Purple Bullets

[Lee S. Forsberg]

What alloy will make cast bullets look purple?
I bought some alloy that cast hard light bullets that look Purple. Have I got a Lead Zinc alloy?

[lwknight]

High tin content will make bullets cast lighter

You probably got some kind of babbit mix.

Could even have bismuth in it too.

[1Shirt]

Kinda pretty I think! AND, if they are sized and lubed right the blts will probably shoot like a hard house on fire! Just my opinion1
1Shirt!

[L1A1Rocker]

Someone posted pics here of purple boolits. IIRC they were cast from pure linotype.

[madsenshooter]

I get a little of that purplish cast with an alloy that contains a small percentage of copper. It was a 23BHN lead based babbitt that had 1/2% Cu. At only 80% Pb, it cast light too.

[bumpo628]

Here is the linotype purple boolit thread:
http://castboolits.gunloads.com/showthread.php?t=107618

[montana_charlie]

purple bullets ... grape shot?

[madsenshooter]

Monotype or in the case of the above link, actually foundry type, often contained substantial amounts of copper to harden it. The printers wanted it to last a long time and not smash easy with a few misfed sheets. Smash some lino, no big deal, set some more, smash some foundry type and if you didn't have extra, wait for some to be shipped. Some inks are made with pigments that are metallic in origin, could have contributed to the purple in the linked to post above, I've not seen it to that degree with copper alone.

[buck1]

foundry or mono type will do that. No trouble.

[Chapped Lips]

purple bullets ... grape shot?

grape shot........now that's funny.........some dinky dau humor.

[Lee S. Forsberg]

purple bullets ... grape shot?

That is funny!!! Wish I'd thought of it.

[Lee S. Forsberg]

Gentlemen,
Thank you one and all for your input. I think your right about it being some kind of type metal. I didn't run them through my sizing die, too hard, I pan lubed and loaded them. When the fire restriction is lifted I'll see how they shoot.
Thanks

[madsenshooter]

Once upon a time, like back in the depression, there were men known as "vagabond printers". They were men who traveled around from printing job to printing job. Often they had their own little secret formulas for ink, so it's just hard to tell what is in old ink caked on typemetal, or in some cases melted in. I think I'm about to become a vagabond printer myself, it's been over a year now and I'm tired of this little house. Anyone got a camper that they'd trade for a Garand? Gottta be small enough to be pulled by a Volvo SW with a 2.3L engine.

[Bullwolf]

I get purple or pink colored boolits when I cast from Monotype.

They look a lot like the ones in that thread.
http://castboolits.gunloads.com/showthread.php?t=107618

I thought it was ink for quite while. Lately I have come to suspect that it could be Bismuth.

Most of my Monotype came from old printing press offset type pieces, some small letters and some quite large stampings. Who knows what kind of alloy was used back then? Whatever it was composed of, it is very hard.

An interesting note is that the color seems to be a surface oxidation, which made me think that the pinkish color might have come from Bismuth.

If you take steel wool and polish off the pink tinge, it doesn't seem to come back.

Whatever it is, it sure is interesting looking

While my pictures don't show the color quite as much as SweedeNelson do, here is a bit of what I am talking about.





The Alloy used was only half Monotype, and half wheel weight lead (50/50).

You can really see the pink in some of the non tumble lube 358311 boolits for .357, and it shows in the tumble lube .45 boolits as well.

The pink color is quite obvious if I cast a boolit out of straight Monotype. The next time I cast up some pure Monotype rifle boolits, I will try to remember to take a picture of them.

The ingots don't seem to look very pink, but they sure don't oxidize much either, when compared to straight wheel weight ingots. They are always easy to identify even if you cant see the stamp on them.

I did a search on Cast Boolits a while ago trying to figure out why I occasionally got pink boolits when casting, and that was the gist of what I came up with. Always an interesting subject to me.


- Bullwolf

[mroliver77]

Bullwolfe, why 50/50 mono/WW? Them have got to be really hard boolits! Handgun boolits even.
J

[Bullwolf]

Bullwolfe, why 50/50 mono/WW? Them have got to be really hard boolits! Handgun boolits even.
J

Mostly I was being lazy.

It was the alloy that I had on hand, in small ingot form, so I used it for that casting session.

Originally I started casting boolits with pure type, because it was all I had. I noticed that the bullets I cast were quite hard, but prone to break or shatter.

My Grandfather owned a print shop, so I had lots of printing lead on hand, but it was all a mix of Monotype, or Linotype.

I had always heard the printing press type called Linotype for years, and it wasn't until I got on this site, that I started to realize the difference between Mono type, and Lines of type. I had a mix of both, but the majority of it was Monotype

It wasn't until I started purchasing commercial molds for boolit casting that I really even learned about wheel weights as a source for lead.

I started alloying the printing type with wheel weight lead later on for various things, like diving weight belts, soap box derby car weights, and of course cast boolits.

After smelting many pieces of type, and many milk crates, and buckets of wheel weight lead into large muffin pan sized ingots for convenience, I decided that mixing half Linotype with half wheel weight lead yielded a better alloy. It still cast nice and was not as brittle as straight type was.

I have many many large muffin pan sized ingots that are marked either WW for Wheel Weight, or with a large "L" for Linotype/Monotype.

At the time, I was melting lead with a Coleman stove, and ladle pouring from a cast iron pot, so it was just a matter of counting wheel weight ingots, and Linotype ingots, and then adding them to the cast iron pot.

Fast forward years later to me purchasing a small mini muffin tin. I mixed up quite a few smaller, convenient, and easier to melt and deal with batches of 50/50 wheel weight, and Monotype - into mini muffin pan, smaller ingot form.

I eventually worked out that 2 parts mono, to 3 parts of wheel weight lead was fine too, but it doesn't cast pink or purple colored. It took me a long time to realize just how rare the Monotype was. By then, I had started trying to stretch it out.

It doesn't show in the pictures but I was using a small melting pot like this, and just pour casting for the pistol boolit session.



The only ingots I had on hand, that were small enough to quickly use in the hand held melting pot, were the mini 50/50 mono/wheel weight alloy ones.

I normally cast 9mm and .45 with a 2/3 or softer alloy, (mono/wheel weights) but they do not come out pink or purple colored enough to be used for the pictures in this thread.

I was wondering what other folks who are much more familiar with printing type thought about Bismuth coloring the alloy?

Could I be close here, or am I way off base.


- Bullwolf

[lavenatti]

I searched for bismuth and found a number of lab grown bismuth crystals on ebay. (just search ebay for "bismuth crystal") They are something to look at! All pink and blue and purple sheens to them, really sharp looking.

I think you hit the nail on the head with bismuth in the alloy being responsible for the color. I even order a pound of bismuth shot to try it out. If I can get it to alloy with my lead and cast properly I'll let everyone know. I just ordered it today so it may be a while.

It looks to me like the bismuth on the surface of the boolits oxidizes quickly into a colorful coating during casting. That would explain why it wipes off and doesn't come back.

[Bullwolf]

I searched for bismuth and found a number of lab grown bismuth crystals on ebay. (just search ebay for "bismuth crystal") They are something to look at! All pink and blue and purple sheens to them, really sharp looking.

I think you hit the nail on the head with bismuth in the alloy being responsible for the color. I even order a pound of bismuth shot to try it out. If I can get it to alloy with my lead and cast properly I'll let everyone know. I just ordered it today so it may be a while.

It looks to me like the bismuth on the surface of the boolits oxidizes quickly into a colorful coating during casting. That would explain why it wipes off and doesn't come back.

Fascinating stuff. This also correlates with what I had read about Bismuth. Please do keep us updated regarding the Bismuth alloying. I would really enjoy hearing about your results.


- Bullwolf

[OBIII]

purple bullets ... grape shot?

Purple bullet (Singular) would be grape shot.

Purple bullets (Plural) would be grape shoot.

(Sorry, couldn't help myself)

[lavenatti]

Well, I received my bismuth, it mixed in easily with the alloy in the pot with the help of a little sawdust and stirring. The pot had half wheelweights and half linotype already in it. It's a small Lee pot and I only had about two pounds of alloy in it for this experiment.

I cast a few as a baseline then started added bismuth an ounce at a time and casting about a half dozen boolits after each addition. After four additions and five sets of samples - no color change at all. A slight loss in shine was all that happened to the bullets.

Measuring the bullets revealed no change in size either.

Anybody else have any ideas?