Big game bullet alloy Qs

[45 Punkinroller]

Hi guys,I live in Australia and have a mate that owns a safari hunting outfit in Arghnemland in Australia's top end. Later this year I'm heading up to give him a hand guiding some clients after Water Buffalo. My usual back up gun is a CZ 458lott. But being a levergun and cast bullet fan I want to take a bull or 2 for myself using my marlin 45/70. Having read all the spiel on Garrett cartridges website about their there 540gn hammer head ammo I thought that trying duplicate it might be a reasonable place to start my mission on taking some Buff with my levergun. http://www.garrettcartridges.com/420.asp
This is the ammo I'm referring to.

http://www.garrettcartridges.com/images/4570540hhp.jpg

Living here in Oz there is next to zero chance of being able to import this ammo so I went to mountain molds and designed a mold that I thought was a reasonable match to the projectile used in this ammo. Though mine ended up weighing 550gns but with a slightly larger 37 cal meplat.
http://i83.photobucket.com/albums/j291/BKR33/550gn.jpg

A reloading session at the range yielded groups of 1.5 to 2 moa with a velocity constrained by case capacity to 1650fps. I must say I will be loading these back for hunting but I was curious to see what could be achieved with AR2206H/H4895 with this pill. Pressure exhibited was really mild in comparison to the high end book loads with 300 and 400gn pills. Though recoil was stout I must say! Even though I doubt I will go there I'm sure there is a little more velocity to be had with Benchmark 2.
As suggested by garret cartridges I will be loading this boolit to around the 1550fps mark. But my question is how do I come up with a boolit alloy suitable for smashing large bones in Buffalo without the pill shattering under the stress of impact. Here is what Garret cartridges has to say on the subject.
However, achieving hardness with the brittleness of high antimony alloys is hard to justify when the game is heavy or possibly dangerous. By contrast, our SuperHardCast Hammerheads possess none of the brittleness of high-antimony bullets, and are therefore far more reliable when impacted into extremely tough game. If the stress of impact exceeds the strength of our 25-Brinnell bullets (as in pointblank impact into the heaviest game with our high-speed 420 grain 45-70 ammo), the bullet simply deforms modestly, retaining virtually all of its weight. This is in sharp contrast to the all-too-common shattering of conventional high-antimony castings when deployed under similar conditions.
So what I'm curious about is how do I make a boolit with a hardness of 25bhn without using a "high antimony alloy". I'm assume its not difficult but at this stage I have no idea how to go about it. I have available to me clip on ww, stick on ww and plumbers solder sticks. What else do I need and how do I go about making these hard/tough boolits as apposed to hard/brittle boolits?
Any info on this subject would be greatly appreciated.
Unless of course the blurb from from Garret is a whole lot of horsecrap to start with.
Regards Brett

PS. so far I've taken one good sized boar and a fox with these 550gn boolits with great results.

[JMtoolman]

You can' go far wrong with the old standby loads the buffalo hunters used in this country. 1 in 10 pure lead and tin. I myself have taken large game with this type of load at 1450 fps with paper patch bullets. I shot through about 4 feet of moose with this load, a raking shot from the rear to the front of the neck. I am not sure that I would go as hard as 25 Bn. though. Shooting clear through something to mash the area behind the animal seems counterproductive to me. Pure lead or soft lead expending most of its power in the animal always seemed to me to be the best killer. Best regards from Idaho, the toolman

[Greg5278]

I would use clip on wheel weights with 1-2% tin for the bullet. They try and pven heat treat them after sizing. Mkae sure your oven is calibrated before putting in a tray is cast bullets. After one hour at 425-450F carefully dump the bullets in a bucket on cold water. After a few days yoo should have them hard enough, possibly as high as 30 BHN. If they don't heat treat as well, you can add some shot to add more arsenic to the alloy.
Greg

[45 Punkinroller]

You can' go far wrong with the old standby loads the buffalo hunters used in this country. 1 in 10 pure lead and tin. I myself have taken large game with this type of load at 1450 fps with paper patch bullets. I shot through about 4 feet of moose with this load, a raking shot from the rear to the front of the neck. I am not sure that I would go as hard as 25 Bn. though. Shooting clear through something to mash the area behind the animal seems counterproductive to me. Pure lead or soft lead expending most of its power in the animal always seemed to me to be the best killer. Best regards from Idaho, the toolman

Hi Jmtoolman, the Buffalo I will be shooting are proper floodplain beasts that spend half of the year walking through chest deep mud to get a feed. They are a fair bit larger than the dry country critters a lot of people shoot up in the top end. These Buff will easily get over the tonne in weight so I'm more interested in achieving penetration through and breaking both shoulders if possible than expending energy into the animal. The 45/70 is a marginal calibre on these animals and disabling them with broken bones is what I figure I will need to achieve to stop them running off.
Greg5278 so its just a matter of adding enough plumbers solder to the mix to get enough tin in the mix. So I should probably start the alloy with mostly stick on wheel weights then add the solder or should I start the alloy with clip on wheel weights and add solder? I'm not sure whether to air cool or water quench yet.
Cheers Brett

[Wayne Smith]

Brett, I would mix 50/50 clip on with lead and, with a very hot mold, cast them and wait just until the sprue hardens. Immediately water quench. This produces close to a case hardened boolit. Not my idea, there is a good post on this I just recently read, but don't remember who wrote it. Anyway, I have done this not realizing what I was doing. I haven't tested the idea as I have no way to experiment with expansion.

Reportedly, and I believe it, it makes sense, you get a hard boolit on the outside but increasingly softer inside. The trick is quenching when the boolit is barely solid. You will need Bullplate to prevent lead smear on your mold and sprue plate.

Your other option is to go with a 20-1 or so lead-tin mix. Remington used 20/1, Sharps used 16/1 in their original cartridges that slaughtered the American Bison. Those boolits would penetrate two Bison broadside.

[cbrick]

Brett, welcome to Castboolits.

I recommend clip-on WW with 2% tin. Oven heat treat but you may not need as hard as it's possible to get them this way. Some testing would be in order.

Here's something to read on this subject.

Heat Treating Lead/Antimony/Arsenic Alloys (http://www.lasc.us/HeatTreat.htm)

Hope this helps, good luck on the hunt.

Rick

[Greg5278]

Clip on Ww with 1-2% tin, and heat treat. Clip on WWs don;t have enough Antimony to really harden. Most are close to pure lead. I Heta treat in the Oven to avoid a possible water splash when dropping them from the mold when quenching. Air cool, and heat treat after sizing.
Greg

[leftiye]

More tin - up to 10% will alloy with lead - will progressively make your lead harder, but more importantly - tougher. This means less loss of integrity (and loss of weight) if the boolits are deformed. If the boolit stays together (and doesn't deform in any drastic amount), penetration will be better as it retains momentum. Also, impact with heavy bone will not shatter this as it would antimonial alloys. I've seen Barnes copper tube solids that are mushroomed inside that thick jacket FWIW.

[1Shirt]

Regardless of what you go with, sure would like to hear results and see pics. Good luck to you!
1Shirt!:coffeecom

[MtGun44]

WWt will not be brittle like linotype, even when heat treated for high hardness.

I would suggest a bit of experimenting, using dry newsprint or magazines as a
media, maybe with a layer or two of actual bone from the butcher.

In my experience with the .45-70, I get 1750 fps (ALL that is necessary) with
57 gr of W748. Find a similar burning rate (medium rifle) - and I think that Varget
is fairly close, and you will get good velocity and low pressures. The above
load is reliably reported in print to be 'trapdoor' Springfield pressure levels, the
lowest range of the current three tier pressure level for loading the .45-70.

Avoid linotype as it is quite brittle. I think that the recommendations of a bit of
extra tin in WWT alloy and heat treating should be very good, but my experience
is limited in that area, so I recommend at least a few tests. I think you will
be surprised at the penetration of a flat point fairly hard boolit.

Have you looked at the Linebaugh test results? If not, do a search and see
what some of the 300 gr HANDGUN boolits do as far as penetration! A 400 to
500 gr boolit, even only moderately hard will likely penetrate all the way thru
your buff - they are widely reported to do so when made of soft 1:20 tin:lead
at 1400 fps or less on our American Bison. Faster than about 1600-1750 will
not be helpful, and is more likely to cause the boolit to fail rather than to increase
your effectiveness or penetration significantly.

Considerable reliable actual results shows that a 400 gr flat nosed bullet/boolit
that is driven at 1800 fps or under will penetrate immense distances, frequently
farther in real animals than FMJ RN .458 Win mag bullets. This is hotly disputed
by many "experts" but has been repeatedly confirmed by enough shooters that
it appears to be correct, even if not conforming with conventional theory. A good
scientist does not discard data which disagrees with the theory, he recognizes that
there is a flaw in the theory and develops a newer and hopefully more accurate
theory based on the real world testing results.

Best of luck, please inform us of your results. I would LOVE to come to the OTHER
OZ (I'm in Kansas, don't ya know!) and whack a few of those big water buffs with
my Guide Gun. It has done very well on blue wildebeest and zebra, even with Remington
JSP, which are good but not exactly optimum for deep penetration.

Bill

[runfiverun]

remember that quenching or heat treating alloys works very efficiently.
but fade over time.
18-20 bhn is achieved very consistently with water quenching an alloy of 2% tin and 3% antimony.
for best consistency I use two buckets, one to get started and in a rythmn then the second when i get on a good roll.
and up to @ 35 bhn is achievable by heat treating the same alloy. [I usually get about 28-30 with the 2% tin]
a balanced alloy [tin to antimony] is a strong alloy. it's malleable yet tough.
the tin/antimony form a stronger chain within the lead than either alone will.
1% zinc will also create a very good alloy that isn't brittle.

[303Guy]

Copper - I think. Add the copper to a lead tin alloy by solder tinning it and let it dissolve in the melt. The copper does not raise the melting point and only so much can be dissolved. (Too much causes a problem I believe). I'm talking in the region of ½%, maybe as much as 1%. Try a small batch first and be sure there is no antimony in it.

[Lloyd Smale]

my favorite alloy for the linebaughs 454, 4570 and 444 when going after really large game is 5050 ww/lino. Ive killed 5 buffalo with that alloy and havent had a bullet stay in an animal when shot broadside. Ive punched a couple through both shoulders. Ive seen water dropped ww bullets fail do to fractures. Now im talking swcs and what happens is the nose tends to shear off at the first driving band. If your using a lfn or wfn like buffalo bores its not likely going to happen but i still feel more comfortable with an air cooled alloy that gives me the hardnesss i want. In all reality the chance of a straight linotype bullet fracturing in a 4570 is pretty minute. they held together better in penetration testing for us then water dropped wws have. Where you will see fracturing is long skinny bullets like .30 and .35 cal rifle bullets. Weve pounded hundreds of straight linotype pistol and big bore rifle bullets into some really tough penetration testing medias and have yet to see one fracture. What i like about the 5050 is its not only a bit more maluable but it gives you a bit more weight then straight linotype.

[RugerFan]

...Clip on WWs don;t have enough Antimony to really harden. Most are close to pure lead...


Clip-on WWs are not considered "close" to pure lead: 1/2-1% tin, 2-3% antimony,
96-7.25% lead, 1/4% arsenic. The BHN for clip-ons is around 12 compared to 5 BHN for pure lead. That's a big difference (Perhaps you meant stick-on WWs). Heat treating clip-on WWs can harden significantly. 30-32 BHN according to the site below.

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

http://www.lasc.us/Brennan_4-5_HeatTreat.htm

[stubshaft]

I'm with the 2% tin and heat treated WW crowd. I shoot some 457125's cast out of this out of my Ruger #1 in 458 and get <1 1/2" @ 100yds.

[WHITETAIL]

45 Punkinroller, Welcome to the forum!:veryconfu
And boy have you picked a good on
to test the boys here.
But they are up to the task.
Just remember that if some one can
make a sledg hammer of a boolit (We can).:redneck:
And please send pics.

[Bass Ackward]

Everyone wants a magical plop and drop. These arguments aways seem to come down to the fact that people argue based upon the fact, they are limited to one shot or they don't have confidence in their caliber / bullet weight choice they have made.

Your mind is going to evaluate this to death. In the end, my question is: How much are you penalized if you do lose a chunk?

Say the whole nose broke off. That means you lost what? 75 grains maybe? That means that you still have an excess of bullet weight to get the job done. At that point, the meplat is actually wider anyway. If it breaks plum in two, you have a penetrator chunk and some grenade fragments floating around in there. That's why you go with a heavy bullet in the first place.

Most important in any debate is that everything works and everything fails. That's why you jack another one in after the first is fired. If the situation demands it, just don't stand there and watch, crank and yank that thing till you get a plop and drop.

[Greg5278]

Sorry I meant Stick on were almost pure. I use the Clip ons for my casting. I save the Stick ons for making 30-1 Lead/Tin alloy.
Greg

[Lloyd Smale]

probably true. I shot one buffalo with a lyman 44 devestator hollow point. It wasnt what i would have planned to use but the day i shot it it was the gun and load i happen to have with me. I took it behind the sholder and the nose blew off the bullet and the shank gave complete penetration. I hate to admitt it but it was the quickest kill ive ever made or seen on a buffalo. Id still feel more comfortable on an animal that big with a bullet i knew was going to not deform.
Everyone wants a magical plop and drop. These arguments aways seem to come down to the fact that people argue based upon the fact, they are limited to one shot or they don't have confidence in their caliber / bullet weight choice they have made.

Your mind is going to evaluate this to death. In the end, my question is: How much are you penalized if you do lose a chunk?

Say the whole nose broke off. That means you lost what? 75 grains maybe? That means that you still have an excess of bullet weight to get the job done. At that point, the meplat is actually wider anyway. If it breaks plum in two, you have a penetrator chunk and some grenade fragments floating around in there. That's why you go with a heavy bullet in the first place.

Most important in any debate is that everything works and everything fails. That's why you jack another one in after the first is fired. If the situation demands it, just don't stand there and watch, crank and yank that thing till you get a plop and drop.

[Dannix]

My inspiration for large caliber, expanding FN. Apparently this is what you get when you oven-treat antimony alloy and do it right:


So true. How many boolits one can cast an hour and "couple inch groups" tend to lull the masses.

Here's a 50/50 WW-Pb boolit that was water dropped for a 22 bhn shell hardness. 480 Ruger, 400 gr at 1,250 fps. Went through 1/2" osb, then into soft loam soil at 50 yards. Shot by you BTW.
http://castboolits.gunloads.com/attachment.php?attachmentid=22904&stc=1&thumb=1&d=1276609662

Gleaned from this thread (http://castboolits.gunloads.com/showthread.php?t=86377&page=2). Pay particular attention to 45 2.1 and BABore's posts. I'm looking forward to trying this technique, once I get the necessary equipment.

[45 Punkinroller]

Thanks guys there is some fantastic info here. Sorry for the late reply but I've been working night shifts this week and my "space time continuum" is pretty stuffed up. Even the last 2 sentences took 4 spelling corrections :oops:
It seems that 2 or more % tin is the go for a tough pill or even 50/50 ww/lino.
I don't have any lino but am trying to source some at the moment.
I'm assuming tin from plumbers solder will be an ok source of tin to add to the alloy.
Though I'm still not sure how to get a hold of copper to use as an alloy additive?
There was a great link in a previous post about alloys "Heat Treating Lead/Antimony/Arsenic Alloys". Some great info there on using tin to harden an alloy. But it mentions that a tin alloy will age soften relatively quickly. There didn't seem to be a time frame related to this "relatively quickly" comment. Does anyone have an idea how long this might be. I'm only considering keeping this ammo for approx. 6 months at the most. I assume not much softening will happen in this time or am I wrong in this matter?
Bass akward you are dead right in what you say about cranking more lead into a critter if at all in doubt. It was exactly that thought that had me installing a long 8 shot magazine on my 45/70 marlin that was originally a 4 shot as an insurance measure. I'm not planning on using anything like that amount but if more is better than count me in. In fact my PH mate has a video of a bloke putting 17 rounds of 375 H&H (yes seventeen 300gn slugs) into a floodplain bull before it went down.
My mate calls this a record...... but I must say for the wrong reasons.
My main issue is having a boolit fracture too badly on the first shoulder but as Bass akward mentions even if I loose part of the pill I still have a pretty heavy slug to do some penetration. As long as it doesn't completely shatter and/or become unstable then I'm probably in with a chance of complete penetration which is what I'm after.
Thanks again guys for the great info!


PS. I had to edit my load info in my first post too. It wasn't varget that produced a velocity of 1650fps with the 550gn pill it was AR2206H or H4895 which I think is the US. equivalent. 47gns to be exact in a Winchester case. Starline and Remington have too small a capacity to allow a load of 47gns.
Kind Regards
Brett

[Dannix]

The Hidden voids in castings (http://castboolits.gunloads.com/showthread.php?t=86377) thread has some copper info too. This thread as well, Latex in concrete -- Concept applied to Boolits? (http://castboolits.gunloads.com/showthread.php?t=76071).

Not sure if shipping would be cost prohibitive or if prices for tin are better on your side of the pond, but you may want to look into the Tin Group Buy (http://castboolits.gunloads.com/showthread.php?t=84432).

Considering we're not talking high volume rounds here, you many want to consider a two-part boolit. Say a high tin tin/lead alloy for the nose, then oven treaded water dropped 50/50 WW-Pb. You'll want the hoary heads to weight in on this idea though. For two-part info, I don't remember where I read up here about it, but there's probably a thread in the 'Classics and Stickies' section.

[303Guy]

Fo alloying copper into lead, have a look in this thread; http://castboolits.gunloads.com/showthread.php?t=86682

[DLCTEX]

Water dropped clip-on WW+2 percent tin will do all you need IMHO. I'm judging from 340 and 420 gr. 45-70 loads and 400 gr. 480 Ruger loads fired at various rocks. On the really hard rocks there is some shearing and mushrooming of the nose, but on the softer (Gypsum) rocks shearing is uncommon and some mushrooming takes place. When fired into soft dirt there is no deformation of the boolit.

[pls1911]

Greg 5128 and Dannix have the answer... same as Garret hard and gas checked
for high performace, but NOT brittle for reliable peneration.

I use 50-50 old ww and pure pb from reclaimed roofing lead scrap... and occasionally a little extra tin for fill out. The key is that there must be some antimony and trace arsenic. Linotype, babbit material, or old wheel weights are great sources.
Use the OVEN method heat treat at 450 degree F for 1.5 hours and drop into ICE water.
The little RCBS cast bullet book has a great short primer on the subject without the technical data you neither want nor need. Calibrate your oven with an oven thermometer to confirm heat level and regulation. The hardware cloth tays fashioned from 1/4" hardware screen and coat hangers described in the RCBS book, welding gloves, and a five gallon bucket of ice water is my set up.
My 4 trays measure about 8"x8".

The result with an NEI 448 grain FLAT nose gas check bullet is awsome.
Measured 24bhn and at 1600 fps this round travels diagonally through four feet of pig, shoulder, grissle plate, punch, hip and ham... then keeps going... I've never recovered one. and the pigs have never run...
I believe your bullet will be even better....
POST THE DETAILS OF YOUR LOAD AND THE RESULTS OF YOUR HUNT!!!!

[303Guy]

... pure pb from reclaimed roofing lead scrap...I don't what lead sheeting I had but I mixed it with lead drain pipe plus some of the soldered joint and I added a little copper (very little). This stuff ain't 'pure' lead - it wasn't the copper or solder that hardened it but it's tuff stuff! It self hardened in a matter of hours:?: It casts OK and holds together in soft sand.