Makin' Tin Balls

[nitroproof]

Somewhere on this forum I'd read about casting tin bars into round balls.

I had about 1-1/2 bars of tin on hand so I cast 'em up in my Lee .562 RB mold.
To my delight they weigh 175 grains.

My lead supply is from old water lines and roofing lead, all dead soft stuff.

With 40 TIN BALLS per pound makes it makes it easy to make up a pot of say 30:1.

Casting tin was rather interesting as it cools WAY SLOWER than lead, probably 5 times longer for the sprue puddle to solidify. Open the mold too soon and it comes out like an under cooked soft boiled egg! The sprues cut very easily.

I'd offered my .562" mold for sale some time ago but had no takers, glad I didn't now.

[beagle]

Good idea. I pour mine out in thin, 1/4" sticks in an old ingot mould and cut off what i want as needed. You're idea is better./beagle

[Janoosh]

This is a great idea. I always have a problem cutting and measuring out any amount of tin. This idea went right by me. Perhaps I was being too technical and missed the simplicity of this. Thanks to you, sir. And this site.

[richhodg66]

I have a bunch of pewter I need to melt into some kind of ingots, but if I used a RB mold, knowing me I'd somehow end up shooting them by mistake.

I've been using 95/5 solder for alloying, comes in eight ounce rolls so I just cut a fourth of the length for two ounces to add to a ten pound pot.

[Ole]

I just made up some 63/37 boolits last weekend for the same purpose. My 265 ranch dog mold throws 6 200 grain 63/37 ingots and they sure are purdy. :mrgreen:

http://i258.photobucket.com/albums/hh280/Ole1830/IMG_5587.jpg

[letsmeltlead2693]

Why not just make lead-free boolits. Lead-free is compliant in the no lead areas. Please make some pure tin ones and show us.

[MBTcustom]

Why not just make lead-free boolits. Lead-free is compliant in the no lead areas.
Why not take it a step further and make some out of silver? Plenty hard, good for werewolves, safe for indoor shooting, looks real purdy, and besides, if it was good enough for the Lone Ranger, its good enough for me.

[Jailer]

I cast up a bunch of 60/40 solder boolits using 2 different Lee 2 cavity 230gr molds. They came out a little under 200gr each. Makes it easy to add to the pot.

I used 2 molds and alternated with my Lee 4-20 set at it's lowest setting. I could still only get about 5 pours before the molds were overheated and the sprue would take forever to solidify. I think next time I'll just melt them on the hot plate and ladle pour so I can control the temp a little better.