mixing question...again

[41 mag fan]

Ok, heres where I become dense. Me and %'s do not get along together at all.
I've got close to 1000lbs of fairly pure lead. Maybe just a little harder than pure, but when an ingot is dropped on concrete it's a dull thud.

But if I wanted to make lyman #2 but want to make it in 100lb batches,
do I need to formulate like this?

Lyman #2 90/5/5
90% = 90 lbs of my lead
5% = 5 lbs tin
5% = 5 lbs Antimony


Thanks for helping the dense, like myself.

I've got the calculator but it's not showing what i need for big batches.

[bumpo628]

Yeah that would work, but from what I've heard alloying pure antimony is a royal pain. I would recommend buying some Rotometals Superhard (30% antimony, 70% lead).

Then the recipe would be:
17 lbs Superhard + 5 lbs pure tin + 73 lbs pure lead = alloy with 5% tin, 5.1% antimony.

[Budmen]

Definately Dont bother trying to alloy pure antimony into your mix it sucks and you waste more then you use I use almost a pound before I got to Lyman 2 on a 25# batch. At 20$ a pound its horrible I second the super hard if you dont have any other ways to get lyno or mono maybe put some of your 1000# of pure up for trade

[williamwaco]

DO NOT TRY TO USE PURE ANTIMONY.

Log on to www.rotometals.com and look at their superhard alloy. It was created for exactly what you want to do and they will have recipies for various combinations.

NOW. NOTE THIS.

Do not sweat the percentages. You are not making a cancer drug.

If your alloy is plus or minus one or two percentage points on any of the three ingredients, you will not be able to tell the difference.

.

[41 mag fan]

Yeah that would work, but from what I've heard alloying pure antimony is a royal pain. I would recommend buying some Rotometals Superhard (30% antimony, 70% lead).

Then the recipe would be:
17 lbs Superhard + 5 lbs pure tin + 73 lbs pure lead = alloy with 5% tin, 5.1% antimony.

Thanks Bumpo.
I knew alloying pure Antimony was a hassle if not close to impossible, from previous threads.
When it comes to %'s I go totally blank, to a point.
What I did was just throw the Lyman #2 out there for a reference to me to use, due to the #'s being easy for me to understand.
That way I can play with the mix, till I find the one I want, and like and is cheap to make up.

Right now, I've got maybe 20 lbs of the hardball I was going to use, and mix with my pure.

[41 mag fan]

Definately Dont bother trying to alloy pure antimony into your mix it sucks and you waste more then you use I use almost a pound before I got to Lyman 2 on a 25# batch. At 20$ a pound its horrible I second the super hard if you dont have any other ways to get lyno or mono maybe put some of your 1000# of pure up for trade


DO NOT TRY TO USE PURE ANTIMONY.

Log on to www.rotometals.com and look at their superhard alloy. It was created for exactly what you want to do and they will have recipies for various combinations.

NOW. NOTE THIS.

Do not sweat the percentages. You are not making a cancer drug.

If your alloy is plus or minus one or two percentage points on any of the three ingredients, you will not be able to tell the difference.

.


No No I broke it down into #'s I can fathom. I wasn't thinking of trying to alloy antimony, I just broke it down from %'s to lbs so I could understand it better.
Math wasn't my biggest fan in school.

[MikeS]

If it's any help at all, my #2 alloy is made with a 26# brick of pure lead, 20# of linotype, and 3# of 50/50 solder. Just double those numbers and you'll be close to your desired amount of 100#.

[41 mag fan]

Thanks Mike. I'm trying to get a ratio up as cheap as possible. The lead is free from work for me. Just penny pinching on this project

[Defcon-One]

If it's any help at all, my #2 alloy is made with a 26# brick of pure lead, 20# of linotype, and 3# of 50/50 solder. Just double those numbers and you'll be close to your desired amount of 100#.

Mike:

Try this:

26 lbs. of Pure Lead
21 lbs. of Linotype
3.35 lbs. of 50/50 Solder

That mix will give you 50.4 lbs. of TRUE Lyman #2. Yours mix is actually short on Tin (4.69%) and Antimony (4.90%)!

Just a heads-up in case it matters to you!

[MikeS]

Thanks, I'll give that a try the next time I mix some up (pretty soon). I guess I should add that what I'm calling 50/50 isn't really. What is is exactly is: Sn 47.82% Pb 42.87% Sb 6.86% & Cu 1.18%. When I got my approximation of Lyman #2 tested with a Niton gun, it was Pb 89.97% Sn 4.22% Sb 3.85% Fe 0.70% Zn 0.24% & Cu 0.20%, so it wasn't too exact to start with, but for what I do it is/was close enough. If you have a suggestion using the '50/50' that I'm using to be able to get it closer to the true 90/5/5 I'm all ears. Thanks!

[41 mag fan]

Well yesterday I took a chance and melted 110lbs of my battery straps and 40lbs of hard cast from Rotometals. Smelted them, then tried some casting. It seemed to cast just fine, with no problems. Water quenched my cassts instead of air cooling.
This morning went and looked at my casts, tried the finger nail test and they seemed pretty hard. Was hard to scratch with my finger nail.

But heres a pic of my batch I made up

http://castboolits.gunloads.com/imagehosting/49154f5de636478a6.jpg

[letsmeltlead2693]

WW are great for boolits. Never made boolits but I hear it is a good general purpose alloy and NO mixing needed. I make sinkers and WW are also easy to find if you don't live in Liberal and Commie, USA.

[41 mag fan]

WW are great for boolits. Never made boolits but I hear it is a good general purpose alloy and NO mixing needed. I make sinkers and WW are also easy to find if you don't live in Liberal and Commie, USA.


WW around here locally are scarse. You'd be more likely to see the idiot in office at a shooting range with a gun in his hand than to find a bucket of WW's around here.
Besides, why scrounge for WW when I get lead for free from work.
Plus you cast boolits, you'll find mixing alloys is a hobby and challenge, just like casting is a hobby within the reloading hobby.

[KYCaster]

If you have trouble alloying Sb into your lead, you're doing it wrong.

I know Rotometal's super hard alloy is easy to use, but you're paying quite a bit for the convenience.

Jerry

[41 mag fan]

If you have trouble alloying Sb into your lead, you're doing it wrong.

I know Rotometal's super hard alloy is easy to use, but you're paying quite a bit for the convenience.

Jerry

No trouble alloying....it's the figuring part that stumps me. % can be at times a foriegn language to me