50-50-2% Blend

[SharuLady]

Hi vzerone,

I was put onto 50-50 third party. It's a very versatile alloy. What's nice about it too is that you can it different Bhn hardnesses by air dropping, water quenching, and oven heat treating. Another modification for it is to blend it 60-40 with the 60 being the pure lead percentage. This is for a softer version should you need it. I'll have to go along with runfiverun on not needing to add 2% tin. 50-50 has always casted very well for me.

I've never gotten leading with this alloy and feel leading issues are more related to the bullet lube you are using and bullet fit.

Ty for these other options of use with these blends. As to bullet lube I plan to PC with the ASBB method.

[SharuLady]

Hi Larry,

TY for more options of blends to consider. It is appreciated!

[vzerone]

DougGuy,

50-50 alloy far exceeds 1800 fps easily in rifles. I feel 50-50 water quenched is unecessarily too hard for revolvers, that is if you expect it to expand well. 50-50 air cooled is okay for revolver use, but not my main choice. Lately I've been leaning towards shooting much softer alloy in my handgun. You'd be amazed at what you can do with nearly pure with some tin added and FreeChecked. Not a spec of anything in the bore and barely carbon fouling.

[ABJ]

Thanks, runfiverun. Your reply is a real eye opener, it answers a lot but makes me question my own needs. I think I want a softer alloy for hunting than I'm using now which is 1.8 tin and 3.1 antimony. Accuracy is great on all g/c 30's and 357 mag up to about 1200 but very little rolling of the flat nose's when dug out of the red clay berm. The op mentions several handguns and 30-30, are you saying the 50 plus 2/50 would work in the 9mm, 357 and the 30-30. I'm thinking the 30's with a 10 twist is putting a lot of stress and might strip the rifling, but I haven't tried it yet. I like the op would like a softer alloy that might offer some expansion on the 357 and the 30's. That brings up another question, does a boolit need to expand a flat nose (357-1000/1200) (30 cal.-1500/1800) and is that asking too much for one alloy to do over such a wide range of velocity.
Tony

[ABJ]

Thanks Larry, you reminded me of the ant. content of current coww being different. I have not changed the ant. for coww in the calculator. Most of mine are a mixture of Late 1980 thru late 1990's. Most of the time I build my own from scrap sheet lead and add pure tin, superhard and or foundrytype. Which ever is the least trouble when I'm making ingots. I assume the 50/50 is roughly 1.5 tin and 1.5 antimony?
Tony

[vzerone]

Thanks, runfiverun. Your reply is a real eye opener, it answers a lot but makes me question my own needs. I think I want a softer alloy for hunting than I'm using now which is 1.8 tin and 3.1 antimony. Accuracy is great on all g/c 30's and 357 mag up to about 1200 but very little rolling of the flat nose's when dug out of the red clay berm. The op mentions several handguns and 30-30, are you saying the 50 plus 2/50 would work in the 9mm, 357 and the 30-30. I'm thinking the 30's with a 10 twist is putting a lot of stress and might strip the rifling, but I haven't tried it yet. I like the op would like a softer alloy that might offer some expansion on the 357 and the 30's. That brings up another question, does a boolit need to expand a flat nose (357-1000/1200) (30 cal.-1500/1800) and is that asking too much for one alloy to do over such a wide range of velocity.
Tony

Tony don't worry about stripping the rifling, if we aren't doing it in the 6.5 Swede with it's 7.8 twist and the AR15's running such fast twists as 7,8, and 9, in addition to all the old milsurps running around 8.5 to 9.5 you aren't going to do it in your 30-30. If you want an alloy that will expand more try the 60-40 I mentioned. Better yet go to a hollow point bullet. The theory I follow on hollow points is the bullet enters the animal and begins to mushroom doing lots of damage, then shed the pedals and becomes a Nosler Partition bullet and the remainder of the bullet plows on throught and exits the animal leaving a good blood trail. A hard solid will penetrate entirely, but doesn't do enough internal damage. A real soft bullet often doesn't penetrate deep enough and rarely exits. The hollow point mentioned doesn't have to be cast of real soft alloy, nor do you want it to be.

[ABJ]

Thanks vzerone, The hp from what I keep reading, if cast soft enough to work seems to have a small window of velocity to work in. Deer too close it acts like a varmit bullet and too far its no different than a flat point. I guess its the same with jacketed, I had a 243 soft point blow up at 60 yds because that bullet was not made to launch at 2900 and hit deer at 60. It would have been fine at 100 I'm guessing. I want to switch all my 0 to 150 yd hunting to cast. I don't have a problem with my current alloy getting the job done but if I can improve the terminal performance a little then I think I ought to try. The flat nose offering's at Accurate molds is mind blowing and i don't have the extra expense of hollow pointing.
Tony

[vzerone]

Thanks vzerone, The hp from what I keep reading, if cast soft enough to work seems to have a small window of velocity to work in. Deer too close it acts like a varmit bullet and too far its no different than a flat point. I guess its the same with jacketed, I had a 243 soft point blow up at 60 yds because that bullet was not made to launch at 2900 and hit deer at 60. It would have been fine at 100 I'm guessing. I want to switch all my 0 to 150 yd hunting to cast. I don't have a problem with my current alloy getting the job done but if I can improve the terminal performance a little then I think I ought to try. The flat nose offering's at Accurate molds is mind blowing and i don't have the extra expense of hollow pointing.
Tony

Mihec molds, as you will notice down in the group buys, sells hollow point rifle moulds. He has some that are more pointed and then there is one called the 308 Hunting bullet and it's got more of a flat nose with a larger hollow cavity. He also has the 30 Silhouette with a very small hollow point, which I thought wouldn't work much at all, but found out it does! These were cast of the 50-50 alloy water quenched not air cooled! A lot of his molds come with a variety of pins to change the type of bullets such as the more common round hollow point cone shape, to the five sided pent point cone shaped, and a pin to leave the bullet a solid. The price is one fixed price. He's selling the Lyman pellet shaped shotgun slug moulds in all the gauges. Current buy going on for one of those in 12 ga I think.

[runfiverun]

there is always going to be more questions.
trust me...
I burned an 8 lb jug of 4895 in 2 months not too long ago asking myself some questions.
I got enough base ingredients in the garage to make motor oil from scratch, or enough lube for 2 lifetimes [on top of the batches of lube already made] because I had some questions.

many of us in this thread agree and disagree on soo many things all at the same time because our weather, testing medium, or hunting situations are different.
I am not a fan of hollow points, I also don't like jacketed bullets that don't exit [I make my own and have gone to some great pains to get what I want]

I will leave this post on a final note.
an alloy under pressure is different than one just sitting on the bench.
it changes and flows, stuff like antimony don't always act like you think they do [it doesn't just add hardness or brittleness and can actually contribute to the cold flow of an alloy if used properly] they change how they react under pressure when combined with other additives.
Tin can be a grain refiner, a strengthener, a wetting agent, or it can combine with other additives to form a stronger then either one alone chain, it can also retard water quenching.
it all depends on the amount used and what else is in the mix.

we aren't just mixing ww's with lead we are changing the flow property's of the projectile under the stress of firing and the stress on impact with game.
how we manipulate that alloy changes when and where the stress occurs.

[ABJ]

Thanks, runfiverun. You are right, it is time for me to make the 50/50 and give it a try.
Tony

[popper]

SharuLady - try the COWW alloy first for 9mm. Order a bar (or 2) of SuperHard for adding Sb where needed (cast into boolits or SMALL ingots). Keep your CO/SO separate until you know what you need. You might get 1.5-2% Sb to work in 30/30, probably need to heat treat. I don't use tin, costs too much. Cross mixing the CO to get all of it uniform is a valid idea, but keep the SO separate. Those muffin ingots make it easy to mix in the casting pot. Add a little As, Cu, Sb, Sn - whatever - AND write down what it is and keep handy AND with the mixed alloy AND cast boolits!! Nothing like loading up some boolits for 308 and then realizing they are soft alloy!!

[brewer12345]

Interesting comments, especially about declining quality of WWs. I did my first cast of 35 rem boolits using what Lyman suggested would approximate #2: 9 parts COWWs and one part 50/50 solder (tin/lead). Reading between the lines, if COWW Sb content has been dropping, this would put out something a lot less hard than Lyman #2. I am in load development, so these boolits will all be shot at paper. Long as they are hard enough to stand up to 1800 FPS or a touch less it won't matter, but I may have to change up what I do when it comes time to cast hunting fodder.

[SharuLady]

Hi popper, TY for your comment and suggestions.

SharuLady - try the COWW alloy first for 9mm. Order a bar (or 2) of SuperHard for adding Sb where needed (cast into boolits or SMALL ingots). Keep your CO/SO separate until you know what you need. You might get 1.5-2% Sb to work in 30/30, probably need to heat treat. I don't use tin, costs too much. Cross mixing the CO to get all of it uniform is a valid idea, but keep the SO separate. Those muffin ingots make it easy to mix in the casting pot. Add a little As, Cu, Sb, Sn - whatever - AND write down what it is and keep handy AND with the mixed alloy AND cast boolits!! Nothing like loading up some boolits for 308 and then realizing they are soft alloy!!

I guess I need to consider making smaller amts of alloys to try out for the different handguns and rifles.
Is the 9mm the only one that will need the harder alloy or will it be needed for the 357mag as well? The alloy for the 30-30's would also benefit from a harder alloy as well.
All the while keeping detailed notes on ea blend of alloy and results. I don't foresee going super sonic with the rifle loads. Here on our property there will not be any long distance shots due to our heavily wooded areas.

[popper]

I wouldn't worry about keeping thm subsonic (unless you have one of those silencer thingys), you do need to keep the fps up to get stability and penetration. ~13-1500 should do. 9mm is just a hard nut to crack.

[SharuLady]

Question on lead blends, I have read here on the forums about boolits that either shrink or get bigger or the BHN changing after being made and causing problems with fit after sizing and PC or lube that might be sitting in storage for a while before loading the harder alloys such as "super" hard or "lino".

Is that due to the harder alloys being mixed with CO or SO blends or is it also due to heat or water treatment of boolits?

Is there a way to avoid this problem from occuring?

TYIA SharuLady

[vzerone]

Question on lead blends, I have read here on the forums about boolits that either shrink or get bigger or the BHN changing after being made and causing problems with fit after sizing and PC or lube that might be sitting in storage for a while before loading the harder alloys such as "super" hard or "lino".

Is that due to the harder alloys being mixed with CO or SO blends or is it also due to heat or water treatment of boolits?

Is there a way to avoid this problem from occuring?

TYIA SharuLady

If the alloy has any hardening alloys in it, such as antimony, they age. When they age they grow. It's all about the molecules moving in the alloy. In some instances some will shrink after they have grown. Pure lead and lead tin alloy doesn't do this. They only grow so much too, not that they keep growing the longer you let them set. NRA had an article long about about storing them in the freezer after they aged to keep them from changing anymore. The molecules move slower when they are colder so the cold prolongs changes. It all sounds bad but it's really not. Take a bullet cast from 50-50 water dropped. It will grow maybe a thousanth say in a 30 caliber bullet. The 30 Silhouettes I cast of that alloy drop from my mould at .313. After a few months they will have grown to the tenth of thousandths say like .3135. Different calibers and sometimes different weights grow more or less then other. Like I said it's not all that bad. Some people cast them and just put them in a container and lube and size them right before shooting them. Other's lube and size them and put them in containers. You can see if you just put them away and lube size them before use they are going to be the diameter you want. Some people will tell you that sizing them after they have aged and grown will soften them. On bullets that have hardening alloys in them the BHN will go up. The average time to set to harden is about 2 weeks. Some say 10 days. One thing, depending on what hardness your alloy will obtain when fully aged, they are most definitely harder to size. That brings up the people that size not to long after cast. Just enough time after casting so the bullet has a little strenght as to not damage them or bend them. I hope I haven't discouraged you. The majority of us here are casting and shooting bullets with the hardening alloys in them and doing fine.

[SharuLady]

Ok, TYVM for a very clear explanation.

Ruth

[runfiverun]

remember this stuff isn't hard.
but it takes time to pick up on the nuances, and trying to jump straight into everything with both feet can be super confusing and frustrating.
start with one single gun work it over from bottom to top and enjoy the process.

as far as the 9mm goes I do use a little harder alloy but mostly rely on a 358 diameter to do the job.
the lino-type additive is to help accuracy not to help control leading.

I took a long journey with the 9mm working with the lube from almost dripping wet up the chain to almost a solid chunk of wax then back down again watching the groups close down then open up then close back down again as I backed off.
then started working on adding stuff to the alloy, then worked the powder from slow and fast towards the middle.
it was just a journey of learning stuff in my 9mm pistols.

[SharuLady]

Hi,

remember this stuff isn't hard.
but it takes time to pick up on the nuances, and trying to jump straight into everything with both feet can be super confusing and frustrating.
start with one single gun work it over from bottom to top and enjoy the process.

as far as the 9mm goes I do use a little harder alloy but mostly rely on a 358 diameter to do the job.
the lino-type additive is to help accuracy not to help control leading.

I took a long journey with the 9mm working with the lube from almost dripping wet up the chain to almost a solid chunk of wax then back down again watching the groups close down then open up then close back down again as I backed off.
then started working on adding stuff to the alloy, then worked the powder from slow and fast towards the middle.
it was just a journey of learning stuff in my 9mm pistols.

Your gentle reminder is noted and understood and yes it can be confusing & frustrating.

I realize the 9mm and the 30-30's need to be a harder alloy but have some concern of not making it too hard, as to just how much would need to be added.
By the scale here on the forum the lino or LinoType melts @ 462 so that will melt into the blend, whereas antimony (metal) melts @1166° (I am assuming "superhard" contains the antimony) so will that melt/blend into the COWW?

The 9mm's and 30-30's by what I have read here on the forums may be the most difficult to work up.

[popper]

Yes, the super hard is the cheapest way to add Sb to the alloy. My 9mm (130gr pB) likes 3% Sb (aircooled sized 357 - XDs compact) with a tad of Cu, you could just add 1/2% Sn instead. I've tried 1 1/2 % Sb in the 30/30 and it works, barely, for 185gr GC & stiff 2400 load. Probably 14-1500 fps. IIRC you said PCd, which helps a bit. I wouldn't start with the 9mm first. You will need the proper expanders (NOE setup works pretty good). I mostly use Lyman 'M' as I got them first but NOE is less $$.