I have mainly used straight w/w alloy for my boolits but now I am looking to expand my horizions. I am looking for advice on an alloy for 5.56 boolits to run through my AR. I not only use it just for killing targets but also hunting, mainly coyotes but deer are possible also. What wouls be a good alloy to meet my needs? Good fill out, expansion for hunting, and of course pretty shiny would be a bonus.
A veteran is someone who, at one point in his life wrote a blank check made payable to "The United States of America " for an amount of "up to and including my life."
Have you read the thread about adding copper to lead? If I was looking for a hunting boolit that is what I would do. Its a stick in this sub forum.
Lead bullets Matter
There are three kinds of men: The ones that learn by reading. The few who learn by observation. The rest of them have to pee on the electric fence and find out for themselves. - Will Rodgers
even with the addition of copper I don't think your goal is quite obtainable.
I can do it with home made swaged jaxketed bullets, but I have to manipulate both the jacket and the core to make it possible.
any way for shooting varmint type things with cast I use a ww alloy softened up and slowed down.
for target shooting I use an alloy of 4/6/90 [pretty shiney boolits here] but they will just zip through animals.
the 22's just don't have the mass to make up for the loss of velocity where the softer alloy is wanted to hunt with.
no I don't feel silly shooting ground squirrels, grouse, and deer with the 30-06 using the same boolit, velocity, and alloy.
I am actually reading that sticky, but there is drama in there that becomes very distracting, making it very slow to weed through the bs. I guess I will have start asking other questions such as good common sourses for the elements being used here. Chemistry was not even close to my best class in school.......... that was lunch!Originally Posted by 62chevy
A veteran is someone who, at one point in his life wrote a blank check made payable to "The United States of America " for an amount of "up to and including my life."
I think you can sum up that thread as if you take fine multi strand copper wire chopped up small, melt it in some tin, then the tin will bond (become an alloy) with the copper. Adding that tin/copper alloy to your lead melt will put some copper in. Copper won't easily alloy with lead directly, it will alloy with tin. The tin will alloy with your lead.
As to your bullet requirements, can't help you there. Maybe one of the experienced people can. But I do know when you try to develop to a specialized requirement such as you have outlined it does generally take some planning and experimentation. In short you have to want it enough to work to make it happen.
I got out of the tread what RogerDat did. That is provided you have plenty of tin, the other way is to buy from Rotometals their #3 babbitt that has everything you need in it.
Lead bullets Matter
There are three kinds of men: The ones that learn by reading. The few who learn by observation. The rest of them have to pee on the electric fence and find out for themselves. - Will Rodgers
coppers melting point is really high... 2000. deg.???? lead and tin near 670-750? Id like to know how that all melts together.
Well if nothing else atleast my reading comprehention skills are still ok, that is what I what I got out of it so far. I was looking at Rotometal this morning at Alloy AC Casting Pewter Ingot (92% Tin,7.75% Sb,0.25% Cu) Britannia, and wondering if if this would get me moving in the right direction. But now that you point it out the #3 babbitt looks better. Am I on the right track?
Approwimately what ratio should I consider starting with.
A veteran is someone who, at one point in his life wrote a blank check made payable to "The United States of America " for an amount of "up to and including my life."
copper in the .25% area is all you need.
it ain't the glory alloy that allows you to ignore every thing else and do whatever you want though.
it is an enhanced alloy that will help further all the other ground work you have already laid out.
maybe there is a reason why I recommend a 4/6/90 alloy for the higher speed stuff.
Mix into alloy can be because both substances are fully melted OR because the elements when heated start combining at the molecular level and the combined substance has a lower melting point. IF (big IF because chemistry was a long time ago) the copper starts combining with the tin those molecules can melt into the liquid and disperse, eventually the copper will all combine, melt, and disperse into the tin.
Antimony has a really high melting point but once combined with lead it melts at lower temperature.
I can see and understand lead and tin melting together to form a unified liquid mass, but copper melting at the same temps as tin and lead?
Wow thanks for all the help, I guess I will just refrain from asking stupid questions such as the one starting this thread. I am not a chemist nor metalurgist so I will go back into the shadows and continue to shoot cast boolits with mediocre results. Silly me for thinking I could ask those with experiense for help.
A veteran is someone who, at one point in his life wrote a blank check made payable to "The United States of America " for an amount of "up to and including my life."
It is alloying. Think of it as similar to what happens when you add sugar to coffee. The coffee is not hot enough to melt the sugar. Sugar melts at 295 F. But, you are alloying the sugar with the coffee.
I'm a Happy Clinger.
so the copper really does not turn to a liquid as we know it?
WOW perfect example from everyday life! I'm going to remember that one.
Something related that I do recall from school science that is sort of neat. Because of the way sugar combines with hot coffee by moving into "empty space" in the molecules one can take a cup of coffee filled to the brim and slowly add a lot of sugar without the cup overflowing.
I will give you the holy grail on what your after.
Casting 22 boolits and using them in an ar is a huge pita no matter the alloy.
There you go, thats the strait dope on casting fer yer ar-good luck.
If your still gunna do it. My current test rounds are from 50% linotype 30% ww & 20% pure. Don't know how they will work yet. Some ar's will chamber any boolit mine has only accepted cone points thus far.
If you think your a hammer everything looks like a nail.
The issue is what you want the cast bullet to do, not in asking for help. Looking at your original post
- Expansion for hunting ( requires softer lead to expand)
- 5.56 AR round - is high velocity 29000 fps or more ( requires harder lead for strength to handle velocity)
- Hunting Deer ( generally not hunted with a small bore relatively lite 55-60 grain bullet)
Not saying it's impossible but.....
The 5.56 with it's small diameter and high speed are intended to yaw when they impact to create wound damage, not expand. And they must have a lot of velocity to do that. The AR from what I have read on the forum often fails to feed well if one tries to use a flatter nose cast bullet for less penetration and more damage, so what mold you cast with matters too.
I only know two people who use a .223 for "hunting" and both are farmers who don't mind that it punches a tiny hole right through the woodchuck. They want that bugger to still be able to run down his hole before he dies so they don't have to bury em. Deer running off with tiny bullet hole on the other hand is undesirable in the extreme.
Possible solutions offered:
Copper because copper can make the bullet "tougher" to handle the velocity without making it harder so you might, possibly get some small amount of expansion.
One person pointed out that they might be able to make a jacketed bullet with soft enough lead to expand. Jacket providing the strength for the velocity. But they typically would use a 30-06 with cast for hunting. Pretty much anything from varmint to deer. A 30-06 bullet at 150 - 170 grains would be close to three times the mass of your 55-60 grain 5.56 . Force = mass x acceleration so that 30-06 bullet is going to hit a lot harder even at half the velocity, and can have a flat nose for more damage.
One person suggested a 2/6/92 alloy as an improvement over your straight WW alloy. That would be 2% tin add from solder, pewter, or purchased as tin alloy because your WW lead has almost none, 6% antimony which would be about double what your WW has, adding purchase high antimony alloy from Rotometals, or Type metal to your WW lead could get you that.
To get that 2/6/92 alloy one possible recipe is 10# COWW + 5# LinoType from Rotometals + 2 oz 63/37 solder also from Rotometals. Using Babbitt metal for the 2 oz tin in that recipe would add a little copper.
But there are lots of other possible combinations check out the alloy calculator thread to download a tool that will let you enter different quantities of bullet alloys and tell you what you would get as a final mix. http://castboolits.gunloads.com/show...oy-calculators Suggest starting at end of thread and working back to find the link to latest version available for download.
According to the alloy calculator that recipe would yield 1764 cast 60 grain bullets with a BHN hardness of 14.7. As opposed to the 12 BHN of your plain COWW cast. My guess is that would cast a very nice shiny bullet that you could push pretty fast, assuming it's diameter was properly sized to your barrel.
Antimony makes it harder, tin does too but less than antimony, tin really helps the melt flow into the mold better. So just adding some tin to get 2% would improve your cast bullet over straight COWW lead.
Hope this helps. BTW I got this stuff by reading a whole lot of stuff on the forum & asking questions just like you did.
I use Lyman #2, (5% Tin, 5% Antimony, 90% Lead). That is pretty close to the 4, 6, 90 that they have recomended.
I use Hornady gas checks sizing to .225" and keep volocities low as I can and still realiably work the action. My AR15 has a 1 in 9" twist barrel. If you have a 1 in 7" twist barrel, it is gonna be a bit harder on the bullet.
Personally, I think that you are trying to do too much with one alloy, one load. I'd use a more appropriate rifle for the Deer, and work up a load for the rest of it in the AR!
"The difference between genius and stupidity is that genius has it's limits." - Albert Einstein
+1 on what defcon-one said. Good round in the AR worked out, and something else for Deer.
I'm more than willing to help.
the issue is I have only been messing about with the various 22 cals for about 6 years.
I have written several posts on the subject and a 6 post dissertation on how to get the 223 to perform in an AR rifle. [at velocity's approaching jaxketed and with accuracy on/above par with store bought]
I gave you the facts you choose to ignore them or do any research.
good luck,,, buy lot's of powder, a micrometer, and a good scale you'll need them.
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