Interesting purchase at the Scrap Metal Dealer

[Beaverhunter2]

I stopped by the scrap yard tday toi pick up some more boolit metal. Lo and behold, they had a 1/2 bucket of............boolits! A couple of handfuls are heavy weight .458 and .475 as cast. The rest of the 135lb are .452 BB RN and SWC lubed and ready to load. I'm not plannig on shooting them, but it seemed a shame for booits to be sent into scrap without actually having the glory of being sent downrange. I'll recycle them! :)

One thing- they are hard! I can just barely mark them with my thumbnail. Much harder than the WW I usually use. I paid $.75/lb for them which is more than I would have liked. However, I couldn't see them disgraced!

In the same bin I found 2- 1/2lb ingots with "type" written on them in magic marker and a one lb/ marked with a "C" or a "U". The "type"ingots seem about the same hardness as the boolits so Ihave to wonder if I got a bunch of linotype or just hard alloy. I don't have a hardness tester. Gotta get one someday. However SWMBO asked me earlier if I'm done placing casting orders on the credit card for a while. I guess I'd better lay low for a bit! ;)

John

[RayinNH]

John, try some of the boolits before just melting them down. Try them as is as long as the lube is not all dirty. If the lube is dirty put some in boiling water to clean the lube off and then relube. You can also anneal them if you want them softer so they will slug up to fill the bore...Ray

[Beaverhunter2]

The .452's are in pretty good shape so I'm planning to try a few in my USP. The .458s are pretty banged up.

These are definitely the hardest boolits I've ever messed with.

John

[garandsrus]

John,

From what I have read, it was common in the "old" days to cast 45 boolits out of linotype. It wouldn't surpirse me if that's what you have.

John

[Beaverhunter2]

I wish I could tell what the various metals I get are! :-? The only ones I know "for sure" are pure lead (because of the purple tinge of the ingots) and wheelweights (because of the clip ;) ). I probably should make the leap and buy a hardness tester.

Does anyone have another method to figure out the basic composition of alloys? I've heard that the different metals weigh out lighter/heavier based on the amount of tin, lead, etc.

John

[Beaverhunter2]

I tried the .4525 boollits I got at the scrap dealer. There were 230gr RN and 200gr SWC, both were BB. They leaded badly in my USP. I think they are made of Lyman #2. I found a 1lb ingot at the bottom of the bucket with a "2" on it and two 1/2 pounders with "Type" written on them.

In any event, I'll be melting them down. Maybe I'll try making rifle boolits for practice. I've heard that Lyman #2 is bit hard for hunting. I finally decided to invest in a hardness tester. So hopefully I can start figuring out what I've got.

John

[randyrat]

Make a couple boolits out of known WWs- weigh them. Then make a couple boolits out of unknown alloy and compare.
As an example; -a 300 gr mold boolit will weigh aprox 305-310 grs with WWs.
- Out of lyman#2 it will be closer to 300 grs
- Lynotype boolit may weigh 295 grs
These are aproximations, will very also with your casting techniques.

[bbs70]

I wish I could tell what the various metals I get are! :-? The only ones I know "for sure" are pure lead (because of the purple tinge of the ingots) and wheelweights (because of the clip ;) ). I probably should make the leap and buy a hardness tester.

Does anyone have another method to figure out the basic composition of alloys? I've heard that the different metals weigh out lighter/heavier based on the amount of tin, lead, etc.

John

I have been thinking about getting a hardness tester for the same reasons you gave.
I've gotten lead from scrap dealers and didn't have a clue as to the composition of the scrap.
I generally rely on the fingernail method.

If I am not sure what the lead is I put it into the melting pot and cast ingots to trade to guys who make sinkers for their wheel weights.

I would really like to find a way to test the scrap for the tin content.

Last week I bought 2oo # of scrap, most of it was ww and lead pipe.
But there was a piece 2 ft long 10 inches wide and 2 in thick that had been broken in half.
It had 2 holes in it that looked like mounting holes for a mounting base for something.
I could not scratch it with a knife, so not knowing what it was I melted it seperately so I could cast some boolits to see how they would shoot(which I've still got to do).
Well, I'm still not sure what I've got, but it melted at a low temp and I had to use a fan to cool the ingots so I could dump them.
Without the fan it took quite a while for the ingots to set up.
I'm assuming it had a lot of tin in it, so I'm putting it aside for now till I can find out more.

Does anyone have a method for testing tin content?

[Greg5278]

Perhaps you have vibration plate there. I thibnk some were made from 90/10 alloy to avoid distortion. I think they were used on big Generators, and such. I saw a buch at a scrap yard, but didn't buy any. They told me the price was going to be the same as pure lead. I seem to recall that alot of Tin drops the melt temp by a good bit. I can check an old copy of Handloader for the article. It tells you how to determine alloys by the melt point, and density.
Greg

[bbs70]

It does look like some type of plate.
I bought it along with other lead for 30 a lb.
So maybe I came out ahead.:-D

I melted some high tin stuff a month or two ago and it took a while for the ingots to cool down enough to dump from the molds.
That is why I'm thinking this stuff is high tin also.

If nothing else, the ingots are pretty and very shiny.:-D

[felix]

High tin will get colder faster than high lead. Where it begins to melt is the typical demarcation line of what you have in the pot. Slushy cooling characteristics will determine what kind of hardness you can expect should you water drop the boolits. ... felix

[randyrat]

Another indication of a lot of Tin is you can make some perfect boolits with a cold mold. They may not drop out very easy, but they sure look nice.

[bbs70]

What I meant to say was that it took these ingots a lot longer to set than ww and pure lead.
Probably because the ingot molds were hot.
I use 3 Lyman ingot molds, I fill each one in order .
When all are full I dump the first one and fill it again, then dump the next one, and so on.
With ww and pure lead I can keep going like this for a while without any problems with the ingots setting up.
With the hunk of lead I had I was able to dump all three molds in regular order.
But after that, when the molds were hot I had to wait to dump each mold and then they came out of the mold soft and and acted like a warm stick of butter.
Even with the fan (which I don't have to use on ww & pure lead) I had to wait for a couple of minutes before dumping the molds.

I was told in another thread that this was due to high tin taking longer to set up because of a hot ingot mold.

[TCLouis]

that I have fired, I have found too hard is much worse that too soft.

None of my boolits are as hard as the 45 230 RNs and SWCs I find in the berm at the range!

How about the rest of you??