To water drop or air cool?

[Feed_EM_Lead]

I have a local foundry that will mix virgin lead alloys at percentages of my preference. I am Looking at a couple of ratios for my 30-30 and 45-70 gov.

I"m looking to push velocities up to 2200fps for the 30-30 and up to 1900fps for the 45-70.

I was wondering what you guys thought of 95% lead- 3% antimony and 2% tin combo? I was also looking at 95% lead- 3.5% antimony and 1.5% tin?

What do you guys think about these ratios for hunting purposes at those velocities?

And would you guys water drop or air cool this type of alloy? What would be the advantages/ disadvantages of both methods?

[Dan Cash]

What ever gives you 24 to 25 Brinell should do very well. Perhaps even softer depending on your bore and rifling profile.

[captaint]

FeedEm - I'm not sure I would try to make my boolits as hard as 24 BHN. Not much more than half of that ought to do it. Gas checks or no ?? Anyway, I would air cool mine for those purposes. enjoy Mike

[runfiverun]

either alloy will work well.
the higher velocity's will most likely want a waterdropped boolit but should perform well.
gaining bhn is good but retaining toughness is better.
the 2-3 alloy will be a good balance.
you can add sulpher or mix this alloy with ww's 50-50 for the arsenic to help.

[375RUGER]

I'm pouring what I believe is 95/2/2 or something very close. You just don't know with WW these days. Couple days out of the mould air-cooled they are 9-10BHN, in 2weeks they are 14BHN. This for general info as I'm shooting in pistols and have no recommendations for your rifle velocities.

[Feed_EM_Lead]

Thanks for the responses guys. So do you guys think that I would need to add a bit more antimony for velocities above 2000 fps? Say about 4-4.5% antimony to get me up to 2200 fps? Another question, when your antimony gets above 4.5% in your mix, don't the bullets start to become brittle when they hit your target (live game target)?

[runfiverun]

it does, but the tin balance helps lower the brittleness.
for hunting deer the waterdropping gives you the external bhn. 18 or so
but it retains the malleability of the lower alloy.
going to a slightly higher percentage alloy gets a bhn without the malleability it will penetrate better because it doesn't deform as readily.
but the SbSnPb chain becomes stronger with the arsenic or sulpher grain modifier.
it makes the grain tighter inside the boolit.
the first one waterdropped about 2-3% is good.
going to a 5/5/90 would be the second.
over 4% antimony starts to give the brittleness characteristics and you begin to lose the alloys toughness.
i use 4/6/90 in my 223/22-250/and 220 swift sized boolits at the higher velocities [2700+]
i use 1-1/2% tin and @3% antimony waterdropped in my 30 cals @ 1900 fps for most everything
except my 308 target rifles then it's the 4/6/90 again.
in my larger bore leverguns/revolvers the 1/3/96 again, but air cooled and plain based as i rely on thier diameter and flat noses to do the job.
if i had to buy from a refinery it would be thier terracorp 2/6/92 standard alloy and some pure lead and tin.
i can manipulate and mix from there.

[Lloyd Smale]

that alloy water dropped may work for you. What i use for that pupose is 5050 ww/lyno which is close. when experimenting for rifles thats where i start and go harder if nessisary.

[Feed_EM_Lead]

Thanks a lot for the info fellas. It is probably where I am going to start and work from there. It seems as though I should be fairly close with those ratios, but might have to tinker with it here and there.

[hemiallen]

Water drop is the way to go, especially if you want to shoot relatively soon after casting. With something close to a Keith alloy in pistol bullets I was amazed at how much harder the surface was after water dropping them.


Allen