Boolits from zinc/pure lead 50/50 alloy; interesting results.

[Onty]

Here is the thread about making bullets from 50/50 zinc/pure lead alloy: http://www.canadiangunnutz.com/forum...d.php?t=390251 . Look at those boolits (shiny ones), they are remarkable.



Better yet, see how undamaged the look after passing through 7” of pine.



According to gentleman who cast them, they have such low friction that they were easier to size than lead ones. Also, accuracy was way better than from WW, using 44 rifle.

If I have it right, this alloy is about 83-84% of WW, not bad for larger calibers, especially 45.

[qajaq59]

I couldn't get to that page without logging in. Apparently you have to register?

[Matt_G]

I couldn't get to that page without logging in. Apparently you have to register?

Looks like it. I hate forums that require you to register just to browse.

[Whitespider]

Interesting that zinc alloyed with WW didn’t work out, but zinc alloyed with ‘pure’(?) lead work OK.
And no lube used on the bullets, hmmmmmmm....

For those of y’all that don’t want to register on that board, here’s a copy and past (of sorts) of the thread.

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***jbunny***(9/29/09)
has anybody here experiment casting with zinc or zinc alloy?????
jb
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***green***(9/29/09)
Do you mean casting bullets?
Tried casting bullets from a zinc alloy and found cutting the sprue very difficult because the zinc alloy is very hard. The bullets weigh about 2/3 what lead does. IIRC the alloy i used was called Kirksite.
This was tried by hanloaders in WWII when jacketed bullets were unavailable. Heard there were high pressures reported because the bullets were hard all the way through and engraved hard.
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***jbunny***(9/29/09)
Green; i a'm glad u replyed. i know now that i'm not the only crazy on this list. LOL. i have been experimenting the last 2 days with lead zinc alloy. wheelweight lead and zinc makes a puty. pure lead and zinc mix 50-50 make a eutectic alloy. i cast a bunch today and my 44 cal 240 gr swc normaly weigh 250gr with #2 alloy. with this zinc alloy there around 136 gr. i will try shooting some tomorrow. i plan on shooting them dry, no lube. they are as hard as copper. here is a few pics on my make shift viberator for casting. works like a hot dam. a old sears hair clipper that u could not hang on to. i removed the 2 screws that held the cutter head on an bolted it on the the bottom of the c frame. the other pic is of the bullets and my princess auto hardness tester. u can see the bullet on the left with the lube is a lead bullet with the hardness punch on top. the zinc bullets have a very shallow punch mark. more later


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***kodiak1***(9/30/09)
The fumes from lead are bad to inhale I can only imagine what zinc mixed in there would be like!!!
No I haven't tried it.
Good Luck Ken.
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***jbunny***(9/30/09)
Ken; i wear a painting resperator when casting and the doors are open. i got to try these out today. YAAAAAAAHHHHOOOOOOOO. loaded with 14 gr of unique, 2000 fps, 3 in groups at 100 yds.

the bullet on the left is lead bullet water quench. notice the wide deep crater from the hardness tester. the middle one is zinc and the one on the right is a barnes solid copper. notice the copper and zinc craters are the same size, same hardness.
in this pic is 2 recovered zinc bullets from a dry pine block, 7 in penetration, the barrels are mirror clean. these were loaded dry, no lube. they were sized with a lee sized with no drag and less effort that alox lube lead bullets.jb
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***trevj***(9/30/09)
Niiiiiiiice!
Sounds like another great way to salvage some of that zinc 'contaminated' alloy I keep reading about!
Cheers
Trev
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***canidae***(10/1/09)
There is thread on Cast Boolits about using sulphur to separate zinc from molten lead.
http://castboolits.gunloads.com/show...073#post679073
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***Andy***(10/1/09)
There are no toxic lead fumes emitted in the casting process - the temperature is far too low for that to occur. Neither is any measurable amount of lead absorbed through the skin by handling lead bullets, but it can be ingested. The same can be said for zinc.
Funny that this thread would pop up the day after I smelted some zinc wheelweights into ingots. I only see about 1% zinc and 3% steel in what I have picked up over the years, and it was only in the past year that I've saved the zinc.
I would think that zinc would make a crappy bullet - very light for its size, and hard (and brittle). Given that and its cost, a lead alloy or pure copper makes a much better bullet, but I appreciate someone experimenting.
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***Onty***(10/1/09)
How soft is that alloy? Did you try to improve it with more zinc?
Did you mean 50% weight pure lead and 50% weight zinc? Just 136 gr? If I have it right 50/50 alloy should be about 83% of pure lead. Since those 250 gr bullets from No. 2 alloy are usually heavier when cast from wheelweight, I would expect that bullet from noted alloy should be about 210-215 gr.
BTW, those bullets are just beautiful. Let us know what accuracy is.
Regards, Onty.
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***jbunny***(10/1/09)
they are way more accurate in my rifles than wheelweight lead. so far with 1 range session 3 in groups at 100yd. with win bulk 240 gr bullets the same rifles(1 have 3 44 mags) shoot 1 big ragged hole at 100 yds with the bullets touching the rifleing. i loaded these zinc bullets a little shorter for the first time. i was playing it safe. they shot good enough to make me order a 4 lb keg of unique today. as for bullet weight, the only formula i use is the SWAG formula. my next step is to modify the mould. i'm gona remove the sprue cutter. i'm gona try casting with the big lee electric melter as the temp seems to be more criticle. jb
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***Grizzlypeg***(10/1/09)
Zinc's harder than lead isn't it? I get that impression from carburetors and other automotive parts cast from pot metal. Might be wrong though.
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***jbunny***(10/1/09)
http://www.muggyweld.com/melting.html
this is the melting temp of metals. pure lead and zinc make a eutectic alloy that melts around 670 deg far.
http://www.tedpella.com/company_html/hardness.htm
this is the material hardness tables. zinc and copper are about equal. my hardness tester more or less confirmed that. the coefecion of friction of zinc is way better than copper or lead and when i sized these dry , and i could tell that there was way less drag than lead bullets. this is turning out to be a worth while
project fo me anyway.
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***trevj***(10/1/09)
I think this info would cause a fair bit of interest on the Castboolits site.
Lots of guys over there that are processing wheel weight over a turky fryer burner, and getting the zinc into their alloy.
Anyway, keep on posting this stuff! ood info to know.
Makes me wonder how fast a really light 225107 would be able to go.
Cheers
Trev
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[257 Shooter]

Onty, That is interesting. Please keep us updated.

[S.R.Custom]

So I'm wondering if you can push these 1/2-breeds fast enough to make up for their lack of mass? You know, so their momentums are equivalent... I know, their ballisc coefficients would suck, but who cares about that in a pistol bullet?

[Echo]

As arte Johnson used to say - "Verrrrryyy Eenteresting..."

I will continue to watch this thread.

[Whitespider]

Instead of increasing velocity to make up for lost mass...
I was thinking of recovering some mass by removing the (apparently unnecessary) lube grooves and experimenting with alloy.... say a 2:1 lead/zinc instead of a 1:1. A little more length to the bullet and a TC nose would also add a bit of mass and increase BC. Just some thinkin’ on my part.

[Ricochet]

I'd be cautious removing grooves with alloys much harder than the lead ones we're used to. Copper alloy jackets are harder, I know, but they're thin and have lead inside. Solid copper alloy bullets commonly have grooves to allow for rifling displacing metal. I've just been browsing around reading about zinc alloys and note that the common Zamak 3 or Alloy 3 die casting metal has a Brinell hardness of 97, and stuff called KS used for casting decorative items has a 151 BN. Mild steel's only around 120. Hopefully our barrels are somewhat harder, but if the displaced metal doesn't have somewhere to easily go, the pressures could go way up.

[StarMetal]

I'd be cautious removing grooves with alloys much harder than the lead ones we're used to. Copper alloy jackets are harder, I know, but they're thin and have lead inside. Solid copper alloy bullets commonly have grooves to allow for rifling displacing metal. I've just been browsing around reading about zinc alloys and note that the common Zamak 3 or Alloy 3 die casting metal has a Brinell hardness of 97, and stuff called KS used for casting decorative items has a 151 BN. Mild steel's only around 120. Hopefully our barrels are somewhat harder, but if the displaced metal doesn't have somewhere to easily go, the pressures could go way up.

John,

You're right about the grooves cut into total copper bullets, like Barnes Triple X, but they are also cut to reduce bearing friction area which in turn reduced pressure to push the bullet through the barrel. Another thing too some companies that made both styles of bullets, that is all copper with the grooves and the conventional jacketed with the lead core, use the groove also that the two different bullets in the same weights shoot pretty much the same.



Joe

[Cap'n Morgan]

I like the "vibration casting" setup! Been toying with the idea... should improve fill out.

[Pepe Ray]

HWOOW--STOP==TIME OUT!!!

This is, indeed, very interesting and should be examined further,
BUT
The subject is dealing with straight (pure?) lead mixed with what alloy of zinc?
At first glance this throws suspicion at tin and /or antimony as being a/the culprit in the poor alloy results. Really?
And pure lead is already at a premium, being highly desired by the BP community.
Creating another market for using in the zinc alloyed projectiles may cause problems.
Seems that there are a lot of unanswered questions here.
Who's gonna do the research to find the answers?
I suggest that the first thing to do is to establish some identification guidelines to avoid further confusion in the discussions. My Crystal ball is broken and my mind reading skills are kaput!!

At any rate, go slowly.
Pepe Ray

[lathesmith]

Whoah, this post goes against everything that I have ever seen and read about zinc - lead alloys. Has anyone else actually confirmed that lead and zinc combined actually makes a castable alloy? Like Pepe points out, if this is true, then tin and possibly other metals in small amounts is what ruins a batch of alloy, rather than zinc alone. I'm watching and listening, I Hope there is some reasonable way to get a castable alloy from zinc, but at this point I am not entirely convinced. Keep the info coming guys, I believe you have a captive audience...if this is indeed the real deal.
BTW, if you actually are able to cast projectiles out of zinc alloy, NEVER, EVER shoot them at an indoors baffle-type trap--these would have horrific potential for ricochet, and such bouncing around would have disastrous consequences.
lathesmith

[qajaq59]

Interesting.... I'd like to see where this goes.

[odoh]

Some yrs back, I recovered several 50BMG boolits from the club berm but they wouldn't melt and just floated in the mix so assumed they were zinc. If so, someone must knew something back then ~ IIRC (and thats a big ? mark nowadays) someone did mention one of the BMG guys using zinc.

[runfiverun]

zinc alloyed with pure lead has been done for years.
zinc is also used at the foundry to pull tin from alloys to clean it up,so they can start over with clean alloy.
i recall stories of roundballs being poured with zinc/pure alloy to increase the penetration on african game.
reason the fmj's that came out were a hit in africa [the 275 rigby,303 etc] penetration.
if i was gonna go in this direction i'd be messing with lee tumble molds..
zinc is not the enemy,it has it's uses.

[stocker]

I'm assuming that your 50-50 alloy is calculated by weight which would mean the volume of zinc far exceeds that of lead. I have to wonder if you shouldn't try working the percentages (at whatever proportion you care to try) by volume of the two metals rather than weight and see if they still alloy well. You would certainly gain some weight back working by volume. Interesting and possibly some hope for the future. I have yet to encounter a zinc wheel weight but I'm sure they're coming.

[Ricochet]

I'm assuming that your 50-50 alloy is calculated by weight which would mean the volume of zinc far exceeds that of lead.

Pretty close to 2:1, isn't it?

[Ugluk]

Interesting! I got buckets of sorted zink weights..
How about making a softnose with a zink/pure shank? Feasible?

Could open up a whole new field of custom molds perhaps.

[docone31]

I am no longer alone!!!
I have been mixing high amounts of zinc in my paper patched Boolitts. I mean high!
I have been getting excellent results.
I have this crud metal that I got from someone. It has a foamy whatever top to it. I have been thinning down the metal to make it castable. I am not big on waste.
With my .303 British, and .308(s), I get enough penetration that I have never recovered a casting at 100yds. Never. The berm is sugar sand.
The paper patched loads do not key-hole, are an higher POI than jacketed, and I get excellent castings.
I use Lee Molds. I run them hot!
My Muzzle loaders I use pure lead. The rest, I have this blend that has been working so far.
I am not sure zinc is the enemy. I have perhaps fired over a thousand rounds in both calibers so far.
No issues yet.