What alloy do I make?

[Evoken]

Gentleman,
This will be my first attempt at casting. Here is what I have : 5lb of pure lead in ingot form from rotometals; 10lb of 50/50 solder bars; 1lb of antimony bbs/shot.
The mold I will be using is an aluminum lee 255gr for .45 colt. Not looking to make barn burners as this will be for an Italian repro peacemaker.
What is the alloy that i want to make here? I know i can do 20:1 and would be fine for under 900fps in the colt. But what not add some antimony also? How much?
For lube I have liquid alox and an unlimited supply of beeswax (I have hives). I'm thinking a 50/50 mix of this as well? Or is more wax and less alox good too (bees make me wax for free, alox is not)?

[megasupermagnum]

5 pounds pure, plus 1 pound magnum shot, plus 1.9 ounces of 50/50 solder will make a very good alloy for you similar to 20:1 in hardness.

You will need 5 pounds pure and 8.5 ounces of 50/50 to make 20:1 alloy.

You can use alox straight as a tumble lube, but isn't great for black powder. You can mix beeswax with olive oil to make a good lube that will work with smokeless or blackpowder.

[Winger Ed.]

I'd use as much pure lead in the mix as I could and it still cast well for what you're doing.

All the alloy goodies are getting pretty pricey now days by comparison,
and for slow stuff you don't really need the extra hardness from them.

Look at the powders & speeds for factory swaged pure lead bullets.
With a good lube, you don't need to go any faster or have a harder alloy than for those loads.

[Evoken]

Thanks for the input fellas. Perhaps I worded one thing incorrectly though. The antimony I have is pure element. They just call it shot due to its size, about the size of shot or fine pea gravel.

[baogongmeo]

I have no experience melting pure antimony into alloy but have read that it can be problematic. I would suggest obtaining some linotype or monotype and then using the lead alloy calculator on this site to formulate my alloy recipe.

[ABJ]

I second everything "baogongmeo" said. All you need is the alloy calculator, then convert whatever weight measurement your using into pounds using "google convert" search. On the calculator just punch in your weights (in pounds) and on the bottom it will give you the percentage of each. So one half pound would be (.5), one quarter(.25) etc. Lets say you have it in grains. Use google and search for "convert grains to pounds" Lets says you cast all your 50/50 solder into 200 grain boolits, each one would weigh .028 lbs., half would be .014 lbs of lead and the other half would be .014 lbs of tin.
A good general purpose alloy would be 2 precent tin or a little less and 3 precent antimony or a touch more depending on your velocity. I have never melted pure antimony but have also heard it is problematic for the home caster. I use rotometals "superhard" as my antimony source. In the calculator it has it's own line. The calculator is the single best tool to have to be able to repeat your alloy any time you want.
Tony

[ABJ]

A couple more things, I had to open my alloy calc to check it.
All the type metals are also listed as well. Down on the bottom you have two custom alloy entry's you use yourself. For example you could use one for your 50/50 solder. in the percentage column for tin punch in 50. and the same in the lead column.
The more you play with it the easier it gets. you can also punch in the cost per lb and it will calculate your bullet cost.
Tony

[Conditor22]

I hate to say this but I think you just wasted$ on the entimony -- https://www.rotometals.com/antimony/

Until antimony is alloyed it is really hard to deal with

Antimony/Melting point 1,167°F 630.6°C

We used to buy antimony in powdered form to alloy.

Don't feel bad, I bought a rock of antimony when I got back into castingseveral years ago. It's still sitting in a bag under my bench

[Evoken]

Started looking at the calculator. Very neat, thanks again fellas.
Perhaps the antimony will be to much trouble to work with. Oh well.

[kevin c]

It has been pointed out by many here that antimony will dissolve into hot liquid lead well below its melting point temperature the way rock salt will dissolve into water below its melting point. There are also a few who claimed to have done it at home. Just how hard it is to do and what risks exist besides the obvious ones of heat, flame, molten metal and possible toxic fumes I don't have a clear grasp on. For extra antimony I use typemetal or, even easier, Rotometals SuperHard.

[Lloyd Smale]

where did you get antimony bbs. Never heard of that. Sure you dont have hard shot?

[kevin c]

I think he's talking about this:

https://www.rotometals.com/antimony-...-minimum-pure/

[Evoken]

⬆️that's the stuff. I was able to cancel the order for antimony and swap it for some super hard. I will be using it to cut my pure and 50/50 to something more usable for my needs. Thanks for all the input gents.

[Evoken]

Based on the calculator I think I will do 5lb pure, 1lb superhard, and .75lb 50/50. Should be somewhere close to lyman #2.

[marky123]

I had a go.I used a home made propane forge and alloyed it 50/50 with lead.It melted the aluminium cake tin and ‘interesting’ things happened when I scraped the dross off..

[kevin c]

Care to elaborate?

I really do want to know, not rag on you if it didn't turn out as hoped. Everybody posts up their successes (sometimes with some exaggeration or outright misstatements of fact), but it still adds to the common pool of knowledge to describe an idea that doesn't pan out when tested. If nothing else, the bad result won't be repeated, and it can save wasted effort, time, expense and maybe even injury.

[marky123]

[QUOTE=kevin c;4977148]Care to elaborate?

I really do want to know, not rag on you if it didn't turn out as hoped. Everybody posts up their successes (sometimes with some exaggeration or outright misstatements of fact), but it still adds to the common pool of knowledge to describe an idea that doesn't pan out when tested. If nothing else, the bad result won't be repeated, and it can save wasted effort, time, expense and maybe even injury.[/QUOTE

When I scraped the top of the ingot it spat smoking particles out,like it had formed a reactive compound or something.
Still worked though,I just smelted 55kgs of bhn 14 alloy today.

[marky123]

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[kevin c]

So those triangular molds are aluminum cake baking pans? Did I understand right that one failed on you? Was it at a seam or edge that was soldered or had a poor weld, or did the sheet metal itself fail?

I've never tried alloying Sb into lead. I have no idea on how reactive a metal Sb is. As for spitting, smoking particles, the closest I've experienced was from a wooden paint stirrer that apparently was made of green or sappy wood, or spatter from undetected moisture in my metal lead processing tools flashing into steam because I didn't preheat them.

ETA: those are some mighty clean pours you got there!

[marky123]

So those triangular molds are aluminum cake baking pans? Did I understand right that one failed on you? Was it at a seam or edge that was soldered or had a poor weld, or did the sheet metal itself fail?

I've never tried alloying Sb into lead. I have no idea on how reactive a metal Sb is. As for spitting, smoking particles, the closest I've experienced was from a wooden paint stirrer that apparently was made of green or sappy wood, or spatter from undetected moisture in my metal lead processing tools flashing into steam because I didn't preheat them.

ETA: those are some mighty clean pours you got there!

Well thanks.
But these ingot moulds are folded and welded stainless.I made them big as the smelter can take 150kgs.The aluminium ones (unpictured) throw about 500grams so I use them for tin.