simple Hi-Tek coating

[Gremlin460]

How was your visit?

Well, eye opening would be an understatement..
.
I am now of the opinion, that while COWW will function in 9mm it is so close to the lower limit of BHN we all are playing Russian-roulette when casting with just WW only.
This also explains why occasionally we find leading that we did not have the batch before. It would be very easy to jump to the conclusion that it was caused by "old PC Powder batch" or "old HT Mixture" or oven must have been "off" a little.

In reality WW makers only care about weight and will throw the cheapest nastiest components in, they have ZERO care on the make up, if its contaminated with (name your own poison) they don't care. The reason WW have on average 3% tin, is due to the fact that is the minimum amount necessary for the end product to maintain its shape and grip on the steel clip that holds the weight to the rim. Even then they fall off.
I bought some ingots that are 20% antimony, and a handful of thimble sized pure tin pellets. VERY good price too I might add.

Now with some experimentation I should be able to lift the quality of my WW to around 15/16 BHN before water dropping.

I do not need perfect 2/6/92 mix, I do not shoot competively, other than with friends. I get my WW for free. if it costs me $4 a pot to make it into a stable,non-leading, better quality end product, then so be it. Out of each pot I get roughly 1500 casts.
If you want to do the maths $4 of 1500 better casts go ahead.

The tin thimble ingots cost me $1 each, the 2 20% antimony ingots were 13.20 per lb. I bought $40 worth.
This should last around 10 pots worth.

In the next few days I will have time to clean out the pot, and cast some with the "modified" mix. Coat and shoot.
As they say "the truth is in the barrel"

I also said Hello from you Joe.

My next project is to design and make a simple hardness tester, I will test what is currently left in the pot, against some pure, also against one of these ingots so I can get some indication of where I currently am in the BHN stakes and where I move too.

[Redwoode]

Please excuse my lack of experience in these matters but why wouldnt coww be marginal and causing occasional coating problems with 40sw also?

[HI-TEK]

Well, eye opening would be an understatement..
.
I am now of the opinion, that while COWW will function in 9mm it is so close to the lower limit of BHN we all are playing Russian-roulette when casting with just WW only.
This also explains why occasionally we find leading that we did not have the batch before. It would be very easy to jump to the conclusion that it was caused by "old PC Powder batch" or "old HT Mixture" or oven must have been "off" a little.

In reality WW makers only care about weight and will throw the cheapest nastiest components in, they have ZERO care on the make up, if its contaminated with (name your own poison) they don't care. The reason WW have on average 3% tin, is due to the fact that is the minimum amount necessary for the end product to maintain its shape and grip on the steel clip that holds the weight to the rim. Even then they fall off.
I bought some ingots that are 20% antimony, and a handful of thimble sized pure tin pellets. VERY good price too I might add.

Now with some experimentation I should be able to lift the quality of my WW to around 15/16 BHN before water dropping.

I do not need perfect 2/6/92 mix, I do not shoot competively, other than with friends. I get my WW for free. if it costs me $4 a pot to make it into a stable,non-leading, better quality end product, then so be it. Out of each pot I get roughly 1500 casts.
If you want to do the maths $4 of 1500 better casts go ahead.

The tin thimble ingots cost me $1 each, the 2 20% antimony ingots were 13.20 per lb. I bought $40 worth.
This should last around 10 pots worth.

In the next few days I will have time to clean out the pot, and cast some with the "modified" mix. Coat and shoot.
As they say "the truth is in the barrel"

I also said Hello from you Joe.

My next project is to design and make a simple hardness tester, I will test what is currently left in the pot, against some pure, also against one of these ingots so I can get some indication of where I currently am in the BHN stakes and where I move too.

Gremlin,
Thanks for the update with your visit at Northern Smelters.
From all contacts I have had with them, and, from comments by commercial users/buyers of their alloys, I have heard nothing but great reports.
They certainly look after all customers small or large, and seem to cater for specific needs.
With W/W, as I have tried to explain and state on several of my blogs, and can be confirmed by many such manufacturers like Northern Smelters, your description is fairly close to the mark, "playing Russian Roulette" with trying to use W/W as an alloy for high energy use, is a bit of a guessing game, without ability to produce a standard and "known" composition alloy, that has the required engineering properties.
As you indicated, it is easier to simply try to blame/infer oven problems, coating problem etc etc, than to blame variability of alloys being used.

With other alloy matters, I had discussions with European company, who tested the Hi-Tek coating with Forensic needs/matters in mind, to determine if the coating had interfered with forensic testing and analysis, mainly for law enforcement reasons..
Apparently, the Hi-Tek coating passed tests that were conducted.
I am hoping to get details of tests soon.

I was also advised, about a process, where an alloy of very high quality, and extremely even weighted pellets was being produced, by extrusion process,
that used no Tin, but only Lead and Antimony as an alloy, so cost of alloy manufacture is very low as compared to 92:6:2 alloy.
These extruded pellets, were coated with two very thin coatings using Hi-Tek, worked well, and alloy was about 15-16 hardness, and no Leading.
Again, I am waiting on actual test results written up in English, translated from I believe, a German report which I hopefully get authority to post.

[Ausglock]

Please excuse my lack of experience in these matters but why wouldnt coww be marginal and causing occasional coating problems with 40sw also?

40 cal is a high pressure loading and really likes harder alloy.
I have had no luck with softer alloys around the 8 to 10 BHN mark.

[Humbo]

From previous comments about WW alloys around the world, I can tell that we are blessed with a richer and more uniform alloy up here in Scandinavia. Lead WW's were prohibited more than 10 years ago, maybe this was before they started melting down every kind of lead scrap, dead horses and whatnot to use as wheel weights. I've gone through probably around 6-7 metric tons of the stuff, and it never turned up softer than than the typical announced BHN of 12 for newly casts. Just for kicks I measured the hardness of differently aged WW's that I have in my stack, and the results were surprising. A couple of weeks ago I melted down a small 150 kg batch, and they already measured 13.5 BHN. I then measured some of the oldest stuff I have, it probably dates at least 4-5 years back, and the BHN was a whopping 22. Ingots are all air cooled, without exceptions. I don't expect all of my aged WW alloy being that hard, but the point is, I've never came across WW alloy that has been softer than what was long considered the norm at 12-14 BHN, depending on age. So with my alloy I don't expect much trouble using Hitek, and I'm eager to give it a go.

To say that all WW alloy in general is s**t, is nonsense. For my use, which also includes hunting, hardball and alloys with similar antimony contents seem to be a bit too brittle. WW alloys can be heat treated to withstand rifle velocities, and still have the malleable qualities of an alloy half the hardness. Shooting game with a hard and brittle bullet is usually not recommended.

[Ausglock]

Well... Australian WW is no good for use in high pressure rounds like 9mm and 40cal.
But... whatever floats your boat..

[HI-TEK]

age. So with my alloy I don't expect much trouble using Hitek, and I'm eager to give it a go.

To say that all WW alloy in general is s**t, is nonsense. For my use, which also includes hunting, hardball and alloys with similar antimony contents seem to be a bit too brittle. WW alloys can be heat treated to withstand rifle velocities, and still have the malleable qualities of an alloy half the hardness. Shooting game with a hard and brittle bullet is usually not recommended.

You are very fortunate, that you have access to reasonable W/W alloys.
Unfortunately when it was blogged, that W/W were is Sc..tt, I suppose it was really meant for areas where the alloys are not so controlled in quality or performance.
Alloys here are very poor quality and unreliable.

I agree with you about hard bullet frangibility aspects. You don't want to try and find and pick out fine lumps of fragmented alloy.
That is one of the reasons why, we worked closely with alloy maker here to come up with an alloy, that was OK to use for high velocity applications, and also provided as close as possible to ideal requirements, without breaking up when used with high energy loads.
The alloy makers, were very surprised with some of the poor results with simply smashing an experimental alloy with a hammer.
Alloys that were expected to be Ok, performed very badly with distortion and broke apart with smash tests.
I am sure, that many folk would love to have your alloy supply as good as what you describe.

[Gremlin460]

Maybe I did not explain myself to clearly before..
I have been using straight COWW for near 2 year straight, and have had only occasional leading. Now my last batch I cast, I added near 50% pure by accident and dropped the BHN significantly. It leaded that bad I could physically remove lead from the muzzle rifling with a dental pick.

Now if I dumped that mix and went back to straight WW I probably would get only the occasional leading as per before.
BUT, and here is my overall point, if our COWW's are that close to the limit between leading or clean fire, then it stands to reason that I address the issue to make sure my casts are of better quality.

I highly doubt there is an industry standard that WW's need to meet, unlike other lead products such as used for medical or transport of radioactive material. I also doubt that WW's makers were/are that diligent in the make up of their lead. I also doubt that they only use new fresh mined material. They would be buying the vast amount of their lead from recyclers, it would be the most financially smart thing to do.
Therefore, I feel safe in my opinion the WW quality would vary drastically from one ingot making session to another.
Indeed this sentiment was echoed by the people at the foundry I went too earlier this week.

You yourself have proved this by saying you have tested lead that varies from 12 all the way to a whopping 22. Bearing in mind that hardball is rated at 16. 22 is very hard and is equivalent to Linotype. I find it unusual that you have WW made from Linotype, or at least its equivalent in BHN.

Be that as it may, my original post was to share with other coaters that I had screwed up and by adding pure to the pot, dropped the BHN of my cast or what I would guesstimate it to be, to around 7-8 and they leaded extremely badly. I am now trying to assist the supply of WW I have collected over the months to reach around 14 bhn . If I can get it to that point I feel I will have enough distance from the leading minimum point to be kind to my barrel.

[robertbank]

Just as a point of reference I have driven .308 and .303 Brit GC'd water quenched WW alloyed bullets to 2200fps with no leading using regular Felix lube. It is fine to say the alloy must be harder than pure lead but there is no need or should not be a need to go to Linotype hardness for pistol cartridges such as the 9MM and 40cal particularly if they are aided with a GC.

I can however buy into under sized bullets or poor application of the product. As Ausglock has pointed out it isn't or should not be rocket science.

My recent tests have put on hold as the tungsten plug in my Dillon 9MM Sizing die just decided to part company with the die body and is presently wrapped around a Blazer case! Phoning Dillon as I type this.

Bob

[Humbo]

Actually there are some hardness requirements for wheel weights, if not I doubt they would bother putting any arsenic, tin and antimony in the mix at all. If too soft, the lead simply would not withstand the rotational forces and stay on the clip, especially with the higher weights. Tape-on weights are usually made from pure or close to pure lead, but the clip-ons are considerably harder. I get most of my WW's from lorries and tractors, and they typically range from 100g to 500g each. A 500g wheel weight is subjected to tremendous rotational forces when a vehicle moves at 22 m/s, and a soft alloy simply wouldn't cut it. I don't know the regulations in other parts of the world, but that's how it is here. I don't know where the wheel weights are manufactured, but probably in Sweden, Germany or some other car manufacturing country in Europe.

If you don't have any equipment to measure hardness yourself, then I agree it's better to sweeten the pot with alloy of certified hardness. Earlier I always mixed 1 part Linotype with 3 parts WW's to get hardball alloy or close to it, but it was just way harder than necessary for most applications, and simply a waste of a richer alloy. If I can get stuff to work with WW's, maybe with only a little tin added, then I can take comfort in the fact that I wouldn't run out of alloy for a good while.

[robertbank]

Humbo I figure if I got 10 years left of shooting and still knowing I am shooting then I got enough alloy in my garage to get me there at the present rate of consumption + weekly augmentation from Canadian Tire. Here in Canada the tree huggers figured steel WW's that fly off and puncture tires on highways is way better than flipping recyclable lead alloy WW's. Makes you wonder where our priorities lie.

Take Care

Bob

[popper]

Bob - as I stated earlier, add a bit of zinc to your alloy to harden it, ~1% by wt. You can get it from pennies.

[robertbank]

Popper I cannot get it through my thick skull as to how to melt copper into my alloy. I know you sent me a link but I was no wiser after reading it than I was before. If you could would you mind setting out the method in the simplest terms. If you get technical you will lose me. My chemistry and physic classes were 55 years ago. Most of both were displaced with banking knowledge years ago.

Take Care

Bob

[Gremlin460]

Actually there are some hardness requirements for wheel weights, if not I doubt they would bother putting any arsenic, tin and antimony in the mix at all. If too soft, the lead simply would not withstand the rotational forces and stay on the clip, especially with the higher weights.

If you don't have any equipment to measure hardness yourself, then I agree it's better to sweeten the pot with alloy of certified hardness.

If I can get stuff to work with WW's, maybe with only a little tin added, then I can take comfort in the fact that I wouldn't run out of alloy for a good while.

Three points we are perfectly aligned with.
And the last point is what started my comment on WW improvement. I will add SB for hardness and SN for better mold fillout.
I am not specifically aiming for Hardball, just a point inbetween that works for me and my guns.

[HI-TEK]

Popper I cannot get it through my thick skull as to how to melt copper into my alloy. I know you sent me a link but I was no wiser after reading it than I was before. If you could would you mind setting out the method in the simplest terms. If you get technical you will lose me. My chemistry and physic classes were 55 years ago. Most of both were displaced with banking knowledge years ago.

Take Care

Bob

Bob,
One easy way to get Copper into the alloy is with fluxing/stirring in well, with Copper Sulphate.
Any "active" metals will replace the Copper from its salt, and form a residue on top of your melted alloy.
This should introduce the Copper as a very finely suspended, and may be dissolved in mix.
I dont have any details of how much Copper Sulphate to use, (sold as Rootex and also as Bluestone) but trialing by adding a known quantity to a know weight of alloy, and measuring hardness difference after treatment, should provide some answers.

[Avenger442]

I have been shooting 308 with clip on wheel weight, two percent tin and a gas check three coats of the liquid Gold 1035 Hi-Tek water dropped at around 2600 fps one half grain short of max load of H4895 with no leading. Not my most accurate load with that bullet.

I reached my original goal of matching the performance of the 308 store bought I was using for hunting last January with 1 1/2 " groups. Next goal is to match performance of Federal Gold Match with the Hi-Tek. Those groups are under an inch in the 223. I'm close with the 223 HiTek but using 22 BHN bullets. Because of the cost in 308 of the Gold Match I've been waiting on the 308. About to start it. Hunting season about to start here.

It seems that as usual I have too many irons in the fire. I also have the dies set up to load 44 mag for the pistol. Not sure when I'm going to make it to the range again. More important things keep getting in the way.

[robertbank]

Bob,
One easy way to get Copper into the alloy is with fluxing/stirring in well, with Copper Sulphate.
Any "active" metals will replace the Copper from its salt, and form a residue on top of your melted alloy.
This should introduce the Copper as a very finely suspended, and may be dissolved in mix.
I dont have any details of how much Copper Sulphate to use, (sold as Rootex and also as Bluestone) but trialing by adding a known quantity to a know weight of alloy, and measuring hardness difference after treatment, should provide some answers.

Hey thanks Joe...that I understand and will try. Might be awhile though unless I get lucky locally finding Bluestone or Rootex. Phoned Dillon and they have mailed me a new sizing die. Apparently they are experiencing problems with their tungsten collars. Only the 2nd one in 25 odd years that has come out of the die so I can't complain.

Take Care

Bob

[HI-TEK]

[QUOTE=robertbank;3372398]Hey thanks Joe...that I understand and will try. Might be awhile though unless I get lucky locally finding Bluestone or Rootex.

You can buy Copper Sulphate, in nursery supplies, and most hardware stores, as it is also used as fungicide sprays on various plants. Agricultural/farming supplies should also have the product.
I suppose, it is simply a few phone calls to your nearest such retailers and asking if they stock it.

[robertbank]

Perfect I should get to it on Monday. Annual Club Championship this week-end.

Bob

[HI-TEK]

Attached is range report as posted on Smith &Wesson forum.
Interesting resultsRange Report Bayou Hi-tek coated 158 L SWC and 2400 in 686.pdf