Making it harder!!!

[fusil]

Bonjour from rural France,
I’ve been given 60lbs of scrap lead by a guy in the village who repairs old stained glass windows. He says its pure lead with maybe a little tin, but my French could be letting me down!
He’ll give me more as he gets it, in exchange for English beer. :drinks:

1.When adding lead free solder, how much to 10lbs of lead?
2.If I can get some linotype or tin babbit, what ratio should I use?
3.Should I just mix it with my WW lead? I’ve read somewhere ¾ WW to ¼ pure and then water quench boolits straight from the mold. Oui or Non?

I only shoot light loads in my 38/357 revolvers so I don’t think it needs to be super hard. I’m still new at this and find it confusing most of the time.:confused:

Merci mes Amies,
fusil

[hithard]

If your just going with the light loads use it straight, little tin to help with the fill out. Or mix in any amount of WW, most common ratio seems to be 50/50. I like to go with the pure and save the WW as they are getting harder to get. Pure stuff does seal the bore real nice, if it does lead the bore just add a little WW or back the load down a bit. Should be able to take it to 900fps without much trouble.

[454PB]

If you can find some linotype, mix it anywhere from 30% to 50% with the pure lead for a good alloy. Unless you get it free, using tin to harden lead is inefficient, you need some antimony. Linotype, monotype, and foundry type all have high levels of antimony.

Here's some reference material:

http://www.lasc.us/CastBulletNotes.htm

[snaggdit]

Note that water dropping is not necessary, and will not affect pure lead anyway, even with tin added. Adding WW is necessary (recent thread covered this in detail) before water dropping will affect the hardness. But like hithard said, you don't need them harder. Try 10-25% WW for the tin in them and a little harder alloy if you don't have tin or solder to mix directly.

[Calamity Jake]

"Making it harder!!! "


Throw in a little ******, that'll stiffen it up a little, might make it a little hard to pour in the mold though. :bigsmyl2: :kidding:

[Echo]

Anything over three percent tin is wasteful, so, to answer Question 1: Add 1/4 pound of lead-free solder to ten pounds of pure lead and get ~ 2-2.5% tin.
Question 2: Fifty/fifty lead/lino gives about the same amount of tin, with the addition of about 6% antimony. Ww instead of pure Pb up's those percentages marginally.
Question 3: Mix it with WW's ot your heart's content. The main thing you always need (IMHO) is a little tin to reduce the surface tension of the molten alloy, so that it fills out the mold with sharp corners where they should be. But, as I said to start with, anything over 3% is wasteful...

[fusil]

Merci tout le monde,
I've just seen the old guy and he's got another 20kg for me.:mrgreen:
Thanks for the help and advice....as allways....superb.:drinks:

Fusil

[Tweaker]

I am melting over a turkey cooker. I doubt that I can melt antimoney at 1150 degrees F. How do you add this from ingots then?

Using tin is inefficient, but I can melt that and not the antimoney.

[Gunslinger]

I am melting over a turkey cooker. I doubt that I can melt antimoney at 1150 degrees F. How do you add this from ingots then?

Using tin is inefficient, but I can melt that and not the antimoney.

Once antimony is alloyed with lead for instance in WWs or linotype it won't seperate again. Alloying pure antimony with lead can be done by using a special flux offered by this man: http://www.theantimonyman.com/

Fortunately I've never had to experiment with this. Finding WWs or lino is much easier :-D

[snaggdit]

When you place crystalline antimony in a pot with melted lead, the lead starts to allow the antimony to "melt" at a lower temp. You do not have to heat it to the melting point of the antimony. You will need to flux it to get it to alloy, as Gunslinger said. Recently, someone recommended charcoal to me since I was having separation problems with "smelting" foundry type. I dug around in my saved fireplace ashes and found chuncks of charcoal (wood that was turned to coal but not consumed into ashes). Crushed, I add 1 TBSP to a 10# casting pot. It causes the antimony to mix right in. Since my pot is a bottom pour, I just leave the ashes on top until I am almost done casting, then scoop them off (so I don't clog the spout). Helps with the oxidation. It's not elegant or expensive, but seems to work well!

[carpetman]

Calamity Jake---that would only be good for less than 4 hours---above that is hazzardous.

[OLPDon]

Carpetman hazzardous ---- or the Bhn drop to fast for any use?

[Tweaker]

I have made 180 lead ingots in large cupcake moulds from range lead. I expect they are very soft. I have not invested in a hardness tester. I would prefer to not buy one.

I will only be casting for 9mm and 45 colt. I expect the 9mm requires a harder alloy than I currently have.

Since I don't have WW, I would like confirmation that I can buy antimony and successfully mix this using my turkey cooker. I believe that is what is stated by the 2 replies above

Is there any translation of the dent, scratch, mark method into a rough Brinnell hardness number?

What hardness do you suppose I would require for 9mm 125 RN at 1000 fps? I guess I will fire em and just watch out for leading .

Also, I am using Lee TL boolits to skip teh time and expense of sizing. I was not going to get into casting, but cut out $100 by skipping the thermometer, hardness tester, and sizer. I made 200 and really enjoyed it.

Thanks

[leftiye]

Antimony was 11 dollars a pound the last I checked (long time ago). As has been said it 's easier and cheaper to find linotype , or wheelweights, and mix them with your soft lead.

[snaggdit]

I hate to mention it[smilie=1:, but I got some antimony off of EvilBay a couple months ago. I didn't want to pay the same for shipping as for the 1 lb, so I got 5 lbs for $25 and the same $5 flat rate box shipping. Your mileage may vary.:neutral:

[runfiverun]

fusil:.....up to about 850 fps with pure lead and a good lube is easily obtainable.
you could also go to 40 to 1 lead to tin.
winchester used this mix in their factory stuff for years. i would target 750fps to start and go up a bit at a time.
if you can get linotype i would mix it at 2 parts pure to 1 part lino and it will be fine in the same range.
50/50 with wheel weights is also a good mix ,but a bit of tin would help in this mix.