lead/tin

[chuck40219]

I have a lot of roofing lead. Seems very soft. Have cast lots of round balls with this kind of lead with good results.

Have tried one session casting 45-70 bullets with it. Did not experiment. Bullets did not fill out well, grease groves rounded over.

Is there a way to get good bullets with this lead without adding more tin?

Have been using RotoMetals 1 to 30 lead with good results, but the cost!!!

chuck40219

[JBinMN]

I would say that the mold was not hot enough, if you were getting rounded boolit grooves. IOW, not hot enough for good fillout. Tin helps with that, but even with added tin, if the mold is not hot enough yet, the boolit will not fill out the mould like it should & as you would like.

Alloy temp could be an issue, but I think the mould not getting hot enough is usually an issue for a lot of folks. Particularly when the boolit is a larger one in size.


That is my "guesstimate" on what happened for ya if you were using straight out soft lead..

[Peregrine]

Hotter temperature.
Really though a percent or so or tin is what you need. I know it's pricey but we use it for a reason.

[Outpost75]

Even a very small percentage of tin will GREATLY improve casting quality.

As little as 1% will make a BIG difference. I would try 1% before adding more. Using a professional-grade, non-corrosive flux as is used in wave-soldering or linotype machines is more effective than the improvised stuff bullet casters commonly use. I still have a bunch of Vitaflux which came from the old Washington Star newspaper, and a 2 oz. stick of that fluxes A TON of metal. I slice 1/16" off the stick and use 1/4 of a slice to flux a 20 pound pot.

The Kester 951 Flux Pen, No-Clean, Low Solids | Part No. 83-1000-0951 for $5.50 is the best bang for the buck of current products:

https://gokimco.com/flux-pens-951-lo...yABEgJXS_D_BwE



Factory bullets during the black powder era were typically 1:75, 1:50 or 1:40 tin-lead.

[Tazza]

I believe roofing lead is pure lead, or close to it, no tin. Tin is like detergent in water, it lowers the surface tension. With no tin, the corners will never fill out, they will all be rounded.

[JBinMN]

Here is a good article from the archives that may help as well. It was posted by the member, "Artful", who I have not seen posting here for some time, but his sharing of the article may help you out as well..


From archived post: http://castboolits.gunloads.com/show...=1#post2902600

Solving Some Common Problems Encountered when Casting Bullets by Aaron Bittner

If you know someone who casts bullets, he has probably already bent your ear about how he turns scrap lead into first-quality bullets in his spare time. He probably has shown you some of his work. He might have even given you some bullets out of charity, and you have to admit—they look pretty good, especially for something somebody made in their garage.

So you go out and find a lead pot and some molds, lay in a supply of ingots, and try it. And that’s where you discover what your buddy didn’t tell you: There are plenty of ways you can go wrong casting a bullet. Fortunately, they’re all easy to correct.

Poor Mold Fill-Out
One of the most common problems first-time casters have is that the lead doesn’t completely fill the mold cavity. Corners that should be sharp are rounded, and the whole bullet looks like a bar of soap that’s been through half a dozen showers.

There are several causes for poor fill-out, but the first thing to check is temperature, both of the alloy and the mold. If either the alloy or the mold is too cool, you’ll get poor fill-out. Solution? Let the lead heat up some more. With an electric pot don’t try pouring the first bullet until half an hour after you’ve turned it on. Also, pre-heat the mold by dipping a corner of it into your melted alloy for a few seconds. If the alloy “freezes” into a crust around your mold, it’s not hot enough. When alloy and mold are hot enough, you can pull the mold out of the mix clean, or nearly so. Mold manufacturers are squeamish about this for some reason but I have never damaged a mold, either aluminum or iron, by dipping it.

Another reason for poor fill-out is the alloy flow rate. If you’re ladle-casting as many first-timers do, this is a matter of technique. You must pour the lead faster. If you are using a bottom-pour pot, adjust the valve stop screw to allow the alloy valve to open further. The lead should flow in a round, straight stream about 1/16 inch in diameter. Sometimes you will see a bullet that looks good except that the base has not filled out. When that happens, make sure your lead and mold are sufficiently hot, and pour a bigger sprue on the top of the mold (I’m not sure why this helps, exactly, but it does).

Poor mold ventilation can also prevent proper fill-out. Bullet molds these days have vent lines scribed into the mating surfaces of the mold blocks. These can get blocked during casting and cause your bullet quality to head south. The fix is to unblock the vent lines, either with a carefully applied wire brush or by a very carefully applied scribe or knife tip drawn through the grooves.

If the bullets still aren’t what you’d like them to be, try force-feeding the mold by putting the sprue plate in contact with the pour spout. Let the pressure of the alloy column push the alloy into the corners of the mold. When this works, your raw casting may have lead “hairs” along the parting line where lead alloy actually flowed into the mold’s vent lines. When this happens you know you’re getting good fill-out.

The third most common reason why bullets don’t fill out the mold is lack of tin (or the presence of zinc) in the alloy. If you’ve played with the temperature and the flow rate and are still getting second-rate bullets, try adding some lead-free solder to the mix. Solder will bring up the proportion of tin in the alloy, which makes it freer-flowing and better able to fill the mold.

Sometimes you will run across a melt that won’t respond to tin; if you’ve eliminated every other possibility and your alloy contains wheel weights, you probably have some zinc in the melt. If right after the alloy becomes liquid you stir it and see what looks like tiny granules moving just below the surface, that’s zinc. You may be able to dip out the zinc granules at this stage (they tend to float), but you’re better off throwing the whole batch away and starting over.

Wrinkled Bullets
Sometimes you’ll pour a bullet that appears “wrinkled.” There will be visible creases and knit lines on the surface of the bullet, and tiny craters or pits as well. This is a sure sign of oil or grease in the mold cavity. If you oil your iron molds between uses or if you use Lee molds according to their instructions (which call for lubricating the sprue plate with paraffin) you will encounter wrinkled bullets from time to time.

The solution is simple: Wash the mold. This can be done either with mineral spirits or some other solvent, or with a water-based degreaser. Dish detergent works fine. A stiff-bristled brush such as an old toothbrush will help get the cavity clean. Lee mold users will learn to be ver-r-ry careful when they dab a little paraffin on their molds, or they’ll do the wash-and-wax boogie all day long. Make sure the mold is completely dry before you use it again.

Finned Bullets
This is an easy one. If the bullet has “fins” on it, the mold blocks aren’t closing completely. This usually means that you have to wire-brush or scrape lead deposits off the mating surfaces of the mold. Sometimes a worn mold will show “cratering” around the alignment pin holes. This can be amended by lightly honing that mold face flat on a whetstone. (Note: Do this with fear and trembling lest you ruin your mold.)
A .44 Keith (Lyman 429421) with a big ol’ fin on the nose. Poor fill-out also indicates that the alloy or mold wasn’t hot enough. If they both had been, the fin would go all around the profile of the bullet. Note the vent lines cast into the fin.

Flanged Bullets
Sometimes you may see a bullet that looks great except for that big ugly flange on the base. This is a sure sign of a poorly-fitting sprue plate or mismatched mold blocks. Look for lead deposits in the space where the flange forms, and scrape or brush them off. Make sure that the sprue plate screw is snug, and that the bottom of the sprue plate and the top of the blocks are flat. You can hone these surfaces on a whetstone as well.

Frosted Bullets
Frosted bullets are really not a problem, but they can be a sign that trouble is coming. “Frosting” happens when the alloy in the mold blocks cools and solidifies so slowly that it allows big, visible crystals to form as it hardens, making the bullet look galvanized.

While frosted bullets work just fine, they are a sign that the mold blocks are on the ragged edge of being too hot. If you start to see frosted bullets, it’s probably a good time to rest the mold for a few minutes, or at least slow down your pouring cycle. If you don’t cool the mold, you will start to see lesions on the bullets and smeared sprues.

Bullet Lesions
What I call “bullet lesions” are the result of incomplete mold fill-out, but of a different sort and for different reasons than I mentioned earlier. What happens is that the alloy and mold are so hot that the alloy superheats air in the mold cavity as it fills, leading to a pressure bubble against the inside of the mold cavity. This bubble keeps alloy from contacting the mold surface, resulting in a crater-shaped lesion at that spot. These frequently show up on the bullet base, and sometimes in the driving bands. This problem can be addressed by cooling the mold or (to a degree) by pouring the alloy more slowly into the mold.

Smeared Sprues
If the base of the bullet smears or the sprue does not cut cleanly when you open the sprue plate, you’re opening the mold too soon, and very likely running the mold too hot. A smear happens when there are spots in the bullet that are still melted when you open the plate. A rough sprue happens when you open the mold before it completely solidifies. The solution? Let the mold cool more after you pour it, or quench the sprue on a damp towel before you open the mold.

Blems
With bottom-pour pots you will sometimes see little dirty spots on the surface of the bullet. These can be frustrating, especially after you’ve fixed all the other problems. Don’t load these bullets. The dirty spots are little chunks of grit (tin oxide and other junk) that get in the alloy, and they don’t belong in a gun bore. Such spots are a signal for you to clean your lead pot. Scraping and fluxing can get you by for a while, but sooner or later you’ll have to empty the pot and scrub the trash out of it. Ladle casters don’t usually have this problem because they dip their alloy out of the middle of the pot, where the alloy is clean.

Properly, once you get in the groove, so to speak, you’ll find that you can recognize problems and correct them on the fly. This will enable you to cast a mortal lot of bullets. And that’s a good thing, right?

Your shooting buddies will think so, especially when you give them some bullets you made in your garage.

Source:http://www.gunweek.com/2004/feature1201.html

[megasupermagnum]

It certainly is possible to get good fill out, but it takes more. More heat, and more lead flow. I find the best way is to pressure pour with a ladle, a bottom pour just isn't fast enough. I like my pure lead north of 800 degrees. My PID says 830 and my other thermometer says 800, I'm not sure which is more accurate.

[Mal Paso]

I still have a bunch of Vitaflux which came from the old Washington Star newspaper,

I checked ebay as you never know what someone might have for sale. The Vitaflux name lives on as a male enhancement formula.

[dangitgriff]

A friend showed me a trick to keeping your mold hot while casting...rest the mold on a solid-surface hot plate to keep it at temperature if you need to interrupt the process for a few moments.

[Carrier]

I use roofing lead as well. I use a 30 to 1 and a 20 to 1 mix of lead/tin depending on which bullet or load I use for 45/70 Trapdoor. Both are Lee 3 groove molds and I found if I keep the pot between 750 to 800 degrees F and get the molds hot the bullets come out really nice from a 10 lb Lee bottom pour pot They shoot very well in my 1873 Trapdoor.

[JBinMN]

A friend showed me a trick to keeping your mold hot while casting...rest the mold on a solid-surface hot plate to keep it at temperature if you need to interrupt the process for a few moments.

Old circular saw blade sitting on the hot plate was my method to fix that on a coil style hot plate. A suggestion I read here some time ago & it works well.

Some folks take an old metal coffee can & cut a door in the opened end & put that over the mol/molds as well to keep the heat in.


I am now gonna wait & see what the OP says & does to fix his issue(s).

[Don1357]

Hit the thrift stores, yard sales, check craigslist and Facebook marketplace. It may take a while but once you find your first pound or two that would last you for the next 30~60 pounds of alloy. From there you just keep an eye out and you'll build a nice reserve in no time.

for 1:30 tin is cheap. At the usual prices that would be one dollar of tin for every three dollars of lead. From pewter you should be able to do .50 cents per 3 dollars of lead.

[kevin c]

That was a nice summary in that read, JB. Thanks for finding it. The only spot my thinking varies is that I find a very light, matte surface frost shows up when my boolits are the most consistent, with the fewest rejects, using my technique and 3-2 alloy, so I actually want to see it to confirm I'm in the groove. It's true that once in a while I need to let the mold cool a bit, but I still like it hot.

And, speaking of hot, while browsing the archives a while back, I read more than a few posts from experienced casters who claim that good boolits do not require tin at all, just more heat, as others in this thread have suggested. I personally use tin for fill out, in the form of second hand pewter (since I'm too cheap to pay retail for tin). But if it wasn't available to me, I'd crank up the heat, too.

[PbHurler]

I checked ebay as you never know what someone might have for sale. The Vitaflux name lives on as a male enhancement formula.

I laughed out loud at this

[chuck40219]

Old circular saw blade sitting on the hot plate was my method to fix that on a coil style hot plate. A suggestion I read here some time ago & it works well.

Some folks take an old metal coffee can & cut a door in the opened end & put that over the mol/molds as well to keep the heat in.


I am now gonna wait & see what the OP says & does to fix his issue(s).

First thing I am gonna do is wait out this cold spell we are going through. Only 99 in the shade today.

Next I will try upping the temp on the lead I have. If that does not work, I will get some tin. Try in the morning while a little cooler.

Chuck40219

[WRideout]

A supply of tin doesn't have to be horribly expensive. There is a lot of info posted on threads about pewter in this forum. I check with every thrift store I pass to see if they have any pewter. My price point is about $2.00 per piece; mug plate etc. At this point I have a few pounds, and have cast some of them into pewter "boolits". One "boolit" in a batch for my little Lee dipper pot gives me all the fillout I need. I honestly don't even know what the percentage is.

Aside from that, pure lead for muzzle loaders is hard to cast. In my experience, it does require a lot more heat, and even then fillout can be problematic.

Wayne

[jimb16]

Go to the thrift shops and look for old pewter mugs and bowls. You can usually get them cheap and they are a good source of tin.

[Slugster]

Hey Chuck, looks like we are close to being neighbors as I'm in the Boston/Lebanon Junction area. I will give you some pewter and or linotype if you would like to try either or both of them. PM me.

[quilbilly]

One way to find out how much tin you need is to head down to Walmart's fishing tackle section and see if they have any lead free tin split shot sinkers. All the Walmart's around here have them. I have found that two size 7 tin split shot is enough to "flavor" about 1-1/2 pounds of pure lead. Each package of #7 tin split shot has about ten split shot. It is a bit expensive but you don't have to take out a second mortgage to buy a large quantity. Estate sales at houses of house painters (?) and plumbers are also a good place to find bars of tin (50/50 or 60/40).
Another good way to turn your roofing lead into good rifle and pistol lead is to acquire some hard chilled birdshot. It has some tin and other hardeners. I actively look for pure lead to mix with the birdshot on a 70% pure to 30% shot. I find that birdshot is much too hard for my purposes making boolits. I often see cans or partial bags of this birdshot at metal recyclers and estate sales but most good gun stores have it at about $2/lb in 20# bags.

[chuck40219]

Great replies and ideals everyone. Will be a few days before I get to return to making bullets. I will be back to talk to a few of you and update what is going on with this project.

Chuck40219