OK . . . What Next?

[paralaska]

Ok, I've got some pure lead ingots and also lead ww's . . . I want to cast for 45acp and gas checked .454.

I understand that I'll need to add some tin and antimony to the pure lead to make it harder, but don't have a clue as to where to get that stuff or how to go about doing it. Any help/advise would be greatly appreciated . . .

I understand that the wheel weights should already be about 12 or so brinnel, so will they be ok as is for the acp? What about for the 454 if they're gonna be gas checked?

I'd appreciate any advice. . . Thanks

[bangerjim]

Swap & Trade forum on here. Look for solder, pewter, pure Sn. You should be good on your WW's for Sb with a mix of 50/50 +2% Sn. WW's only have 0.5% Sn at best. You need it for mold fill-out.

More Sb may be needed if you want those 454's to be harder than 10-12. Get some hardball from Rotometals.com.

Download the free alloy calc spreadsheet on here........all will be answered!

banger

[Yodogsandman]

Welcome to the site paralaska! Great bunch of boolit casters up there!

Lead clip on wheel weights (COWW) are great for making lead boolits! They contain about 3-4% antimony (Sb), 0.5% Tin (Sn) and 96% lead (Pb). Boolits need about 1-2% tin to fully fill out the castings in the mold. I use an alloy mix of 1/4lb of 50/50 (lead/tin) plumbers bar solder and 9 3/4lb of cleaned and fluxed COWW's for a hardness of about 11-12 BHN ( Brinnel Hardness Number). Good for rifle or pistol boolits up to 1800-1900 ft/sec.

Check out this site for some more alloy mix ideas...

http://www.lasc.us/CastBulletNotes.htm

[RogerDat]

The generic recipe is that 50/50 WW's and plain lead mix. Plus some tin but generally not over 2%. If you have any thrift stores in your area go through them looking for cheap dented pewter. Read the Pewter Hallmark thread first, not every gray plate, pitcher, mug or bowl is pewter. Little bit of tin goes a long way and pewter is better than 80% tin, sometimes in the mid to upper 90% tin range.

Those who shoot 45acp can weigh in with direct experience but from the posts I have seen that round is well served by the 50/50 + tin recipe.

You also have options to harden what you have for the .454 One of the beauties of WW as an alloy is it takes well to hardening processes. Use the site search to look for posts on Water Dropped or Quenching and Heat treating or HT. Dropping the bullet hot from the mold into cold water causes the alloy to become harder thus the term Water Dropped or WD which is "Quenching" the hot bullet in cold water. Heat treating is more controlled, heating cast bullet in oven at certain temp for specific length of time, then quenching in cold water. Really important if you decide to water drop that the bucket of cold water NOT be near you molten pot of lead, or above it. Read about tinsel fairy on the forum.

Read about the tinsel fairy no matter what. Steam explosion of molten lead from damp WW's or lead dropped into your melt could wreck your whole day, same as spilling or splashing quenching water in the melt will.

Also look at the threads on Powder Coating, this is using powdered resin paint on the cast bullet, then baking the bullet covered with resin powder which leaves the bullet with a hard tough shell. Can be done with a $5 toaster oven from the Salvation Army store, a cool whip container, and some air soft pellets (toy bb's for air soft guns). Shaking the bullets in the cool whip container with the plastic bb's gives them a static charge which causes the resin to coat and stick to the bullet. Enough that you can put them on a tray and bake the resin. They be pretty bullets too! Red and Green and....

And as Jim says you can purchase lead with higher percentages of the alloys from Rotometals and use the alloy calculator to figure out how much to add to achieve the required or desired BHN. Jim however has a rather enviable stash of alloys for just that purpose (insert alloy envy here) otherwise one has to find a way to get results with what one has on hand.

[Defcon-One]

The two things you need to become an alloy maker are Tin (Solder or Pewter) and Antimony (Linotype has about 12% Antimony plus 4% Tin).

Since you have Pure Lead and COWWs my advice is to buy or trade for some good quality Solder and Linotype. After you get them use Bumpo's alloy calculator (found free on the website) to figure out a good recipe for your needs and start smelting/alloying.

With those four ingredients on hand, you can make just about any alloy that you could ever need or want!

The rest is personal preference. I use 2% Tin, 3% Antimony, 95% Lead for my Handgun Alloy. Lyman #2 (5% Tin, 5% Antimony, 90% Lead) for all my rifles, with or without gas checks, depending on velocity desired.

Bangerjim mentioned Hardball (2% Tin, 6% Antimony, 92% Lead), which is a common replacement for Lyman #2 and used by commercial casters. It is good for magnum handguns and rifles, but is too hard for standard handgun loads in my opinion. It is most easily made by mixing Pure Lead and Linotype in equal amounts (50% of each). For handgun loads like in your .45 ACP you can mix that Hardball 50/50 with Pure Lead to cut the Tin and Antimony in half.

DC-1

[bangerjim]

Yes........I found 350# of hardball last year at a scrap yard. I use it to sweeten solfter stuff to get to 10-12 or so......then PC. Too hard straight for what I do. (Waterdropped = 34+ Bhn!!!)

Hardball mixes very well! All the cast boolit books tend to reference Lyman #2 (the olde daze). And most molds are based upon that alloy for weight/size data.

That was then.......this is now! Use what you have. Fit is far more important than the old view of hardness. I try for .002 over. (barrel dependent) PC'ing allows you to do that even with slightly undersized boolits.

banger

[willlong9]

I've had good luck with strait COWW in my Win 94 30/30. (Got a deer last month using Lee 170 FN GC). Will start adding some solder to the mix though.

[Alley Cat]

Rotometals isn't the cheapest source but you can get concentrated antimony or tin ingots. These can be blended with pure lead to hit almost any harness level desired.

[paralaska]

Ok . . . here's my current plan:

I have lead (ingots I bought and fishing weights)
I have some WW (new unused clip-on's)

I will order some superhard (30%sp 70%pb) and popcorn tin from Roto

This should give all I need to make some mixes in the 10 to 12 bnh for the 45Acp and in the 15 to 16 range for the gas checked 454s.

Does this sound like a good plan?

Also . . . I just have a small Lyman electric pot (I think it's 10 lb) I bought, but I have a heavy steel pot that I can put on a camp stove, and was thinking of using it to make my alloy which I would then put into molds. Is this ok to do it this way? or should I use the Lyman pot for better heat control or something?

I've been loading cast bullets for years, but have been having a hard time finding bullets, especially for the 454. So I decided to start another hobby and make my own . . . I'm a total beginner and really appreciate everyone's comments/advice . . . Thanks

[RogerDat]

You need a thermometer! Tel-Tru makes one at a better price than the Lyman that works just as well. American made too. Search on Amazon.

You do need to control the temperature but the main thing the electric pot provides is repeatable temp. for casting. You need to have a thermometer to know what temp. a "7" (or 6 or 8) is on your pot. Different alloys melt and cast well at different temperatures. E.G tin will melt at around 400, plain lead around 700. With alloys too hot and you will cook the tin and antimony right out, too cold and it won't cast well.

Your idea of using a camp stove and cook pot (steel not aluminum) to make some ingots is a good one . Then all you put in your casting pot is nice clean ingots. You probably do not want to smelt WW's or melt scrap in the same pot you cast from. Lots of gunk and garbage. Save your pot for nice clean, fluxed lead. There are some tips posted in the forum someplace (site search) on how to reinforce a camp stove to better handle the weight if your going to do any larger pots.

Read about fluxing and reducing (sawdust/pet bedding and bees wax/paraffin seem popular) this is the process that gets the WW gunk and other debris out, and keeps the antimony and tin in your lead. Done as part of smelting your metal into ingots. Again something you may want to avoid doing in your casting pot if you materials are not all nice clean ingots.

One last thought about those expensive alloys and plain lead and making it into ingots. You can't take the alloys back out. If you mix everything into ingots give some thought to preserving enough material to be able to adjust later if you find yourself running out of ingots for pistol or rifle first. E.G enough plain to soften rifle ingot for pistol, enough antimony lead and tin to harden pistol ingot to rifle alloy. Also good if you find your initial batch of ingots needs a little adjustment.

[Twmaster]

I would not use a steel pot. It will fail after a short time. Cast Iron is the safe way.

[Sweetpea]

I disagree.

Steel is fine.

Aluminum is not.

[waksupi]

I disagree.

Steel is fine.

Aluminum is not.

Right.

[dikman]

Yep. Half a propane tank, almost indestructible. Doesn't melt, like aluminium, and won't crack like cast iron can if mis-treated.