Goofy Theory for Calculating Alloy

[Hamish]

Had a thought strike me while weighting some boolits. Lyman advertises their mould weights as determined using No.2 alloy if I recall correctly. So, in a perfect world,every time you poured no.2 alloy in a Lyman mould, you would have a boolit that weights exactly what it was specified for. When you use a different alloy, the weights change.

Ok, goofy thought.

Might it be possible to cast a boolit, weight it, and calculate from that weight by comparing it to the specified no.2 alloy weight, just what percentages of lead, tin, and whatever else, are in the alloy?

Just a thought,,,,,,

[williamwaco]

No....


.

[Hamish]

Yer Killin' me man, just killin' me here.:groner:

[MT Gianni]

Just because the dishwasher is running doesn't mean you can't ignore it. The previous posters answered correctly re the other question.

[williamwaco]

Hamish,

There abut a zillion reasons that will not work. I didn't want to type that much.

[Hamish]

"I have not failed. I've just found 10,000 ways that won't work."-Edison

William, I just thought it was a shame it was a dead end. Half the fun of CB is watching a ideas develop and blossom.

[10 ga]

Sure it'll work! That is what compooters are for. Now you just have to write the program and delineate all the possible variables. If they can aim a rocket at mars from here and hit it, shot alligned with a computer, they can sure backwards compoot what that alloy might be. List might be a bit long but you'll have your choices to take. Personally I'd just SWAG and do "good enough". 10 ga




lead dust X

[runfiverun]

if it weighed the same your tin and antimony could be 3% tin and 7% antimony and the weight of the boolit would fall within acceptable weight differences for the 5/5 alloy.
if you had pure lead/linotype then the weight would be different enough to tell.
you might could weigh it under water and tell the difference between tin and antimony if they were the 10%

[clodhopper]

Then if your allow was perfect.
It's time to worry about machineing tolerences in the mold

[williamwaco]

"I have not failed. I've just found 10,000 ways that won't work."-Edison

William, I just thought it was a shame it was a dead end. Half the fun of CB is watching a ideas develop and blossom.

I find that the other half is doing things "they say" will not work. I do that frequently.

I would love it if you could show me how to make it work.


.

[madsenshooter]

Rich, sounds like one of the algebraic problems I used to hate. But, if one knew the specific gravity.....

[Hamish]

WW, I'm not the brightest crayon in the box, and that's ok, but it's a little frustrating when it comes to understanding alloy manipulation and lube chemistry. I try to keep up and sometimes perseverance rewards me with more than a rudimentary understanding. The other side of the coin is an absolute refusal to do something just because "that's the way we've always done it" with out a logical thought process behind it. It's too much fun figuring out how to improve a thing or a process to let the dead ends slow a fella down.

[geargnasher]

You can do it like this:

Suzy has a 100 gram, ternary ingot composed of lead, antimony and tin. The ingot has a volume of ten mL. Given that lead has a specific gravity of 11.4 g/mL, antimony is (I forget) g/mL, and tin is 7.31 g/mL, how many grams of each element does Suzy have?

Any combination of the three elements can total the weight, but only one combination will total the weight and equal the exact volume, since the SGs of the three elements are unique. SG cannot, therefore, be taken as a single variable, but must be broken down and calculated as a running proportion. You will be setting up an equation to solve for three variables simultaneously using only five knowns.

So the function would start out like f(x,y,z) =....... and then you'd do a volume integral of that function, like so: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Volume_integral. For once, Wikipedia actually has a pretty decent explanation of something, kudos to the author of that page.

Have fun!

Gear

[Hardcast416taylor]

If Tom left NYC on a train heading West and was traveling 45 MPH, when and where would he smash head on into Larry that left LA on a train traveling 55 MPH and traveling East on the same track? Show all work and formulas used as part of your answer..... Now you understand why I use 50/50 alloy for most everything.Robert

[geargnasher]

If Tom left NYC on a train heading West and was traveling 45 MPH, when and where would he smash head on into Larry that left LA on a train traveling 55 MPH and traveling East on the same track? Show all work and formulas used as part of your answer..... Now you understand why I use 50/50 alloy for most everything.Robert

It's easy to figure for binary, as in your example, but say you have three airplanes, all traveling different speeds, but at the same altitude, toward each other from equidistant points, and have to determine the time and location of the simultaneous midair collision.

Gear

[Carolina Cast Bullets]

If it looks like lead alloy, feels like lead alloy and smells like lead alloy, its probably lead alloy,

CAST WITH IT AND FORGET THE REST


lol

Jerry
Carolina Cast Bullets

[Hamish]

*Now* we are getting somewhere!

(As long as the principles maintain a clear and unwavering understanding that I am like a blind man with a bad sense of smell trying to find a bouquet of marigolds in a flower shop when it concerns even rudimentary higher mathematics.) (I'll blow you up at Scrabble, but have to solve for X? I'm usually screwed.)

Using the volume analogy, then if you have a mould that will cast a specified weight with a specified alloy, then isn't it true that using that same mould, the weight of any given casting will tell you what the alloy is comprised of if enough time was spent cataloging what differing alloys weighted out to at that specific volume?

In other words, my theory is true, but it is one of those theoretical, chase your tail deals that are best ignored in the real world. Yes?

(In other words, shut up and cast!)

[10 ga]

Only three ingredients? I usually have a bit of pewter, a couple of the "Oregon Trail" boolits and buckshot and whatnot dug out of the berm, some scrapings off a real silver coin (all boolits should be useful for emerfency werewolf or werebear hunting), and scavenged lead that came from electronic and plumbing solder joints and battery terminals and so on and on... Just how many different ingredients could there be? Pretty much guaranteed to have lead, arsenic, tin, antimony, copper, et al.... I don't think of it a 3 airplanes that are gonna crash I look at it like a huge formation of B52s on an arclight carpet bombing mission. Perhaps they can take out DC and some of NoVA and central Md. Best, 10 ga



lead paint dust XX

[williamwaco]

*Now* we are getting somewhere!

In other words, my theory is true, but it is one of those theoretical, chase your tail deals that are best ignored in the real world. Yes?



Hamish:

The question was:
"Might it be possible to cast a boolit, weight it, and calculate from that weight by comparing it to the specified no.2 alloy weight, just what percentages of lead, tin, and whatever else, are in the alloy?"

A famous American we all know and love, and some of us even remember, once said:

"In theory, there is no difference between theory and reality. In reality, there is.":

The answer to your question is:

In theory:
Yes. IF you know the contents of the subject bullet alloy. ( This is highly unlikely. ) You can do the calculation. Most of us did it many times in chemistry and physics classes.


In reality:
Yes: You can do the calculation.
No: you cannot find 'just what percentages of lead, tin, and whatever else, are in the alloy'


Why:

1) Even Lyman says the percentages of the components in the alloy they sell as No.2 is highly variable depending on lot number and source smelter. It is variable as to percentages of lead, tin, and antimony and to types and amounts of other impurities. ( I read that in one of the Lyman loading manuals but I don't remember which one.)

2) Your actual mold will not produce a bullet weighing "the specified no. 2 alloy" weight." even with known No.2 alloy. ( If it does, it will be an accident. )

3) If you cast a batch of bullets with a known No.2 alloy you will get weight variations of as much as 2 to 3 percent.

4) If you cast a batch of bullets with an unknown alloy, you will get similar variation.

5) Which weight do you use? Max, Min, Average?

6) Different alloys will produce bullets of different diameters thus different volumes. Actually my measurements indicates the lengths are also variable. Thus you cannot assume that your test bullet has the same volume as the No. 2 bullet.

7) tin has a density of 7280 Kg/M^(3)
zinc has a density of 7135
antimony has a density of 6690

The difference between zinc and tin is only 2%.
That is less than your weighing error.
Even if you do the calculation, you can not be sure if you are measuring tin or zinc. ( or a combination of both )

[Hamish]

"5) Which weight do you use? Max, Min, Average?

The Bell Curve Rule is paramount.

"6) Different alloys will produce bullets of different diameters thus different volumes. Actually my measurements indicates the lengths are also variable. Thus you cannot assume that your test bullet has the same volume as the No. 2 bullet".

A real world variable that I let slip, and this alone disproves the theory, since, though the volume of the mould is filled the same amount each time, (go with it), the percentage of volumetric shrinkage differs by alloy. This would be something that I suspect that a knowledgeable caster would use to his advantage to adjust the physical dimensions of his casting to tailor boolit fit.

"Actually my measurements indicates the lengths are also variable."

3 dimensional world, 3 dimensional boolit. Expansion and contraction in any and all directions.

"I usually have a bit of pewter, a couple of the "Oregon Trail" boolits and buckshot and whatnot dug out of the berm, some scrapings off a real silver coin"

Alchemy at it's finest! It's time I graduated from range scrap and solder myself to help with a fill out issue on a new 316155.

"If it looks like lead alloy, feels like lead alloy and smells like lead alloy, its probably lead alloy,"

Reminds me of a certain Cheech and Chong bit from the early '70's. Something or other about tasting something,,,,,

Gentlemen, thank you very much for the input,I appreciate your patience, and it occurs to me that "It only matters, if it does."

[madsenshooter]

"Alchemy at it's finest! It's time I graduated from range scrap and solder myself to help with a fill out issue on a new 316155."

More heat Rich! Put the mold on a hotplate and get a bit over 350. NOE molds really transfer the heat to the surrounding air. Especially a big ol 5 cavity.

[fecmech]

I love this board, it really lightens up the day!

[Trapshooter]

In the book "The Art of Bullet Casting" from Wolfe publishing, there are two articles which describe two different approaches to determine lead / tin / antimony content using measurements of specific gravity, given the assumption that impurities are at "trace levels", one by Rick Jamison and one by Fredrick Hohorst. If I recall correctly, one or both of them also used other characteristics of the metal (measured hardness and "brittleness or fracture observations") to determine relative content of tin and antimony. (With 3 unknowns, you need more than one equation.) The limiting factors of composition accuracy is primarily due to one's lab technique and equipment, . It looks to me like Jamison spent quite a bit of time and money to develop and test his "theory", buying laboratory pure metals and laboratory grade scales. He produced a table (probably using paper, pencil, and slide rule) which relates specific gravity and observed characteristics to alloy percentages.

I tried both methods (Jamison & Hohorst) to determine alloy content of a few different solders and on some commercial cast bullets which were supposedly made from virgin foundry alloys. The results were consistent. It may not be as accurate as the X-Ray gun at the scrap yard, but the equipment doesn't cost $25,000 either.

Although the book is out of print, and sold for near $100 not long ago, Wolfe Publishing sold a CD for a pretty cheap price.

Trapshooter

[Hamish]

More heat Rich! Put the mold on a hotplate and get a bit over 350. NOE molds really transfer the heat to the surrounding air. Especially a big ol 5 cavity.

Awhile back I stumbled across a picture of anther members home made metal box that sits over his hot plate, I plan to cut down a loaf pan. That and I don't believe that my electric crepe maker is making the kind of temperature that is needed. I had a 2 burner hot plate in my hand at a yard sale a couple of day's ago and talked myself out of it.

Trapshooter, thanks for the heads up on the CD, good post sir.

[Hardcast416taylor]

WHOA THERE 10 Gauge!! Your hypothetical B52 Arclight run over NE Va is where my daughter and her family lives!Robert

[John Boy]

I fail to see the point with the starting post in this thread:
* Lyman has 0.002 machine tolances
* Yes they use Lyman #2 for mold bullet weight publications
* There are many resources to calculate various alloys and the associated shrinkage

And the big picture is ... SO WHAT? Different Weight? Change your powder charge - Period!

Now as for the extreme majority of the shooters of their cast bullets - the majority don't shoot much over 100 yds. Those major minority the shoot long range on this board, a 5gr weight difference with a given box of reloads at 1000yds = 4 MOA deviation. So these shooters weigh the bullets within a 0.2gr variance.

Banging paper or steel with a handgun at 25 yds - several gr wt variance doesn't mean squat
SUCK IT UP AND MOVE ON!

[Bob Krack]

SUCK IT UP AND MOVE ON!

Is that an order?

Bob

[DRNurse1]

Had a thought strike me while weighting some boolits. Lyman advertises their mould weights as determined using No.2 alloy if I recall correctly. So, in a perfect world,every time you poured no.2 alloy in a Lyman mould, you would have a boolit that weights exactly what it was specified for. When you use a different alloy, the weights change.

Ok, goofy thought.

Might it be possible to cast a boolit, weight it, and calculate from that weight by comparing it to the specified no.2 alloy weight, just what percentages of lead, tin, and whatever else, are in the alloy?

Just a thought,,,,,,

The answers so far are interesting. What happens to the Volume if the alloy composition changes?? If the Boolits are the same size per the OP, that pulls volume out of the calculation and then the mass/ volume of the alloy components can be calculated.

There is a similar challege for High School Chemistry Students: Put a unknown combination of coins in a bag of known weight. using sample coins of each denomination, calculate the average weight of that denomination. Then determine the most likely combination of coins to reach the unknown bags weight. This sounds a bit like that, or am I oversimplifying?

For casters, we need to eliminate outlyers (air bubbles, non colloidal mixes, odd inclusions, etc.) Also temperature has an impact on volume, but I think once the bollits can be handled that can also be taken out of the equation.

What do you think?

[Hamish]

I fail to see the point with the starting post in this thread:

And the big picture is ... SO WHAT?

SUCK IT UP AND MOVE ON!

John Boy

I apologize ever so much for wasting your very valuable time. Thank you for letting me know that since my powers of cogitation are so manifestly inferior to yours, I will forthwith cease and desist from any further effort to attain any shape or form of understanding on the subject. I am ever so grateful.

You know what, I just can't stand the shame of it, I'm going to throw myself off the middle step of the back porch. :violin: Goodbye cruel internet,,,,,,,,

DrNurse1:

"There is a similar challege for High School Chemistry Students: Put a unknown combination of coins in a bag of known weight. using sample coins of each denomination, calculate the average weight of that denomination. Then determine the most likely combination of coins to reach the unknown bags weight. This sounds a bit like that, or am I oversimplifying?"

Sounds pretty close to me. As it looks like the original idea is only has merit on a purely theoretical level, changes in the variables like weight and spatial inconsistencies are moot.

**If anyone else has gotten to this point and feels that they have been heinously cheated of time that could have been better spent, I would invite you to click on this and peruse posts 1,9, and 153.**

http://castboolits.gunloads.com/showthread.php?t=149553

[geargnasher]

Not the same thing, Hamish. With coins, you have known increments of each. In small quantities (only a few of each coin in the bag), the number can be calculated fairly accurately. Certain combinations of coins can only equal a certain weight. If a quarter weighs a gram, a dime .2 grams, and a nickel .3 grams, and you have 1.5 grams total, you know you can ONLY have one of each in the bag, because no other combination will yield that total. Same principle for a bag full, just extrapolated out. The more total coins, the higher the probability of error because you split the hair more finely.

Like Trapshooter pointed out, and I explained in post #13, you have three variables to solve for, and are functions of each other. The only way I know to do that is multivariable calculus. So check out the Wiki link I posted, then you might actually feel like jumping off the middle step of your back porch! Actually, if you can solve basic calculus (solve summation problems, definite/indefinite integrals, or find the derivatives of a function), it isn't that much of a stretch to do it for three variables, but I haven't done that sort of math in over fifteen years and might jump off my own middle step if I had to go there again, so you're on your own!

Gear

[Reloader06]

This is GREAT! Keep at it guys.:popcorn:


Matt

[MBTcustom]

What you are over simplifying is the alloy. You are assuming that there are only three metals that ammount to anything in the alloy. That is not the case! I have tested many many samples of lead and one thing I can tell you for certain is that lead will marry anything! Its a box of chocolates. If you set a cube of lead on a cube of gold, and leave them for long enough they will become one. When lead is molten, many other metals will dissolve right into it. Again, if you take a gold coin and hold it with some forceps, and dip it in your lead pot, you won't be able to pull it out fast enough to keep it from disappearing.
Did you know that Linotype often has up to 4% tungsten in it?
things like that throw a serious monkey in the wrench

[Mooseman]

\ one thing I can tell you for certain is that lead will marry anything! Its a box of chocolates. If you set a cube of lead on a cube of gold, and leave them for long enough they will become one. When lead is molten, many other metals will dissolve right into it. Again, if you take a gold coin and hold it with some forceps, and dip it in your lead pot, you won't be able to pull it out fast enough to keep it from disappearing.
\

Tim,
I think you are confusing lead with Mercury. Gold will not melt in a lead pot because it melts at 1948 degrees F. It is one of the least reactive chemical elements solid under standard conditions. The metal therefore occurs often in free elemental (native) form, as nuggets or grains in rocks, in veins and in alluvial deposits. Less commonly, it occurs in minerals as gold compounds, usually with tellurium.
Jewelers must use gold solder to join it because a lead solder wont stick.
The only way gold will disappear in a lead pot is if you drop it in...it sinks to the bottom !!! It will be there when the lead is removed.
When my nuggets get assayed, the usual impurities are Copper,silver, and occasionally some platinum...but never any lead...
Mercury on the other hand will marry gold and other metals.
Rich

[MBTcustom]

Sorry Mooseman, your wrong on this one.
I didn't say it melts into the lead, I said it dissolves.
A lead pot is used to strip the gold plating off test leads in the aerospace industry. The solder I get out of those pots has nearly 1% gold in it. This is common practice. When I was first told about it by a first tier engineer, I thought he had lost his marbles because gold melts at such a higher temperature. However, the guy took me over to where the ladies were busily stripping circuits and diodes and such, and I got to see it with my own eyes. They actually use eutectic solder (63/37) that has a melting point of just 370 degrees F to dissolve gold almost instantly.

Here is a quote from a google search:
http://mysite.du.edu/~jcalvert/phys/lead.htm

In the ancient world, a very important application of metallurgy was to the winning of gold and silver from their ores, and the testing of objects made from gold and silver to determine their purity. This was made much more difficult than it is today by the unavailability of strong mineral acids. A particular problem was the "parting" of gold and silver; that is, separating the two metals. Often, whatever alloy happened to result from the smelting process was used without further treatment. Lead played an important role in these matters, both in recovering gold and silver from their ores, assaying ore quality, and testing objects for purity.

[MBTcustom]

These impurities usually make up less than 2% of any given boolit alloy, and the heavy hitters are still tin and antimony. The problem with the original theory, is that you want to cast a boolit and figure whats in it by the weight and size. Hmmmm those two % impurities make trouble for you. Even if you added hardness into the test, you just can't predict two of the possible ingredients any closer than say 5% accuracy, because the inclusions of these other metals effects the shrinkage and the fill-out of the mold. Also, how do you intend to make the heat of the alloy, and the heat of the mold a constant? What would you use as a baseline?
Mathematics are a wonderful thing, but they are only as accurate, precise and true as the information you use in the equation. My dad (a scientist) used to tell me in high school, "garbage in = garbage out." You may have three indisputable factors that are completely true and solid. As long as you maintain those three in their purity, you can trust the information produced to be true. However, if you add one variable that is an assumption, then it makes the entire equation an assumption and a WAG.
So, right off the bat, you are wanting to find the very delicate internal balance of an alloy, based on what concrete facts?
1. A specific mold.
The mold is the closest thing to a constant that you have, and even that is heavily dependent on how you use it.
2. A specific heat.
I don't know about you, but my molds can cast in a huge range of weight and size based on the temperature of the room, alloy, and mold. Other factors are how long the stream falls before going into the sprue, how long I wait before cutting the sprue, etc etc etc. Temperature is one of the hardest things to control IMHO.
3. Hardness
This is a third variable that we are able to measure to triangulate the relationship of three metals within an alloy. This also is effected by the precision and accuracy of the previous two variables. You cannot depend on this piece of information, unless you have controlled the other two to perfection. Also, how fast you cool the boolits effect this right away, and later as the boolit age hardens. I assume you would be making immediate measurements, so the age hardening doesn't matter, but the exact temperature of the room or water, or any other quenching medium, would have to be held to a strict constant.
4. The alloy itself
This is the biggest assumption of them all. If you definitely had only three variables (lead tin antimony) and you managed to effectively control points 1-3, I could see how a mathematical equation could get you kinda-sorta close, but if you have any significant amount of COWW in the mix, you can throw this out the window. Most folks accept the fact that COWW work really well for cast boolits, and they believe that they have 2-3% antimony, and a certain level of tin (less than 2%) because they read that somewhere. I have tested COWW myself, and the results were....enlightening. I tested several samples many times, and found no tin and less than 1.5% antimony in those samples. Which begs the question, why, if there are so little of the two most important elements to our sport, are COWW still hard enough to alloy 50/50 with pure and get good results? I think it has to do with the 2% of impurities that I also found. Lots of hard metals like tungsten, molybdenum, nickle, copper, gold, silver, etc etc etc. It would be easier to list the metals that I did not find than to list the metals that I did.
All of this was very interesting to study and test and observe, and for a time, I was really making sure that my alloy was exactly just so, but I ended up concluding that hardness is a much more important variable for cast lead boolits. If it's hardness is right (Ie not to hard and not too soft for the application) then it wont matter what what the actual ingredients are.

[mehavey]

You have two unknowns
and three variables (Lead, Tin, and Antimony)

Can't get there from here.
(and even that's ignoring the somewhat nonlinear hardening effects of antimony's introduction)

[375RUGER]

looks like i'm missing out on some:popcorn:

[lwknight]

Simple:
You cannot determine the exact composition of a ternaray alloy by S.G alone. Best guess is more the case. Then add other physical properties and get a very likely educated guess of either /or.

You have to have a clue of what you are up against and then its still a matter of probability.

So the answer is a resounding : NO!!

[1Shirt]

Far to technickle for me to concern myself with!
1Shirt!