Lead to Lino for 11

[LDHD]

Greetings Gentlemen and Ladies?

I melted my first lead yesterday. All went well. I mixed together all the lead I scrounged in the last couple weeks and came up with about 30lbs of one pound ingots. My Lee hardness tester measured my linotype right at 22.

I have a couple questions.

Does anyone know the lead to linotype ratio for a hardness of around 11?

How long go you let the mold set before you open it and drop the bullets?

LDHD

[runfiverun]

ww's with 3% antimony are pretty close to 11 bhn after 10-12 days if all yo have is pure and lino.
then 2 parts pure and 1 part lino should give you a 1% tin and 3% antimony mix.
about a 10-11 bhn plenty good for most applications.
i let mine set [when up to temp] till i see the sprue suck in and the color change to grey.
depending on the mold i might give a 5 count.

[looseprojectile]

If you have pure lead, toss a hard and a pure ingot in the pot and melt them together. Should be near what you want. 50/50 .
Where you at in wester? I am near Chehalis. Maybe I can help in person.
Welcome to the show.

Life is good

[Recluse]

I generally keep my scrounged lead separate these days. Wheel weights get smelted separately from the stick-on weights which get smelted with other pure lead pieces. Lino gets smelted separately.

You can use a Sharpie to mark the type of lead you smelted once it's in ingot form, or you can use different type ingots. Some of the folks here are so thrifty and sly that they can make 50' of copper wire just from stretching one penny. I'm not that smart, so I use different ingot moulds to separate my types of lead. Lyman for wheel weight lead, Lee for pure lead, the Lee 1/2 mould for lino, etc

Nothing I shoot, for the most part, requires a high BHN, so I generally cast with straight wheel weights. Helping that out is the fact that I water-quench everything I cast--straight from the mould to the water bucket. I then size/lube within 24 hours or less, and then around a week or so later, I've got a good "hardness" about the boolits that serve my purposes well.

As far as "When do you open the boolit moulds?" the key is to watch your sprue. As Runfiverun stated perfectly, when it changes color and is done changing color (usually to the dull gray/silver), whack the sprue plate with a wooden mallet or something (just not metal), open the mould and drop the boolits out.

It's a great thing, this boolit casting. Some call it a black art, others claim it requires mystical powers and ability. I agree, but have also learned that it takes patience and a willingness to humble yourself and ask questions, admit what you don't know and always seek out good information.

You're at the right place for all of that, so welcome aboard.

:coffee:

[LDHD]

Thanks for the replies. One part linotype to 2 parts lead is what I will go with. I'll test it in a week to see what I got. I'm casting wadcutters for my K38 Target Masterpiece.

LDHD

[hiram]

If 20 parts pure and 1 part tin give you 20:1, which is about 10 bhn, than how can 2 parts pure and 1 part lino(22bhn) give you 11 bhn which is waht you want?? The 20:1 mix gives 10 bhn with no antimony.

[John Boy]

Does anyone know the lead to linotype ratio for a hardness of around 11?

36% Lino and 64% Pb = Bhn 11.12

[glicerin]

Linotype varies but generally has about 12% antimony, 6% tin. 2 Pb to 1 Lino gives about 4% antimony, still very hard and not generally req'd for target .38 spcl at about 750 fps. Try some 3 to 1? I use 1-1 wheelweights to soft lead or bullet scrap in both .38 and .45 target loads. Good luck

[runfiverun]

how it works is the total ino starts at 4% tin and 12% antimony mixed 50-50 gives 2/6
[same as commercial waaaay too hardcast uses]
then again gives 1/3 bout the same as ww's which come out 10 or so bhn.
some ww man's use a 4% antimony so you get a mishmash of bout 3.5% with them.
this is where the art comes in if you have a good bhn reader. you can add and subtract those 1-2 pieces to get an actual same bhn each time, but 10-11 is close enough for the holes in the paper or deer you shoot.
since antimony adds much more hardness then tin alone,it will it adds up faster, then slower as you near the max amount.
much like a little zinc will add to the mix, and yet once you cross the line it just makes a mess.

[randyrat]

If you want consistance weight, make some boolits out of WWs and weigh them for a baseline weight....( WWs are aprox 11 BHN)
Next make some boolits out of your scrap..and weigh them....Need them heavier add some harder alloy, such as linotype and they will lghten up..... Need to make them heavier add a little pure lead.
I give up on the math because most alloys are tough to figure out exactly what they have in them. Even WWs vary some.
ie..... I get good accuracy out of a 175 gr 170-309gc boolit, so i keep the weight the same for all batches of that boolit. Thats 175 gr with a gas check + lubed..Total weight. To get that weight sometimes i have to add some lino to WWs to get the weight down a couple grains. Hope that simplifies it.
The only thing will throw this off is a lot of
Tin...It will lighten your boolit up with out making it much harder, unlike Antimony.

[mtgrs737]

I cast using WW alloy for applications up to 1100Fps in my pistols and revolvers with the excecption of Hollow point boolits which I cast using a softer alloy with a bit more tin. for 1101+ Fps I use a 50%WW and 50% Linotype alloy in pistols and Revolvers and most rifle boolits under 2000Fps. I also will cast of straight Linotype for rifles over 2000Fps if the 50/50 alloy is working. 90% of my pistol and revolver shooting is done with straight WW alloy and maybe a little tin added if I need better fill out.

[LDHD]

Well I cast my first boolits yesterday. Thanks to all for the advise. I used 1 part lino to 2 parts lead. I measured the hardness at 14 this morning. Too hard but I guess that can still change with time? If not I will go with 3 to 1 on the next casting. The 75 boolits from yesterday should be fine in my 357 at 14 BHN.

So now I have new questions.

Does everybody burn themselves on the first casting? Not bad, no blister.

I cast 100 boolits. I inspected them and pulled all with any flaw of any kind. 50% I then went back and only pulled the ones with flaws that would affect flight. 25% failure rate. Is this close to average for a first time casting? This left me with about 75, I’m happy with that.

How many do you cast in a single session with one double mold?

How long do I wait to size & lube with alox and Lee sizer?

I don’t have a book. Like everything else in the shooting sports they are sold out.

[Cherokee]

LDHD - your failure rate is good for a new caster. You will get better at it with practice. Preheating the mould helps to get good bullets faster. Using 3 lead to 1 lino will give you 1/3/96 alloy which is what I use for vast majority of my cast bullets.

[fredj338]

Well I cast my first boolits yesterday. Thanks to all for the advise. I used 1 part lino to 2 parts lead. I measured the hardness at 14 this morning. Too hard but I guess that can still change with time? If not I will go with 3 to 1 on the next casting. The 75 boolits from yesterday should be fine in my 357 at 14 BHN.

So now I have new questions.

Does everybody burn themselves on the first casting? Not bad, no blister.

I cast 100 boolits. I inspected them and pulled all with any flaw of any kind. 50% I then went back and only pulled the ones with flaws that would affect flight. 25% failure rate. Is this close to average for a first time casting? This left me with about 75, I’m happy with that.

How many do you cast in a single session with one double mold?

How long do I wait to size & lube with alox and Lee sizer?

I don’t have a book. Like everything else in the shooting sports they are sold out.

I add 1# lino-10# lead for a bullet close to clip on WW. I' rarley cast for more than an hour w/ any mold. Wear at least a light leather glove to help prevent burns. The only flaws that should be tossed back are base flaws or incomplete bands. Nose flaws have little affect on accuracy. I usually wait at least 2 days before sizing & lubing. Here is a great site for everything about cast bullets: http://www.lasc.us/CastBulletAlloy.htm