At any rate, Lyman #2 or 20/1 are tin rich alloys for new casters to get good results from.
At any rate, Lyman #2 or 20/1 are tin rich alloys for new casters to get good results from.
i would at least do a art pencil hardness test. How hard does it need to be. Your going to coat them correct? Could you just cast as is , water drop or over cure to get a bit harder. If your coating them you could probaly run soft alloy . Unless your trying for full power heavy bullets?
I find 10-12BHN to be just fine for my needs even my 30-06 loads to about 1650fps which is fast for me. I run cast for softer shooting and only pushing to 200 yards.
Last edited by mac1911; 05-24-2020 at 10:35 AM.
I can mix monotype with range lead, one pound to nine and get 95-1-4. I needed a leetle bit of tin to pour right and got some hardness too. I like the wheel weight percentages for safe hardness in a rifle and would like to try the #2 mix. My alloy, But it will do for 380, 40 rifle and paper patching. What would you say the bhn is.
Last edited by Gobeyond; 05-31-2020 at 04:31 PM.
My range lead has no tin; maybe yours doesn't either?
I went ahead and added both tin and antimony to my analyzed range lead, ending up with a clean casting alloy of pretty much 95-3-2. Assuming no tin content to start with, you could mix 3 parts by weight range lead with 2 parts of your Lyman #2 to end up with 2% tin. The antimony content will be 2% plus 3/5 the percentage of Sb in the range lead.
5 and 5 would give you 3.5 sb. And 2.5 Sn and 94% Pb
my lead is finally a bit organized and I had a few large batches tested. I used the pencil hardness test to the best I could do organize by hardness. less than 8 goes in the soft bucket , 8-12 mid range and 12+ goes in the hard bucket.
I tested 3 batches of 150lbs plus of blended alloys. 2 of the 3 came back basically lead shot Sn 0% Sb 3% Pb 97%
I do have some hard alloy(100) that came back as Sn 5% Sb7% Pb 88%
BP | Bronze Point | IMR | Improved Military Rifle | PTD | Pointed |
BR | Bench Rest | M | Magnum | RN | Round Nose |
BT | Boat Tail | PL | Power-Lokt | SP | Soft Point |
C | Compressed Charge | PR | Primer | SPCL | Soft Point "Core-Lokt" |
HP | Hollow Point | PSPCL | Pointed Soft Point "Core Lokt" | C.O.L. | Cartridge Overall Length |
PSP | Pointed Soft Point | Spz | Spitzer Point | SBT | Spitzer Boat Tail |
LRN | Lead Round Nose | LWC | Lead Wad Cutter | LSWC | Lead Semi Wad Cutter |
GC | Gas Check |