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Thread: Mystery alloy - possible to identify?

  1. #1
    Boolit Mold
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    Mystery alloy - possible to identify?

    I've read stickies, and tried a bit of googling, but there are just too many possible varieties, so I thought it prudent to ask.

    Before even getting ANY casting gear, I came across a guy who was parting with some lead/alloys at a reasonable price. It all came in form rather large bricks 30-50 lbs each. As I have now started smelting it into smaller ingots, I have made some interesting discoveries regarding one of the alloys.

    It melts a really(?) low temp, fully liquid at 350F / 175C, but below that it was getting slushy. Not much oxidation forming on the surface (but then again, it was not running particularly hot, say 450-480F). Poured some ingots and as they were cooling/solidifying, it seemed like it was it was actually two (or more) distinct metals, i.e. like mercury floating 'through' the otherwise solidified ingot when tilting the mold back and forth. Don't really know how to describe it better than that. And it takes a long time to solidify fully. A couple of minutes at least.

    Once fully solid on the surface I turned the mold upside down, and it dropped out quite nicely, but leaving slight smears in the mold as it was probably quite close to the melting point for one of the metals. Came out sort of shiny on the surface, but quickly (1 minute) turned into a frosty white colour,

    Interesting thing is that the original brick looked and felt more like pure lead, i.e. dull gray and easy to dent with a light hammer blow, but in its new ingot shape it is slightly a different story It seems a little harder, and when water quenched, it seems a little harder still. I have no equipment to do any real BHN test. It will scratch with a nail (carpentry, not finger), but it's possible to polish away the 'frosting' with a nail (finger variety). That area then stays shiny for at least a week (maybe forever - time would tell).

    Is there any way to figure out what it is? Or could anyone come up with a guess? Or some other type of test that could be done to determine its contents? Since I don't yet have a bullet mold, I cannot accurately measure shrinkage compared to a pure lead bullet or something like that. The one remaining brick has a density of 11.89 if that can help determining things.

    EDIT: I realize now that such a density would higher than pure lead, and there was probably something wrong with my calculation/measurement. Unless there is tungsten or uranium in the mix. But that would not explain the low melt temp. /EDIT

    I contacted the seller and he did not really know either (he got it from work, but I don't quite recall what he said he worked with), but he admitted it was a bit hard to cast with, and he had himself mixed it with ~30% pure lead for more reliable results.

    Anyone up for a guess?

    Thanks in advance.
    cmk

    * Edited for factual errors
    Last edited by cmk; 09-21-2018 at 11:36 AM.

  2. #2
    Boolit Master

    rancher1913's Avatar
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    contact bne on here.
    if you are ever being chased by a taxidermist, don't play dead

  3. #3
    Boolit Mold
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    Thanks, sent a PM.

  4. #4
    Boolit Buddy
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    It will be interesting to see what this comes out as.

  5. #5
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    don't know what you have there but even tin takes a bit over 400 degrees F to melt.

  6. #6
    Boolit Buddy
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    Could your thermometer be off? It might read 350 but the temperature is actually higher.

  7. #7
    Boolit Buddy
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    I second having BNE take a look at it if you cannot get it to a XrF holder in your area. BNE did some good work for me. There are such things as "fusible metals": cerrosafe is one of them, that melt at fairly low temperatures. https://www.rotometals.com/low-melt-fusible-alloys/

  8. #8
    Boolit Mold
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    I believe the thermometer to be reasonably accurate. It is not really intended for lead pots, but rather for measuring the heat of smoke in chimneys. Ranges from 50C (122F) up to 500C (932F)

    Did test it with boiling water and it was correct within a few %.

    I melted down another 'brick' from a totally different source yesterday, and it took a lot longer, so I believe that the 'low-temp' aspect of the mystery-alloy is indeed true. Maybe not to the exact degree, but near that.

  9. #9
    Boolit Grand Master In Remembrance
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    Check the temperature on the alloy chart where Sn & Sb cross at 40% of the second metal ...
    https://www.engineeringtoolbox.com/m...ls-d_1269.html

    If the composition is correct, with 30-50 lb bricks - you just won the lottery
    Regards
    John

  10. #10
    Boolit Grand Master Good Cheer's Avatar
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    If you break an ingot before it fully solidifies does it look something like this?
    Click image for larger version. 

Name:	mystery metal.jpg 
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    This was some really soft stuff, moderately difficult to get good boolits molded. Shot OK.

  11. #11
    Boolit Mold
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    Quote Originally Posted by John Boy View Post
    Check the temperature on the alloy chart where Sn & Sb cross at 40% of the second metal ...
    https://www.engineeringtoolbox.com/m...ls-d_1269.html

    If the composition is correct, with 30-50 lb bricks - you just won the lottery

    Yeah I've seen that chart before, and the only things that make sense from a temperature perspective is either 65% tin 35%lead, OR something 40% bismuth, 60% lead.

    Neither of those would really make me super-happy. I didn't mention this before, but I am aiming to cast for rifle speeds, so I guess I'll be needing something harder than just a tin/lead alloy.

    Well, anyway, samples are en route for analysis.

  12. #12
    Boolit Mold
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    Quote Originally Posted by Good Cheer View Post
    If you break an ingot before it fully solidifies does it look something like this?
    Click image for larger version. 

Name:	mystery metal.jpg 
Views:	27 
Size:	61.1 KB 
ID:	227676
    This was some really soft stuff, moderately difficult to get good boolits molded. Shot OK.
    Nice picture - but I'll have to postpone further ingot-making for a later date, at least for a couple of weeks, and by that time I might already have the answer.

    thanks,

  13. #13
    Boolit Master
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    BNE will tell you for sure.

    If it's high tin, even if you can't use it yourself, you could sell/trade some or all of it for what you need, and would end up getting back a lot more than you off load.

  14. #14
    Boolit Mold
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    Quote Originally Posted by kevin c View Post
    BNE will tell you for sure.

    If it's high tin, even if you can't use it yourself, you could sell/trade some or all of it for what you need, and would end up getting back a lot more than you off load.
    Maybe. But tin is not so hard to come by, at least not in the form of pewter. Which should be high enough in tin to treat it as pure AFAIK. Isn't it normally 85+ % tin, with some lead and/or antimony thrown into the mix? And from my understanding even those who use a tin-rich mix in their alloys, e.g 1/16, would be able to cover a lot of their needs by visiting the occasional yard sale.

    I thought antimony was a lot harder to find since the decline in COWW. But as I mentioned earlier, bullet casting is rather new to me - to say the least.

  15. #15
    Boolit Master
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    There do seem to be regional differences in availability for the metals we want for casting. I had not picked up on the fact that you are in Europe, where pewter might be more common than in my part of the USA. Type metal, a source of antimony, is becoming scarce like lead wheel weights, but I buy mine from a local metals foundry (Rotometals).

  16. #16
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    Here are some low melt alloys that may give you some idea of what metals are in your mix:
    https://www.canfieldmetals.com/low_melt_alloys.htm

  17. #17
    Boolit Mold
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    And the verdict is back from BNE:

    Pb = 74.7%
    Sb = 0.8%
    Sn = 24.5%

    So in short, I probably have a faulty thermometer, as this alloy should be melting at a much higher temp than it indicated. And I don't think it is useful in its current state.

    Hmm, I'd really like to get my hands on some Sb-rich lead....

  18. #18
    Boolit Master
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    Now that's lots of tin. Good for mixing with other alloys.


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

  19. #19
    Boolit Mold
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    Yep, it sure is. Too much for my taste

    Right now I have about 60-80 lbs of the stuff, and I figure that I only need something like 2% Sn in my final alloys. Oh well, I guess this is a bit of a first-world problem

  20. #20
    Boolit Master
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    Ah, there are many here who wish to have your problem ;^D

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