Lead Alloy-Hard but not brittle
At the request of some folks on another thread and Buckshot's suggestion I am posting a brew I use here.
The alloy I use is a concoction myself and two other guys at the Bureau of Standards came up with for a project and thought it would also be good for bullets. It has a Brinnell of 25 but is not brittle like linotype. Slabs 1/8" in thickness can be bent in a complete "U" shape without breaking. It has a very fine grain structure unlike linotype's course grain structure. Using Lyman MolyLube, I have never had any leading with this alloy. I have shot this stuff up to 2500fps (chronographed and gas checked) and no lead. If anyone wants the brew I am posting it here. It is really easy to do at home. It doesn't have anything exotic in it.
The "brew" is easy to make in 5# increments. You will need a semi-accurate scale. Perfection is not needed as you keep each batch separated and then homogenize it all by taking one ingot from each pile to make a 10# pot for casting. I have even gone as far as casting the pots into ingots 5 times for great consistency. See what happens when there is 20 ft. of snow up here in the winter, way too much time on my hands.
The ingredients are:
1. 3# of wheel weights that have been made into ingots- no clips or dirt
2. 2# of linotype- cleaned and melted into ingots- no ink, etc.
3. 1/8# (2 oz.) of 50/50 lead solder
4. 1/4# of copper containing pewter-it has a yellowish tint not silvery
The secret is the copper. I could go into a long spiel about what it does for the alloy in terms of structure, but who cares. As you can see a few pounds of this pewter will cast one big batch of bullets. The pewter you need contains:
Tin = 88-89%
Copper = 4.03 (4 to 5 is good-no more)
Antimony = 7.19 (7 to 7 1/2- no more)
Arsenic = 0.026 (don't worry, its there)
You can make this brew too using pewter with no copper in it, which is more common. Melt some copper wire or clean pipe and add the pewter to it. Copper takes oxy-acetylene to melt it. Propane torches don't quite have enough ooomph. 1/4# of copper for each 5# of 92% tin and 8% antimony pewter gets you there. This is the pewter used in plates and such that you see at garage sales and the flee market. 6 or so large dinner plates and you are set for life. The arsenic is incidental. It will be there so don't even sweat how much. 5# of this pewter will be enough for 200# of bullet brew. I don't know about you, but at 105 to 160 grains per bullet that I shoot, that is a lot of bullets.
It works in everthing I, my sons and daughter and 3 friends have shot it through, handguns and rifles. We have used it for plain base as well as gas checked bullets with the same great accuracy. For plain base bullets we all have found 1500-1600 is about the upper limit. Depending on your gun, that may or may not hold true.
We even tried adding silver at one time, but found it didn't really do anything we hadn't already figured out. Silver is present in all lead alloys to some degree and really doesn't do anything that adding any more of this expensive stuff warrants. This is the stuff and the percentage that most "pure" lead has in it because that is the way it is found in the ground. These guys all stick together is mother nature's kitchen. Unless you have the super expensive reagent grade lead, 99.9999% pure, these guys are in it.
Bismuth = 0.009
Zinc = 0.001
Silver = 0.002
Nickel = <0.001
Aluminum = <0.001
Gold = <0.001
Phosphorous = <0.001
Indium = 0.009
Not one of the above really adds or detracts from good bullets in these percentages. We tried up to 5% silver and it just made the brew expensive, no better or worse. Now 5% gold on the other hand did make the alloy more malleable, but very expensive. We could actually bend 1/8" slabs back and forth several times before they work hardened and broke. So, if you have any extra gold laying around that your wife or whoever hasn't claimed........
Anyway enjoy and great shooting.
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Originally Posted by floodgate
