Foundry type metal

[charger 1]

I dont give a darn if a boolit expands or not ,but with its hardness how will it be on barrel life? Got a chance at a wack, and sounds like it might be the thing for my speed freak loads. But I dont want to if I sacrafice barrels. Dont got any pure lead, would 50-50 with ww's be good enough to cut it?

[versifier]

It will shoot fine as is and the barrels will last longer than you will. Compare its hardness to that of copper, gilding metal, and barrel steel. If you have a lot of it, I would use it as is for target boolits and save the WW for hunting. Your rifles may prefer that you cut it for optimal accuracy, though, but the only way to find that out is to actually try it in them and see for yourself. Some pistols like really hard boolits, too, especially those with higher working pressures like 9mm, 40S&W, and 10mm.

[threett1]

By all means grab it. Air cooled WWs aren't a whole lot harder than pure lead. You are in a unique position of knowing exactly what you have and can alloy it accordingly.

[grumpy one]

If it is genuine foundry type (printers use these terms rather flexibly at times), by mixing it one to one with WW the outcome is linotype that is slightly high on tin. Since there is quite a lot of alleged linotype around that is 2% tin where it should be 4%, the lino you'd make yourself would end up being better than most.

Depending on price, foundry type is a very useful item to have around - you can mix it in when you want to harden up a wide variety of alloys.

[charger 1]

its 400 + pounds for the 15$ of fuel to go get it

[Bass Ackward]

I dont give a darn if a boolit expands or not ,but with its hardness how will it be on barrel life? Got a chance at a wack, and sounds like it might be the thing for my speed freak loads. But I dont want to if I sacrafice barrels. Dont got any pure lead, would 50-50 with ww's be good enough to cut it?


Charger,

It's not the hardness, it's the antimony content that is in excess of the tin content. Antimony is a rock in nature and is EXTREMELY abrasive. I have some down stairs that has had the spines washed so it can be smelted in easier.

It's sort of funny really. Many ol'timers would not shoot a bullet with antimony in it if their life depended on it. Only pure lead and tin for them. And many of these guys pushed 2700 fps too.

Now we have come full circle to include me. Only rock hard is accurate and we need to shoot a rock if we want to go over 2000 fps. Funny how time works.

[grumpy one]

Bass, I too like the idea of keeping the antimony as low as possible while getting the required result, but I'm finding it very difficult. In my case I may have made it unnecessarily difficult for myself by wandering down a blind alley - I've been water-dropping my bullets, and have just learned that the result has been a spread of ten BHN numbers in hardness of allegedly identical bullets, cast in the same batch. Possibly my highly variable group sizes have been caused by a random mixture of bullet hardnesses within each group; I can easily investigate that by switching to air cooled bullets and using antimony content to control bullet hardness. However that still leaves me with a problem or two in trying to match your success with 14 BHN bullets at high velocities. One of these is that my 30-30 only has a 20 inch barrel, and with a slow powder I'm just not going to get much velocity before the bullet exits the barrel. The other is that the slow powders seem to be generating lots of hard carbon fouling, which is bad enough in a deeply rifled barrel, but is likely to be just plain disastrous in a microgroove barrel with its extremely shallow grooves.

Can you give me any pointers on getting out of this mess?


Geoff

[JudgeBAC]

This may be off topic but I am shooting a .38-55 Marlin with a .379 bore and chamber that wont allow .380 or larger bullets. Smaller bullets do bump up and shoot very well. In reading about this delima I came across several articles that said .375 jacketed bullets shoot well in these guns because they bump up and fill the bore. Huh?? Jacketed bullets run about 100 on the BHN scale and softer cast bullets that bump up run about 10-12 BHN. I must be missing something. Can anyone help me out here?

[imashooter2]

This may be off topic but I am shooting a .38-55 Marlin with a .379 bore and chamber that wont allow .380 or larger bullets. Smaller bullets do bump up and shoot very well. In reading about this delima I came across several articles that said .375 jacketed bullets shoot well in these guns because they bump up and fill the bore. Huh?? Jacketed bullets run about 100 on the BHN scale and softer cast bullets that bump up run about 10-12 BHN. I must be missing something. Can anyone help me out here?

Jackets run 100 BHN. How hard are the cores?

[grumpy one]

Jackets run 100 BHN. How hard are the cores?

To put it simply, condoms stretch to fit the contents.

Now I'll probably fall foul of the thought police. Oh well.

[felix]

Bore rider bullets will shoot good provided there is enough engraving to hold them onto the lands. Boolits, on the other hand, must have all of the land support available, and therefore should be groove riders to do their best. And, yes, all bullets/boolits do obturate to some extent; the amount of which is dependent upon the factors you already know. Besides that, that same projectile will contract from that obturation, depending on its toughness, which is a simple way of saying elastic quality. So, to keep a "small" boolit permanently obturated, the pressure must be kept up, or change the boolit material to yield permanently at the given pressure. ... felix

[charger 1]

I'd like to try getting 20+bn by the ingredients of the alloy as opposed to the water or heat afterward

[Lloyd Smale]

if you were in michigan wed be racing there to get it!!
its 400 + pounds for the 15$ of fuel to go get it

[Bass Ackward]

Bass, I too like the idea of keeping the antimony as low as possible while getting the required result, but I'm finding it very difficult. In my case I may have made it unnecessarily difficult for myself by wandering down a blind alley - I've been water-dropping my bullets, and have just learned that the result has been a spread of ten BHN numbers in hardness of allegedly identical bullets, cast in the same batch.

Can you give me any pointers on getting out of this mess?


Geoff


Geoff,

Water dropping for me, yields bullets all over the spectrum as well. I heat treat in an oven when necessary for consistency from bullet to bullet. If done after sizing, the hardest / finest bullet of the correct diameter for HV work is created. Hardness can be controlled by temperature, time, and mix formula. HTed or hard bullets make you vulnerable to the dreaded lube flier. If you want a 15-16 BHN bullet, then mix WW 50/50 with pure lead and HT it in the oven. You can play around with temp and time and get 16-20 BHN depending on all the variables.

I believe that the secret to accuracy with ANY lead bullet is to go as soft (or hard) as necessary to produce the velocity level of interest. Or .... as Marshall said, best accuracy occurs just before leading begins. Because you have no excess lube to act as fouling at this point. Lube acts as a hydraulic fouling that will actually size down bullets. Once this occurs, you have less rifling griping diameter to maintain seal and drive contact. This flies in the face of those that believe that lube is the sealer. It's a fouling.

But realistically, as with Black, a bullet must be able to handle fouling without sizing down or deforming. Bullet design plays a key part in higher velocity work. I use a one diameter bullet with a reduced diameter nose, just enough to provide a scraper edge to act like a cow catcher on a train. Sort of a slight semi wadcutter for rifles if you will. It helps to eliminates lube as a variable in cold weather for me. Usually when my bullets fail, it is because they are not capable of handling fouling at high velocities, as lead is only so strong regardless of how wide the drive band is.

So improve barrel condition, pick a slipery lube and then go as soft as necessary or use as little lube as necessary to attain enough velocity to reach the accuracy node for your barrel.

Does that help?

[grumpy one]

Bass, that is even more complicated than where my thoughts were previously. I want to get a reasonable MV from my 20" 30-30, without torturing the rifle and with consistent and decent accuracy. So far, the best velocity with reasonable group size came from Varget and Lee C308-170-F, but the group wasn't that small (1.2" at 55 yards) and the powder charge limit seemed to be 30 grains, which from other people's data seems to give 2000 FPS. Options for getting to 2100 FPS seemed to be a harder bullet plus more Varget, or a slightly slower powder. Since my bullets already averaged 19 BHN, I'd mostly be hoping to tighten the group by reducing hardness variability rather than increasing the average hardness. Maybe by shooting pure linotype - mine tests at 19.6 BHN - I could add a few more grains of Varget and reach my objective. I think I need to give that a try, anyway.

The slower powder route would have me shooting W760, but experiments to date have given poor accuracy if I use enough powder to get reasonable burning. Looks to me as if I'm running out of bullet strength again - this time because W760 won't burn well unless pressures are high. There is one trick I haven't tried: using AR2209, which has the same burning rate as W760 but as far as I know doesn't have its requirement for high pressures. That might let me get just a bit higher in velocity than Varget, with the same bullet hardness. However I still think I'd be needing considerably more than 15 BHN to get say 2100 FPS with the C308-170-F bullet.


Hence I'm not seeing an opening here that has me using the soft bullets you prefer. The reasons may relate to the short barrel and shallow rifling that my 30-30 happens to have. The problem does not seem to be bullet design at this stage, since I'm trying to get more velocity without the bullet collapsing, rather than improving the group size. Once I've got the velocity, with a bullet hardness that only just supports that pressure level, I'll be at the point where I need to focus on improving group size - and from what you've just told me, lube management will become crucial.

Once I know what bullet hardness I need, I have a choice of achieving it with antimony or with heat treatment. I have objections to both, but as a former Australian prime minister famously said, "Life wasn't meant to be easy."

[charger 1]

I dont know . when I fire those 480's outta the lott the cloud of lyman moly lube dispersing out the muzzle temporarily fogs everything out of view like a BP on a cold day. And never flier one...But I will agree with one thing. I have found with my limited experience that things work better if pounded to the upper limit of pressure as opposed to the min. I've become a firm believer of the 1432X bnh as an absolute min pressure. Calculating the RPM of that lott also makes it a looser at close to 140 G's, but apparently that formula doesnt take into effect the near perfect concentricity of some custom molds

[hydraulic]

NRA cast bullet supplement says that mixing 1 part foundry type to 2 parts wheel weights equals linotype. I have a good supply of FT, and the only downside to it is the copper content. It tends to clog up the pour spout. The remedy is to heat the pot to 750 and then drop it back to 600 for 15 minutes. The copper will seperate and can be skimmed off.

[grumpy one]

First, using the US specification of foundry type (http://www.apa-letterpress.org/T%20&%20P%20ARTICLES/Type/Identifying%20type%20castings.html) that 2:1 alloy would only have 10.5% antimony, while linotype is 12%. As you say, US foundry type sometimes contains copper, which can be a problem.

The Australian trade definition of foundry type was 10% tin, 20% antimony, no copper, and was way more convenient for bullet alloying. However when I hardness test the large pile of ingots of the stuff I have, the result is all over the place. It was supposed to be 33 BHN, but is anywhere from 18 on upward, so it appears the printers used whatever alloy fell to hand. It all appears to be good stuff, and makes lovely castings, but if you want to get any specific outcome you need to hardness test the ingots and mix them to give the alloy you happen to want. No big deal I guess.

You may find that American foundry type turns out to vary just as much as Australian foundry type. I recall 454PB said he had a huge batch of the stuff, and found that each piece was a different hardness from each other piece.

[454PB]

Yes, I tested a hand full of linotype still in letter form and found a wide variation in hardness. I'm beginning to think that printers took more liberties with alloys than casters do.

I may not be as picky as some, but I want the linotype for it's tin content first, and it's hardness next. I use 75% WW and 25% linotype for my magnum pistol boolits with good results. While I've used straight linotype for rifle boolits, I've more recently been using a 50/50 mix of WW and lino, and even 50/50 pure lead and lino. The pure lead and lino hardness tests up around 18 BHN, and cast a very nice boolit. I'm in the strange position of having more pure lead and linotype than wheelweights.

[grumpy one]

I'm kind of in the opposite position - I hardness tested ten ingots of the local WW a couple of days ago, and found an average hardness of 14.9 BHN (standard deviation 1.7, probably because I throw in the stick-on weights unless they are awfully soft), minimum 11.0, maximum 17.2. My current explanation is that the local Australian WW must still be 6% antimony, as it was in the US until a few years ago. So, I have to go out of my way to produce an alloy of less than 15 BHN air cooled. Lucky I'm not into muzzle loading - I'd have to go out and buy lead.

Right now I can't understand how you'd get 18 BHN from a 50-50 mix of lead (5 BHN) and lino (22 BHN). Sounds as if you've slipped in some of your foundry type.


Geoff

[Bass Ackward]

Bass, that is even more complicated than where my thoughts were previously. I want to get a reasonable MV from my 20" 30-30, without torturing the rifle and with consistent and decent accuracy.


There are three ways to shoot cast. First is cast, like cast, at what are considered to be cast velocities using faster powders. The second method is to use cast pressures, but go to slow powders and allow lighter per caliber weight bullets to accelerate slowly using slower powders. The third method is to harden cast bullets and raise the pressure so that the base of the bullet can withstand higher pressure.

I always shoot using the second method so that I can keep my bullets soft. I shoot rifles with throats shaped to support a softer bullet. The advantages of using this method are a soft bullet for hunting and a less base expanding pressure to create bore friction. The less bore friction you have, the less barrel vibration you have. The less barrel vibration you create, the wider your accuracy nodes will be and you can usually achieve superior accuracy at this point.

There are two things that work against you when you want to shoot low pressure / high velocity loads:

1. First is bullet weight. This is because all weight is additive to increase inertia and thus pressure on the base.

2. The second negative is short barrel length because it removes options to achieve velocity without raising pressure.

There is one saving grace. Case volume. Increasing volume slows the expansion of powder gases until the bullet is moving in the bore where it is fully supported. ZThe larger the case, the farther the peak pressure is pushed down the bore. Thus the bullet is moving faster when it occurs and can handle more pressure before the base is changed.

So what you have is an under bore cartridge (30/30) normally described as efficient. You are trying to use a heavy for cartridge for caliber bullet. And you have a short barrel. Grumpy, you need to explore the third method of shooting cast and in my opinion are heading in the right direction by increasing hardness.

[charger 1]

think I'd make #3 the #1 choice, but you knew that

[9.3X62AL]

Bass--

You REALLY summed it up with that last post. Very succinct and direct, and much food for thought.

[454PB]

Right now I can't understand how you'd get 18 BHN from a 50-50 mix of lead (5 BHN) and lino (22 BHN). Sounds as if you've slipped in some of your foundry type.


Geoff

I went back and found my post expressing the same surprise at the hardness of 50/50 lead and linotype:

http://www.castboolits.gunloads.com/showthread.php?t=10835

It wasn't 18 BHN, it was 20 BHN! Yes, I could have a bunch of foundry type mixed in with linotype, which is just fine with me.

[charger 1]

what would the BHN of the foundry type be as it sits, and probably has been sitting for 20+ yrs judging by the dust

[grumpy one]

Bass, many thanks. It comes together for me now, and I think I can set up the next few stages of experimentation. In the end the objective will be to just barely achieve the required bullet strength, so I don't run unnecessary amounts of antimony through my barrel and wear it out faster than I have to.

Charger, unless the foundry type was heat treated, which seems unlikely, I expect it will be the same hardness now as a month after it was cast. If it really is foundry type, that should be about 33 BHN, for every individual piece of it. If you can conveniently do some on-site hardness testing you can find out what is going on. If this is coming from a really big printing works, their foundry type may really have come from a foundry, and been kept separate since, so it will be the real McCoy, 33 BHN. However I think many smaller print works did a lot of casting themselves and only sent out to a foundry for the tricky stuff, so they ended up with all shapes and sizes of printing blocks made out of whatever fell to hand when they cast it. If you find some linotype or monotype castings mixed in - which have a quite distinctive appearance - you'll know straight away that this is not pure foundry type. I don't see that it matters whether it is foundry type, linotype, monotype, or a mongrel bred from all three. The only real issue is whether it has copper in it. If it does, you have a hassle to get rid of it. If it doesn't, you just sort the stuff into two or three hardness grades and make ingots out of each grade-pile. One thing you shouldn't do, is mix the very hard stuff - the grade most likely to contain copper - with the softer grades, because that will just make copper removal more difficult.

FWIW, after my first couple of batches of foundry type I finally had the sense to sort out the linotype and smelt it separately, so I ended up with a few ingots of pure linotype. No printer in his right mind will have allowed mongrel alloy to find its way into his linotype machines.

[charger 1]

its only 16 bn,but if I drop it in water hot it goes 25 instantaneously

[grumpy one]

Charger, 16 BHN is well below linotype, let alone foundry type, so most of what you have is various soft alloys, not printers' alloys. So long as it isn't contaminated with something other than lead, tin and antimony (I'm ignoring trace amounts of arsenic) it's great stuff for bullet casting.

You may need to do some sorting, separating this into piles of soft, medium and hard. Once you alloy the stuff you can't ever go back to the original range of materials, and you will most likely find a use for a pile of specifically hard stuff.

[charger 1]

its all got print on it. And it all jumps to 25 if you quench. I dont mean its gotta cure. I mean bang a gain of 10 bn right away. The thin pieces break easy and very granular inside

[grumpy one]

Getting harder when you quench it only tells you that it contains antimony and arsenic. You can identify the alloy from whatever is the lowest BHN you can record, which means by air cooling it then waiting a month. Sounds to me as if that's 16 BHN.

Having print on it tells you that it has been used by a printer as typemetal. He could use anything he wanted - a printer having used it does not make it typemetal.

I'm not too sure about the brittleness, but the large grain size normally means it solidified over a long period, and large grains do sometimes cause brittleness because the material at the grain boundaries has a different composition from the centre of the grains.

And I'm not knocking your find here - if it made well filled-out type, its a good casting alloy and will make fine bullets.

[charger 1]

Getting harder when you quench it only tells you that it contains antimony and arsenic. You can identify the alloy from whatever is the lowest BHN you can record, which means by air cooling it then waiting a month. Sounds to me as if that's 16 BHN.

Having print on it tells you that it has been used by a printer as typemetal. He could use anything he wanted - a printer having used it does not make it typemetal.

I'm not too sure about the brittleness, but the large grain size normally means it solidified over a long period, and large grains do sometimes cause brittleness because the material at the grain boundaries has a different composition from the centre of the grains.

And I'm not knocking your find here - if it made well filled-out type, its a good casting alloy and will make fine bullets.


Well I guess we're getting to the same place but using different methods...Cause really I dont care what the hardness is now. What I care about is what the hardness is after molding and water dropping if its mixed with wheel weights. And it does appear to me as though a limited quantity of it in the wheel weight mix will bump the boolit hardness the few bn I'm looking for. The other thing I noticed different about it is the same thing you notice when machining stainless as opposed to other steels. People often think a given stainless is harder when in fact its tougher (more resiliant to grain seperation) Thats what I notice about this stuff. If I take a piece of this and a piece of anything else around the same bn or even a bit harder, this stuff is more difficult to scrape with a knife...I certainly notice its melting point higher than wheel weights

[grumpy one]

There are a couple of points that are really refinements - otherwise we seem to be in pretty much the same place. First, all of the printing alloys are pretty sure to contain considerably more tin than WW does, so they will produce high-definition castings of the type. That is going to make bullet casting easier or better, or maybe both. Second, be careful with that water-dropping trick since it is difficult to achieve consistent hardness. I won't say it can't be done, but I will say I can't do it, and have stopped trying at least for now. Lastly the melting point of pure lead is higher than any of the alloys until you get up to the eutectic (linotype), which has the lowest possible melting point, then melting points rise again as you go to higher than eutectic alloy levels. So, if your alloy has a higher melting point than WW, it would have to be way above the linotype alloy levels (4% tin, 12% antimony). That would be valid for foundry type - it is around 10% tin, and at least 20% antimony. However it doesn't explain your low BHN results from your alloy.

Most of this doesn't matter much - you just need an alloy that works better than WW, and you now have the ingredients to make it.

[Ricochet]

be careful with that water-dropping trick since it is difficult to achieve consistent hardness. I won't say it can't be done, but I will say I can't do it, and have stopped trying at least for now.
I still water drop because it's easier to cast that way, but now after I make a big batch of boolits I let 'em bake at 475°F for an hour and quench 'em in cold water so they'll all end up consistently hard. My nearly pure soft lead that I can easily dent with my thumbnail in the annealed state has enough stuff in it to end up about as hard as air cooled wheelweights when treated this way. That's really nice to know. I can use the scrap as is for most things and save my wheelweights for when I need the extra hardness.

[charger 1]

I dont know bout the water dropping variances. Not to be rude, but I run quality not quantity when I'm at the pot. If I make 50-60 boolits in a two hour session,fine. They've never varied by more than .5 bn after curring...Oh back to the orig post if we might
http://i7.photobucket.com/albums/y259/Chargerdive/HPIM0884.jpg

[Bass Ackward]

I dont know bout the water dropping variances. Not to be rude, but I run quality not quantity when I'm at the pot. If I make 50-60 boolits in a two hour session,fine. They've never varied by more than .5 bn after curring...Oh back to the orig post if we might


The problem with putting all that love into a few bullets is that you don't want to launch them which I see is true here.

Why am I not reading about any results here? That new throat probably has surface rust by now. :grin:

[9.3X62AL]

I've been adding one part foundry type to 8 parts WW metal, and arriving at about BHN 14--something like Taracorp 92/6/2. I run the pot wide open (850*) to blend the alloys, and let it sit for about 10 minutes--stir, and cool to 675*. So far, no copper or other foreign metal has showed itself. It sounds like my lot of foundry type is a fairly good one.

Antimony = rock. Now I'll have nightmares--thanks loads.

[MT Gianni]

I've been adding one part foundry type to 8 parts WW metal, and arriving at about BHN 14--something like Taracorp 92/6/2. I run the pot wide open (850*) to blend the alloys, and let it sit for about 10 minutes--stir, and cool to 675*. So far, no copper or other foreign metal has showed itself. It sounds like my lot of foundry type is a fairly good one.

Antimony = rock. Now I'll have nightmares--thanks loads.


Al, are you using that as a universal alloy or auto pistol only? Gianni.

[9.3X62AL]

Not quite "universal", John--but close. Autopistol, rifle, and mag revolver get this blend, while standard pressure revolvers get ACWW.

[charger 1]

The problem with putting all that love into a few bullets is that you don't want to launch them which I see is true here.

Why am I not reading about any results here? That new throat probably has surface rust by now. :grin:


Awaiting the darned mold:roll:

[leftiye]

Lino that we obtain (as we can) is often oxidized heavily by the printers, and thus varies widely in composition. Printers must have had some way of assessing this deterioration prior to reconstituting the linotype as they had special alloying ingots with high tin/ antimony (or else they just guessed) to add periodically as type became soft or wouldn't cast.

Foundry metal according to Harrison was unacceptable because it required special equipment and techniques to make it cast well. I've never had none, so I can't say from personal experience. Probably best to make a linotype composition out of it.

.5% tin (1/2 of 1%), and 5% Antimony will harden to a BHN of 42 (Forty-two! -not to be misread as 22)!!! This when heated to as high a temp as can be maintained without slumping for one hour, and then dumped into cold water. Not much tin / antimony there. I'd guess that any desireable hardness could be obtained by experimenting with temps, and times.

[charger 1]

So I put in 1 part this stuff to 12 parts ww's, had to have the pot so hot the mix was glowing. So then went 1 to 15 and was able to pour but have what looks like inclusions I never had before. Not every where, not all the time, but on a large number of them got acne.Ya I fluxed the geebers outta it. Do I add more ww's or scrap mission. I dont like what appears to be inclusions. Maybe if I added my tin solder it would lower the temp?

[454PB]

Something is wrong. I've used a lot of type metals, and it's use always results in lowering the melt temperature, not raising it.

[charger 1]

Something is wrong. I've used a lot of type metals, and it's use always results in lowering the melt temperature, not raising it.

Not sure I understand that, cause if I've put something in that has more antimony, and antimony has a melt temp of 1100+. I would say that raises overall melt temp...No?

[454PB]

Here is a good reference site for lead alloys. According to them, foundry type melts at just about the same temperature as pure lead......621 degrees. This is lower than the temperature most guys use for casting straight wheelweights, and certainly not "glowing". Using the alloy mixture of WWs and foundry type you describe, you should be casting slightly hotter than straight WWs.

http://www.lasc.us/CastBulletNotes.htm

[grumpy one]

Charger, if you add tin and antimony to pure lead, the melting point decreases as you increase the alloying elements until you get to the point where there is 4% tin and 12% antimony, and the melting point is 475 F. This is the "eutectic" alloy, which produces a perfectly homogeneous micrographic structure and the lowest possible melting point, then if you keep increasing the tin and antimony the melting point begins to rise again. As 454 PB says, you have to get to high levels of alloy - in the foundry type range - before the melting point rises all the way back to 620 F, which is where pure lead melts.

If your melting point of an alloy is higher than say 650 F, you have an off-the-map alloy. This might be possible if you had, say, a mixture of lead and antimony with no tin present. Such an alloy would have a pretty strange microstructure - crystals of antimony in a matrix of lead. It wouldn't be any use for shooting. However I don't see how you could produce that kind of alloy by mixing printer's type with WW.

[charger 1]

I'd like to send it away for an actual assesment,if I knew where. Its brittle as glass with this chrystaline structure. Reacts with hydrogen pyroxide and vinegar revealing lead yet wont mix worth crap with ww's.Heres one I busted a piece off,you can see how chrystaline..I think high antimony.Oh ya,and when you add any amount the mold will not fill out
http://i7.photobucket.com/albums/y259/Chargerdive/HPIM0885.jpg

[grumpy one]

It sounds as if what you have is foundry type with most of the tin missing. I doubt that was a good alloy for type, and it would be even worse for bullets. "All" you need to do to fix it, is alloy it with some tin - but getting crystallized antimony back into solid solution seems to require high temperatures during the alloying process.

Off the top of my head I'd suggest making up a small batch in a smelting pot, cooking it up pretty hot and adding solder. When it cools, fracture it and see if you have a more sensible crystalline structure. Worst case, you might have to get right up to the temperature for alloying pure antimony with pure lead, which is pretty hot. I seem to recall that Bass Ackward has worked with adding pure antimony, and if so he will know just what is involved. If not, there are some web sites that will probably cover it.

Once you've produced a small sample batch of normal foundry type, you'll know just what it is going to take to convert the rest of the batch. All this is based on my guess being right, of course, but you will find that out when you convert your first small batch.

[grumpy one]

As a supplementary point Charger, I once had a lead/tin/antimony alloy analysed. The process used was Xray diffraction, which means it was easy for somebody who had the machine and unavailable to anyone else. In that instance it was free - a lab was trying to justify buying an Xray diffraction analyzer that they had for short-term evaluation, and wanted to run as wide a variety of materials through it as possible. I just gave them a Lee half-pound ingot of my favourite alloy; they cut it in half and sent one half to a calibration lab, and carried out Xray diffraction testing themselves on the other half, then compared the two test reports. I thought they'd done me a favour, and they thought I'd done them one, so it was a win-win.

[charger 1]

It sounds as if what you have is foundry type with most of the tin missing. I doubt that was a good alloy for type, and it would be even worse for bullets. "All" you need to do to fix it, is alloy it with some tin - but getting crystallized antimony back into solid solution seems to require high temperatures during the alloying process.

Off the top of my head I'd suggest making up a small batch in a smelting pot, cooking it up pretty hot and adding solder. When it cools, fracture it and see if you have a more sensible crystalline structure. Worst case, you might have to get right up to the temperature for alloying pure antimony with pure lead, which is pretty hot. I seem to recall that Bass Ackward has worked with adding pure antimony, and if so he will know just what is involved. If not, there are some web sites that will probably cover it.

Once you've produced a small sample batch of normal foundry type, you'll know just what it is going to take to convert the rest of the batch. All this is based on my guess being right, of course, but you will find that out when you convert your first small batch.



In my uneducated mind I think your spot on. Thats my project for today. type metal samples and tin mix,then heat the bejeepers outta it, then break open and look at it. I think this stuff got worked tinless, that makes for the high melt temp,poor mix,and poor mold fill. Having said that,when I come up with the magic recipe,I think I'l be OK

[garandsrus]

charger 1,

My recycler has a magic "gun" that reads the elements and the percentages of each in the sample. It does all this in about 5 seconds!

The foundry type I have was analyzed at:
Lead 52.5%
Antimony 24.5%
Tin 15.8%
Copper 3.0%
Bismuth 3.0%

John

[charger 1]

I'm going to send you a sample, but lets just say for fun it is those numbers. How the ell to you get it to mix with ww's. I've now melted 50/50 with tin and still come up granular on a small sample.

[garandsrus]

Charger,

Assuming your wheel weights are .5% tin and 4% antimony (mine are) and the above foundry type alloy, the mix for 50 lbs of Taracorp (6% antimony, 2% tin,92% lead) would be:
Pounds Ounces
WW 42 8.5
Foundrytype 5 12.0
Add Lead: 1 11.6

The foundrytype is used pretty sparingly... I created an alloy calculator in MS Excel that lets you put in two different alloys and then adjust the ratios while allowing you to add either tin or lead to get to what you want. I posted it a while ago so if you search on "alloy calculator" you should find it.

John

[charger 1]

grey powdery substance which seems to have the ability to stay throughout the mix and avoid fluxing. I just dumped the pot and it was everywhere. Thats whats making my inclusions. Any ideas?

[grumpy one]

A wild guess would be that the powder is some of the crystallized antimony, but I haven't messed with a similar situation so I don't know. My foundry type seems to have enough tin - it acts just like linotype except needs a higher casting temperature. I've even tried dumping in some solder, in an experiment that turned out to be pointless - it just alloyed in with no drama.

[charger 1]

these things seem to be quite heavy. Their not comming to the top. If the swines would swim it wouldnt matter

[KYCaster]

Grumpy, Charger: You don't need high temp. to alloy Antimony with lead. It will disolve at normal casting temp. I use pure Antimony from "The Antimony Man" and 95Sn/5Sb solder to make 92/6/2 alloy for the bulk of my casting.

If your powdery substance were Sb, it would disolve in the alloy unless its already saturated or is precipitating out for some reason. I don't know what the saturation point is, or if other metals in the alloy will affect that value. I would guess that the saturation point would be MUCH higher than the ammount normally found in foundry type, but I cant say that for a fact.

Not much help, huh? :roll:


Jerry

[imashooter2]

I've made 50/50 Pb/Sb and the Sb didn't precipitate out. Further, that 50/50 alloyed into WW or other scrap lead at casting temperatures. Never had any problems with it at all.

[grumpy one]

I find lots of grey garbage sticking both to the bottom of the pot, and the outside of it, but not within the melt itself. Even without fluxing, gentle stirring brings it to a surface: the bottom, the sides, or the top. Once it reaches a surface it sticks there unless stirred, and if scraped off sides or bottom it comes to the top. There is something strange about the idea of a metal oxide being about as dense as the metal itself; oxygen just isn't that heavy.

That is a long way of saying that I have no suggestions at the moment as to what it is, but you have to get the stuff out if it won't dissolve. I get enough grunge embedded in the surface of my bullets even when the melt seems to be clean (except for odd bits on the bottom and sides of the pot) - having the stuff actually suspended in the melt would be disgusting, like dead insects in the mayo.

There is something outside my experience in this whole story. My ex-scrap foundry type turns out to be pretty variable stuff, with hardness all the way from here to there, but it all melts easily and makes beautiful castings with an unearthly, tarnish-free sheen (give or take a bit of grunge picked up on the way through the bottom-pour valve). A couple of years later they still look about the same, nearly as shiny and still with impossibly sharp detail on the castings.

[charger 1]

I find lots of grey garbage sticking both to the bottom of the pot, and the outside of it, but not within the melt itself. Even without fluxing, gentle stirring brings it to a surface: the bottom, the sides, or the top. Once it reaches a surface it sticks there unless stirred, and if scraped off sides or bottom it comes to the top. There is something strange about the idea of a metal oxide being about as dense as the metal itself; oxygen just isn't that heavy.

That is a long way of saying that I have no suggestions at the moment as to what it is, but you have to get the stuff out if it won't dissolve. I get enough grunge embedded in the surface of my bullets even when the melt seems to be clean (except for odd bits on the bottom and sides of the pot) - having the stuff actually suspended in the melt would be disgusting, like dead insects in the mayo.

There is something outside my experience in this whole story. My ex-scrap foundry type turns out to be pretty variable stuff, with hardness all the way from here to there, but it all melts easily and makes beautiful castings with an unearthly, tarnish-free sheen (give or take a bit of grunge picked up on the way through the bottom-pour valve). A couple of years later they still look about the same, nearly as shiny and still with impossibly sharp detail on the castings.



I'm trying to figure out what to try as a fluxing agent,or any little trick

[Bass Ackward]

I'm trying to figure out what to try as a fluxing agent,or any little trick


You need a special flux that I don't know what's in it. It's pink. This guy sells it.

http://www.theantimonyman.com/antimony.htm

[carpetman]

Maybe flux it with a deer antler????

[Nueces]

...a dull deer antler

[charger 1]

Talked to the antimony man Bass
He just told me to flux traditionally, flux lots,and mix only 1-19 in my pot....So today I will succeed or pour another 20 pounds of mix into the snow.Not that thats getting sickening

[Bass Ackward]

Talked to the antimony man Bass
He just told me to flux traditionally, flux lots,and mix only 1-19 in my pot....So today I will succeed or pour another 20 pounds of mix into the snow.Not that thats getting sickening


Charger,

Had to tell you about Bill, lest you never get shootin again. Figured Bill would tell you what to do.

Well, you can always recover it, and mix it to the new ratio.

Have you been doing any shootin yet or are you still playing around with that mix? :grin:

[charger 1]

Charger,

Had to tell you about Bill, lest you never get shootin again. Figured Bill would tell you what to do.

Well, you can always recover it, and mix it to the new ratio.

Have you been doing any shootin yet or are you still playing around with that mix? :grin:

Still diddlin..Gotta have it just so dont ya know
Ya he's quite the boy. I think theres more experience in his baby pinky than I'll ever have.. and common sensical about it to.Real glad I got the chance to have a long chat with him. Well worth the dime.

[KYCaster]

Real glad I got the chance to have a long chat with him. Well worth the dime.[/QUOTE]


I don't think you can have a "short chat" with Bill!!!:-D

Jerry

[charger 1]

Well after about 8 hours with a small quantity in my bigger ,hotter propane fired unit, and adding painfully small amounts to the ww's with about a million bucks worth of tin solder (slight exageration there) I think I got em making bullets.Now we'll see if theres an improvement in hardness..And no, I can't remember half of what I did, notes or no notes

[Bass Ackward]

And no, I can't remember half of what I did, notes or no notes


:groner:

Are you a politician by profession?


But .... now that you have finished playing around, maybe we will see or read about a target.

You can remember how to load? :grin: