non-standard alloys?

[troy_mclure]

what non-standard(other than lead/tin/antimony) metals/minerals do you add to your alloys?


what boolit?

what does it do for the boolit?

[Wayne Smith]

I haven't done this but I understand that a tiny amount of copper will make it more ductile. That is, a hard boolit will be less likely to shatter or break on contact.

[Doc_Stihl]

I use a small amount of pewter to alloy some batches. Pour, cast, cool. Smash it with a 2lb hammer on concrete. I add little bits at a time till it's hard, but not brittle. I do this with range reclaim with a bit of lino.

[fredj338]

I use a small amount of pewter to alloy some batches. Pour, cast, cool. Smash it with a 2lb hammer on concrete. I add little bits at a time till it's hard, but not brittle. I do this with range reclaim with a bit of lino.
Pewter is mostly tin. Some babett has small amounts of copper. What is need, just tin & lead for most handgun bullets. For rifle, antimony & arsneic is desireable for hardening the bullet. Both are available in lead lead shot, tin from pewter or solder.

[runfiverun]

sulphur is a grain refiner.
copper works well as a hardening agent but only small amounts are viable.
silver works well as a hardening agent.
bismuth hardens but adds brittleness so needs to be monitored also.
there are others.

[Fugowii]

Pewter is mostly tin. Some babett has small amounts of copper. What is need, just tin & lead for most handgun bullets. For rifle, antimony & arsneic is desireable for hardening the bullet. Both are available in lead lead shot, tin from pewter or solder.

Fine pewter is made of Antimony, Tin & Copper (no lead)
The 1958 standard was 92% Tin, 5% Antimony and 3%Copper
This standard would change in a few years to 92% Tin, 6% Antimony and 2% Copper.

[sagacious]

sulphur is a grain refiner.
copper works well as a hardening agent but only small amounts are viable.
silver works well as a hardening agent.
bismuth hardens but adds brittleness so needs to be monitored also.
there are others.
Any metal or element miscible with lead will invariably act as a hardening agent to a greater or lesser degree. There is nothing one can add to pure lead that will make it softer.

So, iffin it'll alloy with pure lead, it'll make that lead harder than it was before.

[runfiverun]

yep, but the question is what will alloy with lead, and give desirable traits.
kirksite should, however with undiserable results.
zinc will also. just up to a certain point, before it also has undesirable results.
arsenic,cadmium,indium. all will alloy, the results or side effects probably aren't desirable though.

[Wayne Smith]

Any metal or element miscible with lead will invariably act as a hardening agent to a greater or lesser degree. There is nothing one can add to pure lead that will make it softer.

So, iffin it'll alloy with pure lead, it'll make that lead harder than it was before.

Mercury makes it softer.

[troy_mclure]

i thoughy mercury boiled at a lower temp than lead melts?

plus wouldnt it just condense out as the lead cools?

[madsenshooter]

Mercury does boil at less than the melting point of lead, however, it quickly alloys with lead and the resultant Pb/Hg doesn't boil so quickly. Wanna know how I know? I borrowed a big mercury thermometer from my chemistry lab. It broke in the melt. Ten years later I fired the pot up again. It kept producing this reddish ash like stuff that I had to shovel off the top several times. I think I recall reading that Hg was used by some of the fellows who used big bore gauge rifles (4 bore and such) to hunt elephants, as a hardener. I got some cadmium in my alloy not long ago too, it's similar to zinc in the problems it causes, got it from some homemade split shot I decided to throw into my alloy, thinking it was pure lead. Couldn't get a good bullet from an aluminum mold, but iron molds at high temps allowed me use the pot up. Even though casting in excess of 850 degrees, it was the quickest setting sprue I ever saw.

[243winxb]

The only metals you want in your alloy is tin , lead, antimony. Trace element will be already in them. Smelting example, metal wt. % >
Copper 0.038
Arsenic 0.16
Antimony
3.0
Tin 0.25
Zinc 0.0001
Cadmium 0.0001
Nickel <.0001
Bismuth 0.018
Silver 0.0038
Tellurium
0.0015
Sulfur 0.0005
Iron <.0001
Lead Balance

[sagacious]

Mercury makes it softer.
Nope, a solid mercury/lead amalgam is pretty hard. Much harder than pure lead. Many mercury amalgams are very hard and brittle.

No way to make pure lead softer than it is by adding anything to it.

[sagacious]

yep, but the question is what will alloy with lead, and give desirable traits.
kirksite should, however with undiserable results.
zinc will also. just up to a certain point, before it also has undesirable results.
arsenic,cadmium,indium. all will alloy, the results or side effects probably aren't desirable though.

Yes, absolutely. Wasn't trying to correct ya, just a small detail listed for the newbies. :)
It's all a learning process.

[troy_mclure]

how about tungsten? make it heavier/denser?

[sagacious]

Tungsten cannot be conventionally alloyed with lead. The melting point of tungsten is far too high to use anyway, and it's cost precludes it's economical use-- among other disadvantages.

Tungsten parts are often formed through powder metallurgy and inert-gas oven sintering. This technology is not practical for the home hobbyist.

It's hugely, unbelievably fortunate that we have lead to cast/swage/etc bullets from. The list of other potential candidates is vanishingly small, and none are anywhere near as economical as lead.

[runfiverun]

no arguements from me, just throwing out more stuff.
even nickel will alloy with lead.
you could do an exotic alloy of 1% zinc,1% copper,3% antimony,1% tin,0.5% nickel, 0.25% arsenic and 0.5% bismuth.
run the pot at 800* and make some very auspicious boolits.
they would be pretty useful for target shooting,and would plow through lots a junk too.

[sagacious]

That would be an interesting alloy to make. One would have to melt the copper first and then preferentially dissolve the nickel into it. Or one could melt some monel, and then alloy in additional copper until the nickel was reduced to the proper percent.

The you'd want to alloy in the zinc at the lowest temp that the copper/nickel alloy remained liquid. This would be a trick, as perhaps 2/3 of the zinc will likely volatilize immediately. You'd almost surely have to add double or triple the amount of zinc required for the finshed alloy, and flux heavily with borax while adding the zinc.

Then the Pb, Sb, Sn, and As would have to be added pre-alloyed and pre-melted to a very high heat. Clip-on ww alloy modified slightly would work for this.

The last component to add would be the Bi, simply stirred in and allowed to melt once the alloy temp had been reduced to around 600*F. I used to pour a lot of 'lead-free' bismuth fishing lures (mostly as Bi/Sn alloy), and have also alloyed bismuth with lead. Bismuth added to lead will readily oxidize and dross at high temps. Flux generously, as this sounds like a heavy-drossing alloy.

Good shooting. :drinks:

[runfiverun]

tin is the key to the above alloy,
you would possibly have to take it as high as 3% or even higher.
i have alloyed copper in the mix as well as zinc and bismuth.
copper required tin as does antimony to help speed the process.
but copper seems to require about 2-1 tin amounts to help pull it in at normal temps.
bismuth is a slam dunk but the dross is high unless you protect the alloy from oxygen.
the zinc tin combo is the challenge as the zinc tries to "pull" on the tin.

[sagacious]

To achieve anything close to reliable component percentages, the copper has to be melted first.

The small copper component either needs to be alloyed with pure tin first (which is very easy), or pure antimony, or the zinc component. Copper is not very miscible with lead, as one will find if he melts some copper in a crucible and then adds a bit of lead. They react like oil and water and refuse to mix. For practical reasons, the copper needs to be chemically bound to another alloy component or it'll be exceedingly difficult to achieve even 1% alloy component. Adding pure copper to lead alloy just won't work at hobbyist melting temps. No chance at all that 3% tin will allow the dissolution of unmelted pure copper into the lead alloy at 600-800*F.

I ran a foundry for years where we produced all kinds of stuff, from jewelry to machine parts. It's a lot of fun to work with different metals, and I know my way around foundry work.

A much easier alloy would be to melt the 1%Cu, .5%Ni component and add enough tin to give 10%Sn in a finished alloy batch of 100lbs total weight. That Sn/Cu/Ni alloy will be extremely hard and brittle-- it's not gonna even remotely resemble pure tin. I've mixed up a tons of this and similar Sn/Cu alloys as melt precursors. It has to be handled in a specific manner.

That alloy then could be mixed with the Zn component, probably with not much loss, except to dross, as that alloy would have a much lower melting point than 1Cu/1Zn/.5Ni.

Then, that alloy would have to be mixed with ww alloy, which is nominally a few percent antimony, and pehaps 1/2%Sn and a pinch of As. Add bismuth as the last step.

That route would work well, but putting them all in the pot and cranking up the heat to red hot would fail to produce an alloy and just entirely destroy (lose) some of the alloy component.

Not preaching, just relating my experience. :drinks:

[runfiverun]

you are totally correct.
i did have to run a 10% tin alloy to get copper to alloy in.
the easiest way for some of these alloys to be made is through babbit material.
let the foundrys do the work.
i have messed with copper sulphate a time or two also.
but still haven't formed an opinion on sulpher it does change the grain structure somewhat and may [does to an extent] remove zinc.
but how it helps or it's full use i haven't really explored.

[sagacious]

I am at the same point as you regarding the sulfur/zinc question.

A friend of mine is a commercial caster of lead and lead-free fishing lures. He mentioned that he had a batch of lead (from some yardsale dive weights-- big red flag right there) that absolutely would not give full fill-out, and that aggressively formed a frothy dross scum that would not respond to his standard fluxing process using beeswax.

Since he lives in a 'lead-scarce' area, he had kept that batch of lead, hoping to somehow make use of it some day. I mentioned to him that he could try fluxing with sulfur, and he gave it a go. He was able to recover almost all of the alloy in a pourable, useful form, and was surprised that he got results.

Since I did not experience any of it first-hand, it's tough for me to gauge exactly what happened. From my standpoint, I reckon it's one of those things you keep in the back of your mind-- although considering the nature of molten, fuming sulfur, I sort of hope never to have to put it to the test myself! ;)