recommend me a really light alloy

[Mendicant Triode]

I'm going to cast some boolits to make into earrings for my better half, I'm using the lee 175grn .324 aluminum mold. What would be a good alloy to use for such an application?

[a.squibload]

Maybe zinc, it's lighter so her lobes don't get stretched
down to her shoulders...

[Sweetpea]

Linotype

[Doc_Stihl]

Hot glue and gold spray paint.
Cerrosafe

[chsparkman]

silver

[grumman581]

Lead: 11.34 grams per cu-cm (melting point 621.43 °F)
Tin: 7.365 grams per cu-cm (melting point 449.47 °F)
Zinc: 7.14 grams per cu-cm (melting point 787.15 °F)
Silver: 10.49 grams per cu-cm (melting point 1763.2 °F)
Gold: 19.30 grams per cu-cm (melting point 1947.52 °F)
Aluminum: 2.7 grams per cu-cm (melting point 1220.58 °F)
Bismuth: 9.78 grams per cu-cm (melting point 520.7 °F)

You don't want to be using a metal that has a higher melting point than your mold, of course. Zinc does not fill out molds as well, so that might not be an option.

If you have a mini-lathe, you have more options.

Personally, I would go with tin and if the weight was too much, drill out the base, put a lighter material in it, and then solder over it so that it *looked* solid.

Pewter is basically tin and she might like hearing that it is made from pewter instead of *tin*.

I wouldn't use any of the lead alloys (e.g. linotype) though since you probably don't want to explain to her that she needs to wash her hands after putting on her earrings and before eating anything with her hands.

[Mendicant Triode]

Tin sounds like it may be the best, don't really like the idea of lead now that I think of it, I may try tin and drill it out, that way I can epoxy in the hooks. She likes heavy jewelry so weight isn't a huge issue, but I don't want them to be super heavy.

[Zymurgy50]

Just ask her if she would mind wearing big gaudy bullets made of gold in her ears...... she will let you know if that is a good idea or not.

[grumman581]

You might want to consider filling the lube groove(s) with an enamel paint that would look like some of the various wax lubes. I've seen lubes that were a nice shade of blue and of red. I don't think that the Lee Tumble Lube Alox snot color would be that great though.

Filling it with gold leaf might be interesting also...

Whatever you do, just make sure that it is repeatable so that when she loses one down the sink or wherever, you can easily make another one.

[WilliamDahl]

I'm going to cast some boolits to make into earrings for my better half, I'm using the lee 175grn .324 aluminum mold. What would be a good alloy to use for such an application?

REAL women wear earrings made from .45-70 bullets.

OK, .50 BMG bullets would also be acceptable...

[mikeym1a]

REAL women wear earrings made from .45-70 bullets.

OK, .50 BMG bullets would also be acceptable...

And after a while, they can be nestled in their cleavage!

[Mendicant Triode]

You might want to consider filling the lube groove(s) with an enamel paint that would look like some of the various wax lubes. I've seen lubes that were a nice shade of blue and of red. I don't think that the Lee Tumble Lube Alox snot color would be that great though.

Filling it with gold leaf might be interesting also...

Whatever you do, just make sure that it is repeatable so that when she loses one down the sink or wherever, you can easily make another one.

I plan on doing several sets... I may even slug the bore of her 1903/38 Turkish mauser with a pair of them. Good idea about the enamel for the lube grooves, she would really like that. These are going to be for her valentines day present...

[imashooter2]

Tin, pewter or 95/5 solder. Drill the base to lighten them up and fill it with epoxy.

[Single Shot]

Whatever you do, just make sure that it is repeatable so that when she loses one down the sink

Especially if tequila makes he clothes fall off on those Girls night out evenings.

[WilliamDahl]

I plan on doing several sets... I may even slug the bore of her 1903/38 Turkish mauser with a pair of them. Good idea about the enamel for the lube grooves, she would really like that. These are going to be for her valentines day present...

Then obviously you need a pink or red "lube" in the groove.

[Mendicant Triode]

It would have to be red, this girl doesn't really do pink... Will the tin tarnish or corrode over time?

[BNE]

Tin would be easy enough to work with. Good luck on this. I think my wife would learn to reload and shoot me if I tried this for her.

[grumman581]

It would have to be red, this girl doesn't really do pink... Will the tin tarnish or corrode over time?

You could also just use fingernail polish and then it would be an easy matter of changing the color after removing the old color with acetone. Or you could make multiple earrings and paint the lube grooves of each with the different colors of fingernail polish that she uses so that she would always have earrings that match her fingernails.

Tin is used as a coating for certain metals to prevent corrosion of the base metals. It is going to depend upon how shiny you want the project to be. Even silver, which tarnishes readily, is not that bad if you periodically wash it. If you want something to stay shiny and not just a matte finish, for many items, you can polish it and then clear coat it to keep oxygen away from it. Brass readily tarnishes, but they put an epoxy clear coat on it for use in faucets and you can get very shiny brass as a result (well, at least until you wear the clear coat off of it by constantly cleaning it with an abrasive cleanser).

[Silvercreek Farmer]

Shoot them into a snow bank with a light charge then use a metal detector to recover them, they'll have nice rifling groves in them!

[a.squibload]

Why didn't I think of pewter? Easy to cast, won't hurt your molds,
can be shot & recovered ( she might like rifling on 'em!), and you could
have 'em silverplated.
Make a few pairs, use a slow load so you can find 'em after you shoot 'em.
Or she might wanna shoot 'em?