20-1 ALLOY mix

[ronval]

Does anyone out there have a recipe to make 20-1 alloy using WW and LEAD

[garandsrus]

Ronval,

The mix is 20 parts lead and 1 part tin....

John

[briang]

Do you mean using only ww and lead? I don't think that's possible.

[Gunslinger]

Do you mean using only ww and lead? I don't think that's possible.

I was thinking the same thing. WWs contain very little tin 0.5%. Calculating how to mix WWs with pure to get the desired 20-1 alloy would be almost impossible I think.´... dunno... maybe it could be done. Personally I wouldn't want to waste time figuring it out. Easier to add a little tin to the pure and use the WWs for something else.

What do you want to use it for anyway?

[ronval]

I have a large supply of WW and a good supply Lead. In the past I was casting hard bullets using WW and linitype. For the past year or so I have stepped over to the dark side of the game, Black Powder and I am having a ball shooting. Just back to the simple life of having fun. This alloy will be used to cast for the 45-70.

[fecmech]

If you go 50/50 ww/lead you should get a pretty close approximation as far a actual Brinell hardness of the 20/1 mix.

[jhrosier]

The WW will have about 3% antimony, not good for really soft BPCR boolits.
Might work if you have a tight throat and barrel, and are loading heavy loads for long range
20-1 is 5% tin, no antimony.
The BPCR shooters seem to like 2% to 5% tin for best accuracy.
The WW will make dandy pistol boolits though.

Jack

[camotruck]

Not to jack the thread but can someone follow through on what jhrosier started to say. I have WW and I have what I believe to be pure lead. So here's hat I think I understand. Pure for my round ball flinter, WW for my pistols so hat for my rifle's? .223 .243 WSSM 25 WSSM (shoots a 110gr @3655fps) .270 WSM 30-06 .300 WSM .35 REM and 45/70.
I'm hoping to use ww for the .35 and 45 I have them ordered and thought I could use them (ww) in both .30's

Mike

[Larry Gibson]

20-1 is indeed just Pure lead and pure tin at a 20 to 1 ratio. It is the holy grail of alloys to BPCR shooters. It does work well but, depending on the bullet and the velocity 30-1 and 16-1 also work well. All three alloys are also good for smokeless loads.

WW contains antimony which is the "hardener" in cast bullets. WWs + 50% lead is a very soft alloy which does work well in muzzle loaders that push RBs and maxi-balls fast. I use that alloy with success in my .50 cal TC Black Mtn Magnum over heavy charges of 777 or Pyrodex.

Larry Gibson

[runfiverun]

dude you can forget about cast boolits at 3655.
if you ever do get them that fast and can hold accuracy for 5-10 shots you have achieved the holy grail.
think ww's water dropped in the 1900 to 2300 fps range.
1900 is pretty easy, and over 2000 things can get strange quick. 2200to 2300 is doable. paper patching will get you more, as will slower twist rate bbl's, custom molds ,and throat cutting.
the 35 rem is probably going to be your friendliest rifle in the bunch followed by the 0-6.

[obssd1958]

ronval,
Your original question was "can you make 20-1 using just wheel weight and lead". The easy answer is - not exactly. But if you follow this link, you can find a lot of info on what different mixes of commonly found materials can be used for boolit casting!
http://www.lasc.us/CastBulletAlloy.htm
2/3 of the way down the page you will find the "recipes", but don't skip all of the other text, it's very good info!!
There is also an article written by Glen Fryxell, that's very informative on different alloy uses:
http://www.lasc.us/FryxellCommentsCBAlloys.htm

Hope this helps!

Don

[ronval]

Thanks for the info