Grandpas50AE
02-12-2012, 06:11 PM
I was reviewing my old loading/casting notes from many years ago this afternoon, and I noticed some log entries that I found interesting. I thought I might share them here. In the 70's, my brothers and I were casting boolits from plain WW's and always air cooled. We cast .44's in GC (429244), .45's in Kieth-style PB (an RCBS mold), and .41's in PB for the magnum from a mold that I don't remember if it was Lyman or RCBS but dropped 215 gr. Kieth-style SWC's. Never had any problem with obturation or with leading in any of them. Same with the 358429 for the .357 mags, and we were loading full hunting loads in all of them in those days.
The first interesting log entry I noticed was in 1992, where I made an observataion that the WW alloy must have changed because the boolits were showing increased brittleness, probably due to a reduction in tin content (that when tin started getting pretty expensive on the commodity markets IIRC).
Shortly after that entry was one that indicated several shooting/handloading magazines carrying articles about WW alloy having become more brittle, with a higher ratio content of Sb / Sn.
If we extrapolate a timeline allowing for the newer WW alloy to have been on cars' tires for a few years before ramping up in the casting material pipeline, that would indicate the alloy changed sometime in the late 80's I would think.
Of course these days we have Zinc and who knows what other metals in the form of WW's, I don't have any notes on that transition.
Did any of the rest of you casting before the mid-80's notice this same timeframe? Just curious.
The first interesting log entry I noticed was in 1992, where I made an observataion that the WW alloy must have changed because the boolits were showing increased brittleness, probably due to a reduction in tin content (that when tin started getting pretty expensive on the commodity markets IIRC).
Shortly after that entry was one that indicated several shooting/handloading magazines carrying articles about WW alloy having become more brittle, with a higher ratio content of Sb / Sn.
If we extrapolate a timeline allowing for the newer WW alloy to have been on cars' tires for a few years before ramping up in the casting material pipeline, that would indicate the alloy changed sometime in the late 80's I would think.
Of course these days we have Zinc and who knows what other metals in the form of WW's, I don't have any notes on that transition.
Did any of the rest of you casting before the mid-80's notice this same timeframe? Just curious.