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Thread: High Tin?

  1. #1
    Boolit Buddy
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    High Tin?

    This is my first post here, the rep over at Lee said this is the place for this question. I have a lot of 90%Sn/10%Pb and pure Sn bar plus a bunch of SN62 solder. I am having a hard time finding pure lead. How high of a Sn% can I go? I am only loading/casting for my 44mag SRH. Thank you all.

  2. #2
    Boolit Buddy
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    Hello, welcome to Cast Boolits!

    You do not necessarily need "pure" lead to create a suitable alloy for your 44mag. Nearly any source will work; if not, it can easily be traded for what you need.
    Do you have access to any source of lead? Wheel weights, sheet, pipe, roof flashing, range scrap, etc? All of these and many more can be used to create a suitable alloy.

    Sounds like you've got a good start on your tin supply, and that's good since that is your most expensive component. But, as a general rule, you will use little of it for most applications.

    Keep us posted.

    Again, WELCOME!

  3. #3
    Boolit Master
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    Welcome to the Forum !

    If you have a "LOT" of Sn I suggest you put an ad in the Classifieds here and trade some for WW and Pb. You would need no more than 2% Sn added to WW to get good fill out.

    Depending on where you live you might find someone locally who would make such a trade.

    Jerry
    S&W .38/44 Outdoorsman Accumulator

  4. #4
    Boolit Man
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    Agreed, while maybe somebody can answer how high you can go, that really isn't the question that is important for you.

    The question that is really important is how much tin do you have? It goes for about $5 a pound (I think, more or less). You can probably trade 1 pound of tin for 10 pounds of lead. Cast your tin in sticks, put it 4 pound sa $5 flat rate box, and you can probably get a box full of lead in return (no guarantees).

  5. #5
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    Elmer Keith's favorite alloy for the 44 was 1:16 Tin/Lead. Find some pure lead and make up a batch and see what ya think.
    Reloading Data Project - (in retirement)
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  6. #6
    Boolit Buddy
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    Thank you for the replies. I do not wish to sell. If you could see my gun room you would understand. The Sn/Pb bars should be shy of 300lb and the Sn62 a little over 200lbs. I have been packing the high tin away for a while thinking I would get into casting. My family and I do A LOT of reloading and shooting. The solder does make one pretty bullet but not sure if to hard or brittle? I will try to get pictures when I get back from picking the kids up from sking tonight.

    Thank you again.

  7. #7
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    I sure wouldnt go over 10 percent tin and in all reality anything more then 5percent is a waste of money.

  8. #8
    Boolit Man
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    You have $2500 worth of tin and want to shoot that, instead of selling it and being able to make 10 times as many bullets? Wow. I wish I were in that situation.

  9. #9
    Boolit Master sagacious's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by MJR007 View Post
    How high of a Sn% can I go? I am only loading/casting for my 44mag SRH. Thank you all.
    Well, you can go as high as you want. But more than about 2% tin is generally unnecessary and a waste-- no matter how much tin you have.

    Since you have been squirrelling-away the tin, perhaps you should now devote the same amount of zeal to securing a large supply of lead.

    Let's see here... If you pour your tin alloy as 200gr 44mag bullets (as cast weight), you'll only get about 1.5 50-ct boxes of ammo per lb. Your tin alloy will be done and gone a lot faster than you may think, if you shoot a lot. 300 or 500lbs of alloy doesn't last that long. I shoot about 9lbs of lead a week. That's nearly 500lbs a year. If you shoot a lot, you'll be there soon.

    If you shoot up all that tin, a few years from now you'll be kicking yourself. Just a word to the wise.

  10. #10
    Boolit Master
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    High tin boolits will not be brittle at all. They won't get too hard either @ 10%
    But they sure will melt easily like 440 degrees or less.
    Sent from my PC with a keyboard and camera on it with internet too.
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  11. #11
    Boolit Buddy
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    It is funny for me living/working with the RoHS compliance tin is much easier for me to get than lead. I should be more careful of my words. To say I shoot A LOT means much different things in different circles. It is like saying I shot at long distance…My 220lbs of SN62 will make a lot of 240g SWC for me. With more of my solder pots being switched over to lead free solder this supply should not run out for a while. WW at the local garages seem to be treated as if they were gold. With the tight times everyone is trying to make money on anything they can. Last night I noticed the pay forward section on this site and I may put some of the tin on it. I did like the idea of trading Sn for Pb. The $4.5 post office box rates make this a possibility. Thank you all.

  12. #12
    Boolit Buddy


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    News flash. New certified Tin is selling for $7.50/lb. Since most people can't buy over the counter and need a broker, it's more like $8. Tin has been going up and up and up. Any that you can buy for cheap is money in the bank.
    Zbench

  13. #13
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    Quote Originally Posted by MJR007 View Post
    This is my first post here, the rep over at Lee said this is the place for this question. I have a lot of 90%Sn/10%Pb and pure Sn bar plus a bunch of SN62 solder. I am having a hard time finding pure lead. How high of a Sn% can I go? I am only loading/casting for my 44mag SRH. Thank you all.
    1:10 (9.1 % tin) is as high as anyone goes for cast boolits. It used to be a favorite of Phil Sharpe for high speed rifle boolits. As wiljen mentioned, 1:16 was Elmer Keith's favorite blend. Tin lead alloys deform better than Antimony alloys, and is recommended by Glen Fryxell for hunting boolits.

    NRA tests led by C.E. Harrison in the 1950's and 60's found no accuracy advantage to high tin alloys, leading to recommendations that it be used at no more than 1% since it was expensive. If you hunt, or if you already have a lot of tin and the cost differential means nothing to you, you can safely ignore these recommendations. It is not that the high tin alloys were less accurate, they just weren't more accurate. Since casters are generally an economical bunch, this has led to some kind of hating on high tin bearing alloys.

    Tin has high lubricity, and is less likely to lead than its moderate BHN results would indicate. By matching bore size and your pressures to your boolit hardness, you can back off on the tin and substitute Antimony for hardening alloy.

    At one point I had more tin then I knew what to do with, I traded some off as was suggested to me here, then I regretted it. I find I prefer higher tin alloys for hunting purposes, and find it easier to work with a 3% tin alloy than a 1%.

    You will find fans of different alloys here, including (what I call) the Cult of the Wheel Weights. These are the folks that, if you have tin, insist you use it at not more than 1%, and trade most of it off immediately, you hoarder you.

    I say, stick to your guns and keep it, and develop different alloys for different purposes. Wheel weights are getting harder to find, more and more zinc and steel, less and less sources with higher lead scrap prices making it harder to find tire shops that will even sell it to casters, let alone give it away.

    I say, if you have tin, use it as you please.

    -HF
    Last edited by HangFireW8; 02-24-2010 at 11:01 PM. Reason: math

  14. #14
    Boolit Master 7of7's Avatar
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    website: http://www.american-tinandsolder.com/
    Email: Americantin@aol.com

    The price on pure lead would be $$1.66 lb delivered.
    Allen

    If you need pure lead... contact Allen...

    2% tin is $2.09 lb delivered...

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Abbreviations used in Reloading

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