Weird alloy

[ironcowboy]

I had cast a bunch of bullets this week out of mostly pure lead (old deep sea fishing sinkers). They weighed in at about 256grns (mold says 255)
I got a melting pot and a bunch of free lead from a guy i hunt with today, so i milted down about 10 lbs of it from one long stick (kinda the shape of a big piece of French bread) All my bullets came out looking very shiny (my sister asked if they were silver bullets) And they seamed real hard when it came to knocking open the sprue plate. When i weighed a few of them they all came out to be around 238grns...
I'm assuming this means it has alot of tin in it? Anyone have a clue how much? Should i just find some pure lead and start mixing up big batches to try to get it softer???

Thanks guys, i just started this last week!

[sheepdog]

Hmm, maybe a little zinc in the melt? Possibly high antimony? Really pure lead is very shiny though but hard no.

[ironcowboy]

I have no idea, as i said i'm very new to this. I do know that my first casting's were almost pure lead. This stuff i have no clue. I mealed it fairly cool, so i dont know about the zink...
The other lead is shiny, but this stuff makes it look tarnished!!

[cbrick]

The sprue being hard to open doesn't have to mean the alloy is hard. When the sprue is opened a little too early it cuts very easily and you could smear lead. If the alloy is allowed to cool and harden to much the effort to open the sprue plate will be greatly increased and it has nothing to do with the final hardness of the alloy. I open the sprue with a gloved hand but if there is a distraction and I need to put the mould down for a few minutes I can't open it by hand, I have to tap it open with a wood mallet.

And BTW, the next few pours will be lighter boolits with the cooler mould.

Rick

[Dale53]

The first clue here is the ingot shaped "like a big piece of French bread".

The second clue is that the bullets weigh considerably less than his normal alloy.

The third clue is the greater hardness.

Sir, you were given an ingot of "Linotype". The linotype ingots look a bit like a French Baguette.

Rejoice - you have a great "enrichment" alloy. Dilute with pure lead to the hardness you prefer.

Dale53

[ironcowboy]

The first clue here is the ingot shaped "like a big piece of French bread".

The second clue is that the bullets weigh considerably less than his normal alloy.

The third clue is the greater hardness.

Sir, you were given an ingot of "Linotype". The linotype ingots look a bit like a French Baguette.

Rejoice - you have a great "enrichment" alloy. Dilute with pure lead to the hardness you prefer.

Dale53

haha, awesome!!! Glad i'm not going nuts after all. I figured it had to be something like that, but since im new to it i had no experience to figure out just what it is.
Now does anyone want to swap me real lead for this dumb Linotype. haha All those nice bullets i just made i guess are now scrap.

[runfiverun]

just take 3 parts of that pure to one part of the fench bread and you'll be fine.