
For plinking I use near pure lead. There are no WW hard lead here that I can find.
I shoot my 44-40 SRC with about 40-1 with 10 grains Unique. The book says I should have about 1250 FPS with my 18 " barrel. No leading.
My 357 loads run 5-8 grains Unique with mostly a 165 WC (Lymna 358432) again soft.
Up there I generally mix 50/50 WW and pure and have no problems.
In my 06 I use pure WW and my 45-70´s the 50 /50 mix.
Experiment and see how soft you can shoot.
Mike God Bless you.

[Kraschenbirn]

"If it ain't broke, don't fix it."

Bill

[oso]

"If it ain't broke, don't fix it."

Bill

Sounds familiar! Have I ever said that?

[odoh]

When I worked for the Feds, it was: If its not broke, fix it 'til it is!