Mono Type ingots...

[Hotrod99]

Working in the shop today and decided to cast a few mono type ingots... no reason... just wanted to meld some lead. We the ingots came out great at about 9oz each (old cornbread mold). Never really knew how hard this stuff is... after letting them cool down, I picked two up to weigh. But while walking to the bench I dropped one of the ingots and to my surprise... it broke clean in two.


hard and brittle... learn something new every trip to the shop.

[Grmps]

kind of grainy looking to. IF it had hit your foot you would have realized how hard they are

[BK7saum]

Yep, that's why hard alloys like straight lino isnt used for hunting bullets. They can shatter upon impact.

[RogerDat]

Imagine that hitting a large bone in a deer or similar animal at bullet velocities. It would disintegrate, losing all it's mass and ceasing to create a wound channel. Where something a bit softer would expand and stay mostly in one piece going through the bone or being diverted to continue making a wound. Mono is great sweetener to make alloy from WW's or Plain soft lead on its own too hard.

I'm not 100% sure of this but having Sn and Sb in equal amounts might allow for hardness from the Sb to be kept more ductile by the Sn. I do know the two alloy to each other in a way that enhances the effect each has on the lead base. Might be a worthy experiment some time to make small batch of mono, beefed up with tin to get the Sn/Sb percentages the same. See if it loses tendency to shatter as an ingot, or as a 30-06 bullet. If it didn't work could just cut with plain to a known good alloy like 2.5/2.5/95

[Harry O]

I have a 9.5x57 M-S rifle. It requires a 270gr round nose bullet to work. The flat nose ones for the 38-55 and .375 Winchester don't work. The only one I could find was a 375167. It does NOT have a gas check. So, I tried to cast it in monotype. Most monotypes have close to 20% antimony in them. When I tried crimping them into the case, the bullets cracked straight through. Ended up with a very light weight wadcutter. Even without crimping, they often broke when they hit the feed ramp to lever them up into the chamber. Straight monotype is no good for casting. You need to dilute it with tin.

I eventually got them to work when I added enough tin to match the amount of antimony. This gave a 70% lead, 15% antimony, and 15% tin mixture. The 270gr mould only gave a 250gr bullet, though. It shot OK, but was more trouble than it was worth. I ended up going to jacketed 270gr Hornady 2nds.

[lightman]

Imagine that hitting a large bone in a deer or similar animal at bullet velocities. It would disintegrate, losing all it's mass and ceasing to create a wound channel. Where something a bit softer would expand and stay mostly in one piece going through the bone or being diverted to continue making a wound. Mono is great sweetener to make alloy from WW's or Plain soft lead on its own too hard.

I'm not 100% sure of this but having Sn and Sb in equal amounts might allow for hardness from the Sb to be kept more ductile by the Sn. I do know the two alloy to each other in a way that enhances the effect each has on the lead base. Might be a worthy experiment some time to make small batch of mono, beefed up with tin to get the Sn/Sb percentages the same. See if it loses tendency to shatter as an ingot, or as a 30-06 bullet. If it didn't work could just cut with plain to a known good alloy like 2.5/2.5/95

There is something magical about having the tin and antimony alloyed equally. It doesn't seem to matter if if its Lyman #2 at 90-5-5 or if its 94-3-3 or 96-2-2. It just works well.

[kevin c]

I read in the metallurgy section of the Lyman CB handbook that Sb and Sn in equal amounts will sort of combine in the melt and have properties like a metal itself, apart from the expected properties of the two individual metals.

[Lloyd Smale]

ive shot a few deer and even bison and did lots of penetration testing with linotype (not mono or foundry) and have yet to see it shatter at handgun velocitys on bone or in testing. I have seen water dropped ww swc's shear there nose off though at handgun velocitys. Had one idiot at the range one day tell me he wont use linotype because it shatters on steal targets. Ever shot pure at a steal target and recovered a mushroomed bullet? I took 3rd place in a penetration test at a Linebaugh seminar 10 or so years ago with a 340 lfngc 44 mag at about 1200 fps casted out of linotype. That was where I saw the water dropped (commercial) swcs failing. Only two guns that beat me were a 458 lott and a 475 Linebaugh. I even beat the performance of my own 458 #1 using round nosed solids. Some here would have you think a bullet cast out of type will disintegrate in the air on the way to the target. Most here hunt medium sized game with cast bullets. that would mostly include deer, black bear, and hogs. Linotype bullets will hold up just find to them out of a handgun. Now increase the velocity to 2000 out of a rifle and its tough to find any alloy that will not come apart hitting a bone. But even then id bet they come apart inside the animal not on the surface and most soft nosed jacketed bullets loose mass by the time they do there job.

[RogerDat]

Linotype is considerably less brittle than monotype or foundry type. A lot of lino comes in at just under 20 BHN or just over 20. Mono gets into the high 20's and Foundry is in the low 30's

This article has some good general information and lists lino as having poor nose deformation (mushrooming) as a hunting bullet compared to softer lead, and mentions mono as breaking on chambering and when striking solid objects.
http://www.lasc.us/castbulletalloy.htm

They also make mention of the need for 31,000 cup pressure to insure obturation. I'm thinking that seems in the range of a 44 mag round.

Whole lot of nice bullets have been cast and shot that were made from linotype but it is harder and more brittle than several other alloys, I would rather use Lyman #2 at 5/5/90 as my go to alloy for performance but that isn't to say it is the best for all uses. I would even think that a little hard for mushrooming on tissue in a RNFP configuration but have to admit never tried it on game animal so don't know.