Sweetening Wheel Weights

[ashlyngr]

I have a good supply of COWW's smelted and poured into Wally World condiment cups. My Lee hardness tester indicate an average of 13.0 to 13.5 Bhn.
I have read that Wheel Weights should be sweetened by 1.0% to 1.5%, to help the pour and filling of moulds during casting. Am I correct? I have Tin I purchased from Rotometals as cut rods.
I am pondering blending my lead and tin in my smelting pot for ease of handling, as apposed to trying to do it in a production pot. My thinking is I can control the blending with matching ingot weight and tin nuggets to attain the proper percentages. Then it would be much easier to just melt the blended ingots and pour. Or does this method burn off the tin I am trying to add? And when blending, shoud I do so by ounces/weight?

Thanks,
Bruce

[runfiverun]

in the pot is fine.

I usually don't even bother to add much tin to my ww's.
I just weigh out how much alloy I'm gonna melt and put that much tin with it then pour it back through the pot into ingots this makes what I put in and what I'm gonna add back all the same alloy.
how I figure out how much to use is really complicated.
I use 10 pound increments of weight and base my percentages on 100 pounds of alloy.
so 1 pound of tin makes 100 pounds of alloy at 1% tin.
if I add 99 pounds of ww's.
so I divide by 10 9.9 pounds of ww's and enough tin to make the scale go to 10 pounds.
or just throw in something like 1 oz's of tin and move along with my day.
or not, if the boolits are casting fine I just cast and shoot and don't get all wrapped up about it..

[JWFilips]

I like to smelt all my alloys clean first Re COWW, pure etc. Once I have nice clean ingots of those I weigh them out to make my boolit alloy blends ( usually it is 50 % coww to 50 % pure , since that is what I have the most of then I add about 2% extra tin to that batch to make a nice consistant boolit alloy right about Bhn 10 to 10.5) then those ingots are cast up and stored for use in my bottom pour casting pot They are as clean as I can get them so less crud in the pot At least this works for me

[williamwaco]

I have been casting bullets from clip on wheel weights since 1956.
I have sweetened them with 60/40 solder.
I have sweetened them with pure tin.
I have sweetened them with Linotype.

I have also done a test on casting with no tin.
See:

http://reloadingtips.com/pages/exp_1...n_in_alloy.htm

Thus - You do need tin in the melt.

My conclusion is that sweetening clip on wheel weights is a waste of tin.
I can't tell it helps at all.

Sweetening scrap or pure lead with zero or very little tin is totally necessary.

.

[10 ga]

in the pot is fine.

I usually don't even bother to add much tin to my ww's.
I just weigh out how much alloy I'm gonna melt and put that much tin with it then pour it back through the pot into ingots this makes what I put in and what I'm gonna add back all the same alloy.
how I figure out how much to use is really complicated.
I use 10 pound increments of weight and base my percentages on 100 pounds of alloy.
so 1 pound of tin makes 100 pounds of alloy at 1% tin.
if I add 99 pounds of ww's.
so I divide by 10 9.9 pounds of ww's and enough tin to make the scale go to 10 pounds.
or just throw in something like 1 oz's of tin and move along with my day.
or not, if the boolits are casting fine I just cast and shoot and don't get all wrapped up about it..

This makes me so DIZZY!

I just cast my "sweet stuff" in 400 gr Minnie ball mold and add 1 or a couple to a pot so it casts clean boolits. It's really size that counts more than hard or soft, hi or low BHN etc...

and mostly I hunt or "plink" and 1-1+2% works great. 10 ga

[JWFilips]

williamwaco is most likely right on not having to use more tin........
I just find out if I'm using a tumble lube boolit mold it seems to help fill the micro bands more equally & that is what I cast mostly. before that I seem to have the rear bands fill out better then the front bands....but I'm not sure if that was just my casting inexperience in the begining. ...So I throw in some extra tin

[runfiveslittlegirl]

seriously i just add about 1/2% tin.
i do big batch all my ww alloy for consistency and add 1/5% tin to the whole lot so i end up with a real consistent batch and i don't have to fidget about.
i base what [if any] alloy changes i'm gonna make on that big [usually around 1,000 pounds] batch of alloy.
most guns don't care if i'm off a little.

some are super picky so i make up a batch of alloy [80-100 pounds] just for that mold and rifle combination and segregate it.

just realized littlegirl logged in while i was gone.

[PalmettoShooter]

make sure that if you flux you use something like sawdust. some fluxes will pull the tin out of the mixture, which is no good.

[Airman Basic]

Just straight WWs without any additives seems to work fine for me.

[osteodoc08]

Personally I weight out my COWW ingots and add another 1% by weight of 95/5 solder directly in the pot as it is melting. It's worked for me and produces good boolits. It doesn't take much and is easy to do.

[jmort]

I just like tin in the mix. But I'm not a high volume shooter and don't "plink." I want an alloy that will have maximum malleability and the best terminal performance. Have gone as high as 5% tin but recent thread discussed the merits of 6% alloy for expansion, which I will be trying. With COWW, I would not go beyond 3%. I like 20 to 1 alloy as well. But I am in the minority on this.

[Jevyod]

make sure that if you flux you use something like sawdust. some fluxes will pull the tin out of the mixture, which is no good.

So what fluxes tend to pull the tin out?

[Larry Gibson]

Some have managed to get batches of COWWs that do have sufficient tin in them for quality bullets not just shootable ones. Older COWWs of 20+ years back generally had sufficient tin. These days it is pot puree if there will be enough tin or not....most batches of COWWs will not have enough tin in them While they do cast useable bullets that alloy does not cast the best bullets. We constantly get complaints from members, even very experienced ones, of different makes of moulds "not casting large enough" or "cast to small". Invariably the alloy used is COWWs w/o tin added and usually cast with alloy below 700 degrees....always trying for those nice shiny bullets. Adding 2% tin almost always brings the COWWs to a correct lead/antimony/tin balance for a ternary alloy and they cast to the nominal diameter of the mould or larger.

From your average of 13.0 to 13.5 Bhn adding 2% tin to your COWW alloy should give a BHN of 14.5 - 16 on AC'd bullets that have age hardened for 10 days. It will also fill out the mould much better and you should cast excellent bullets with minimal rejects.

For 1% tin add 1.6 oz tin to 10 lbs of alloy.

For 2% tin add 3.2 oz tin to 10 lbs alloy.

In my Mag 20 I put 15 lbs of COWW alloy and then add 4.8 oz tin for 2%.

For 2% use 6.4 oz tin for 20 lbs alloy.

Larry Gibson

[Defcon-One]

I recommend 2% Tin, by weight, in your alloy. It does make a difference.

Even the photos in Williamwaco's link prove it to me. The ones with Tin added had sharper corners and from the photos I can tell that he poured them in a mold that was not hot enough. Alloy and mould temperatures matter, too!

All things being equal, you'll get better bullets with the extra Tin. You won't work as hard since there will be very few rejects at 2% Tin. Try it, you'll like it!

[catman81056]

How much 50/50 bar solder would you add to say 10lbs of COWW's to get the tin% for good casting? I know straight tin would be better but I have 5lbs of the 50/50 already.

[Larry Gibson]

How much 50/50 bar solder would you add to say 10lbs of COWW's to get the tin% for good casting? I know straight tin would be better but I have 5lbs of the 50/50 already.

Since the solder is half tin and half lead simply add twice as much 50/50 solder as you would straight tin. For 10 lbs alloy add 6.4 oz 50/50 solder.

Larry Gibson

[catman81056]

Thanks Larry

[ashlyngr]

Thanks to all that responded to my post. 1) I have decided to recast all my COWW alloy to lyman one pound ingots. The reason for this is they will be easier to use in my Lee Pots and easier to store 2) I'm going to have my first boolit casting session with plain COWWs to get the method down and check my fill out and bullet quality. Since I have an average of 13 bhn, I want to make sure everything else is fine before I change my alloy. I do have 6 lbs of pure tin in case I need to add it because of fill out issues. 3) My primary plan is to switch over to a gas operation as much as I possibly can.

Thanks All, Happy Holiday,
Bruce