keeping your alloy consistant

[randyrat]

OK, I am casting from my own ingots of WWs and 60/40 tin ingots. My question is; if i can cast 171 gr bullets from a 175 mold all the time, that should tell me my hardness-tin/lead is consistant also right? One reason i ask is, i'm not 100% certain my 60/40 tin ingots are consistant. For example; I melt some of my ingots of lead and tin and my bullets are comming out a little heavy, i need to add a little more tin right? Hope i'm on the right track here, because i don't have a hardness tester. BTW i'm casting for an XD40 cal auto. 44 mag revolver is on my wish list this year.

[Lloyd Smale]

should be close enough if the weight matches

[Sundogg1911]

WW's vary in the amount of antimony, but like Lloyd says it should be close enough

[sundog]

Close enough is close enough, especially if you make a large run of all the same stuff. I have won or placed in so many mil bolt matches using different combinations of stuff, that I now think that the alloy is the least of your worries, as long as you have enough of the same stuff for consistency.

If you have a little of this and a little of that and little of sonething else, put it all in a big pot, render it down, and you got a whole lot of 'I don't know'. But that lot of I don't know is all the same.

[buck1]

"if you make a large run of all the same stuff"



Thats the trick!

[357maximum]

I have a cast iron tub available....using it wood fired you could make an absolutely huge batch of "I don't know alloy".

Alloy is only important if you have a specific use for it...IE making live critters into meat, or matching the thrust forces of your iron for accuracy other than that it is basically a non issue[smilie=1: I find the longer and skinnier the boolit the harder it needs to be to match it up for accuracy potential, but as my bore sizes get smaller I tend to push them harder, so coincidnces aside I personally think to a point it does matter. Finding the points is a trial and error off a hunch type deal though, if you ever intend to maximize everything ...alloy will make a difference...it has for me anyway.

You can do it without a BHN tester, but the tester sure makes consistancy easier..

[joeb33050]

I don't think that variation in BHN of ~+/- 2 makes much or any difference in shooting accuracy or leading, have a test under way.
I do know how to make a big batch of alloy the same, using a small pot.
My 20# Lee pot holds one full muffin pan of 12 ingots.
Melt stuff, flux, pour ~3/4 of the pot into the muffin pan. Make a set of 12 3/4 full muffins.
Melt more stuff, pour ~3/4 of the pot into the muffin pan. Make a set of 12 muffins.
Keep it up until all the stuff has peen melted, fluxed,poured, keep the sets of muffins separate. Then count the sets of muffins. Say you have 9 sets. Take one muffin from each set, melt and flux, pour into the muffin pan, make a set of 9 muffins. Keep the set of 9 separate from the others. Keep doing it until you have sets of 9. When I stop here, the alloy is almost the same for all sets, but I do it again. Say you have 12 sets of 9 muffins. Take one from each of the 12 sets, melt and flux and pour. Keep it up until done. This works with ~240 # of alloy = 12 sets of 12, and can be made to work with more. My experience is that 3 melt and pours gives me an alloy that casts bullets weighing the same to the end.
joe brennan