Lyman#2

[Cosmic_Charlie]

At any rate, Lyman #2 or 20/1 are tin rich alloys for new casters to get good results from.

[mac1911]

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.

[Gobeyond]

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.

[kevin c]

...range lead from my local club. I have been struggling with getting the proper temp to make really nice boolits...#2 Lyman...WOW!, what difference...I am wondering how much of the range lead (after getting it as clean I can) can I mix in and still keep the lead easy to pour...

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.

[Gobeyond]

5 and 5 would give you 3.5 sb. And 2.5 Sn and 94% Pb

[mac1911]

yup when I was young id obsess over alloys and bullet hardness readings. Every bucket of lead had it wrote on it. Now my lead says soft, medium or hard. When I smelt I do a couple hundred lbs of something close to one of those three and spend my time shooting instead of worrying about exact bhn. ill leave the rocket science to the scientists and just have fun shooting.

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%