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Thread: High Copper Alloys- Lets discuss this further

  1. #61
    Boolit Grand Master popper's Avatar
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    357maximum - thanks for the report, especially on the 35. LR-308 carbine, 1:10, is the only thing I've got that will possibly reach 2500 fps. I'm to ~ 2200 so far but want to try the Cu addition. Sooo, this morning I used copper sulphate to add Cu to the alloy. It worked, I'm not poisoned. Started with 2# of #2, @ 710F, dumped the CuSO4 on top. It turns globby white. Then smush it against the side of the pot till it turns to a grey powder. SnSO4. Removed dross and added 2# 96/4 Pb/Sb and added shot for As. Added more CS, til it wouldn't turn grey anymore. Stir and cook for a while then cast some Lee 401175TL. The mold wasn't clean or up to temp but after 12 or so, I got some good boolits, WD half, AC half. Good base ( I flat based it), drive bands and grooves. Must have some oil in the mould as there are a few bad spots. I'll hammer test to compare with other alloys I have and post results. If good, I'll cast some 308s and report on that. Oh, I used root killer, 25% metallic Cu, ~$6/# 99% from the BB HW store. Oh, forgot to mention, I used ~ 2 teaspoons for the 4# of alloy. The transfer rate between Cu & Sn is 1, I'll recover the Sn from the dross later. I celebrated the success with a big PB & bacon sandwich for lunch.
    Last edited by popper; 12-17-2012 at 03:53 PM.

  2. #62
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    Peanut butter and bacon...........................well alrighty then.

    Bad news on the DOT1943 8mm. Although I am experiencing great accuracy with this load the de-liar said I am only averaging 2,335FPS. I am going to have to switch up the powder selection a bit on that critter to make it "count". It would make a great deer hunting load if I ever needed one however.

  3. #63
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    careful there popper
    you might turn into a copper popper

  4. #64
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    copper popper....I like that

    Actually I am going to shoot some loads with a bit more HYBRID100V first. I can go with a bit more of it before it will start getting scary. If that fails H414 will be next down the rotor, and then we will go from there. I was able to squeeze in a few groups with what I will call an undisclosed MAX load of HY100V before dark tonight. It looked promising but I will be needing a good range session and some runs over the chrony before I make any final decisions. Only thing for sure right now is that the plastic buttplate on this rifle will be needing to get switched out for something softer. This combo is putting some serious craters in my 4inch cube of soft steel at 100 yards and that buttplate is putting a corresponding dent in my shoulder.

  5. #65
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    Quote Originally Posted by popper View Post
    So tell us what the recovered boolits look like please.
    I will dig some out of the berm-O'-sand the next time I shoot. My range is on my property so they are not going anywhere.

  6. #66
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    Quote Originally Posted by popper View Post
    me thinks these will need to be smaller.
    I've been wondering about that, if boolits may need to be a little better fitting with these
    copper, high velocity wizzbangers. I've been shooting my 280 with boolits sized at .285- the grooves are 283.
    I may have discovered why I couldn't get the velocity out of mine with .284 jwords- and a
    barrel at .2765 /.283
    I've made my sizer dies at .284 for this experiment. Soon as I get to try it and figure out how to collect a fired
    one

  7. #67
    Boolit Master madsenshooter's Avatar
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    I have found that with certain boolit designs, harder/tougher alloys are not a help, accuracy-wise. It's as if some bullets have their velocity sweetspot, and that's it. The Squibb bullet would be an extreme example. Yes, I can get it going faster with slower powders, but accuracy is dismal above its favorite speed. Then I have some Eagan designs that shoot good above 2000fps.
    "If people let the government decide what foods they eat and what medicines they take, their bodies will soon be in as sorry a state as are the souls of those who live under tyranny."

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  8. #68
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    Quote Originally Posted by madsenshooter View Post
    It's as if some bullets have their velocity sweetspot, and that's it.
    there is that isnt it?

  9. #69
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    Charter member Michigan liars club!

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  10. #70
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    Thanks Edd
    I've been shooting .285 simply becasue I had no sizer dies and that's what I could borrow. The ~1600fps loads
    shoot well. At .284, I'm still a .001 over groove, I don't know if there is anything to be had by making it tighter.
    I've been scrounging ebone for small mandrels for my Sunnen hone, sizing dies are no longer a issue for me. I
    can make what ever I want

  11. #71
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    Charter member Michigan liars club!

    "The strongest reason for the people to retain the right to keep and bear arms is, as a last resort, to protect themselves against tyranny in Government." -- Thomas Jefferson

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  12. #72
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    Quote Originally Posted by badgeredd View Post
    Jim,

    Fit is king, always. Our alloy experiments, to the best of my knowledge, have been with boolits that had a good design and fit properly in the first place. One area that I am not in total agreement with others on fit is what diameter one needs to get the most out of a boolit. I feel that one CAN sized a boolit too large. I've seen evidence of that in a few cases. Also, I have recently seen an example of sizing and accuracy where a boolit sized 1/2 of a thousanth larger was considerably more accurate. Good boolit design with the mass balance point slightly behind the linear center of the boolit has proven to allow me to get the best accuracy. It all comes down to what one's individual gun likes.

    Some designs have surprised me with how naturally accurate they are. Case in point, is the 7mm Thor that we have in process for a group buy. I am honestly surprised by it's long range accuracy, given it wide flat meplat; but it works in spite of my initial thoughts.

    Edd

    Yep even though the 7MM THOR sounds like a trashbag hooked on someones bumper as it goes downrange, it still shoots very well. Take the small victories rather you felt they were coming or not Edd.

    I will put the fattest boolit into the gun that the brass and gun will let me get away with....it normally works well, may not always be 100% required,may not always be the best plan, but it works most the time. Different strokes

  13. #73
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    Quote Originally Posted by popper View Post
    Jim, I think as you get closer to jacketed hardness you have to go smaller to keep pressure down. Cheers.
    kinda what I was thinking, but nothing will be sure till I send some down range huh

  14. #74
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    Quote Originally Posted by badgeredd View Post
    I don't have a hone (you lucky dog)

    Edd
    I scored mine at an auction several years ago, all disassembled in a pile with a box full of mandrels for 75 bucks.
    Its an older bench mounted version that I made a stand for, and had to make a few missing pieces but it works real good now

  15. #75
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    Last edited by badgeredd; 06-23-2014 at 04:53 PM.
    Charter member Michigan liars club!

    "The strongest reason for the people to retain the right to keep and bear arms is, as a last resort, to protect themselves against tyranny in Government." -- Thomas Jefferson

    "Consider the clown(s) just one of God's little nettles in the woods, don't let it detract from the beauty. Sooner or latter you are going to run into the nettles regardless of how careful you are."

    Beware of man who types much, but says nothing.

  16. #76
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    Using 8mm cases reformed from SL54 30-06 brass with thrown charges of 48.5 Grains of Hodgdon Hybrid100V and Remington 9 1/2 Large rifle primers with the lee c-327-175-fn made from 20lbs pure/ 20lbs coww+ 1lb of the copperized RR babbit and waterdropped. ****this is a MAX load in my rifle, do not duplicate without proper dropdown and workup procedures*****

    I am getting just under 2500 fps and am carrying 1.5 - 1.75 inch peepsighted groups at 100 yards in the DOT43 sporter. I shot 7 of em into my 250 yard steel gong and I carried a 3inch group at 250 yards right before dusk tonight. I am not at the 2700 I wanted and I am not going to get there with this powder. I do have a very useable load that would turn any deer species on this continent into venison however. I actually poked several holes through the gong at 250yards. The gong is the bottom 10 inches of a fullsized argon tank inverted and hung from a chain.....very accustic unless you start poking holes through it.

  17. #77
    Boolit Master madsenshooter's Avatar
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    One thing I've done with a similar alloy is shoot boolits with both zero and very little lube. I didn't see anything that would cause a problem with the ones I shot sans lube. The ones that were only very lightly lubed worked fine too. In that case I had applied the lube I concocted, thinned LLA with some Marvel Mystery Oil mixed in, only on the tiny driving bands with a q-tip. Even though the Eagan bullet I was using had a very small lube groove, it didn't take many shots to get liquid wax dripping out the end of the barrel. Riding on a fluid film might not be such a good idea when you're trying to grip radiused rifling that is only .002" tall. My new bullet has a lot more bearing surface, so I'll start with C-Red in only the bottom groove. That'll leave three empty grooves on the bullet to pick up any leftover from previous shots.
    Last edited by madsenshooter; 12-18-2012 at 11:55 PM.
    "If people let the government decide what foods they eat and what medicines they take, their bodies will soon be in as sorry a state as are the souls of those who live under tyranny."

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  18. #78
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    I am lubing the 1 real lube groove and the area above the check wich is actually as much as the loob groove holds...filled full of MML and am getting a very very faint lube star at the muzzle. The bore looks unfired after 60 shots except for some minimal "settled dust" in the first 1/3 of the bore.


    MML does not want to "overlube" like some of the other soft lubes out there, it's designer planned it that way.

  19. #79
    Boolit Grand Master 303Guy's Avatar
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    I've played with copper as a refiner. I found weird things like soft bands, rapid hardening and a pretty tough boolit although fairly malleable - swage-able. One boolit twisted on such a soft plane in the bore. I know this because there was signs of rifling skid above the twist plane and none below. On the next lot I made I added solder with tin in it but didn't get the same results as before meaning I didn't achieve the toughness and hardness I had before. Too much tin? I thought tin was necessary to dissolve the copper. In fact, I found that with the added tin I could not get the copper to dissolve directly into the alloy as before.

    Oh, the fired copper alloy boolits were pretty hard after impact in sand.
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  20. #80
    Boolit Master madsenshooter's Avatar
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    I see what Popper is saying though. I think it interesting that there's a way to add Cu without going the babbitt route. For now that's what I'm set up do do, but my babbitt supply and the free pre-tinned wick up won't last forever. I wonder if the Cu sulphate would remove Zn contamination at the same time? Probably depends on the reactivity of Zn vs Sn, which I'm not going to look up at this time of the morning. Also Popper, hows the bands on the bullets cast with your alloy look? With my alloy, square edges are perfectly square, machining marks from the mould can be seen on the bullet. That's fillout at its finest. Not always needed, but I'm trying to make a benchrest rifle of an AR15. Perfection, or as close as humanly possible is the direction I'm going.
    "If people let the government decide what foods they eat and what medicines they take, their bodies will soon be in as sorry a state as are the souls of those who live under tyranny."

    -Thomas Jefferson

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Abbreviations used in Reloading

BP Bronze Point IMR Improved Military Rifle PTD Pointed
BR Bench Rest M Magnum RN Round Nose
BT Boat Tail PL Power-Lokt SP Soft Point
C Compressed Charge PR Primer SPCL Soft Point "Core-Lokt"
HP Hollow Point PSPCL Pointed Soft Point "Core Lokt" C.O.L. Cartridge Overall Length
PSP Pointed Soft Point Spz Spitzer Point SBT Spitzer Boat Tail
LRN Lead Round Nose LWC Lead Wad Cutter LSWC Lead Semi Wad Cutter
GC Gas Check