Pink boolits?

[jhrosier]

I loaded the pot up with some lino to cast a batch of 44s.
Imagine my surprise when they came out with a pretty pink hue.:confused:
Is this normal for straight (no pun intended) lino?

[crazy mark]

If they were from San Francisco it might be OK. Maybe it was female lino as opposed to blue (boy) lead. Never have seen lino turn pink before. Mark

[EMC45]

Had some alloy turn a bluish color after adding some 50/50.

[SharpsShooter]

Was the lino used to print an "alternate lifestyle" Magazine? Might explain it................


SS

[Wayne Smith]

Blushingly embarassed to be turned into bullets??

[USARO4]

Did you use bubblegum for flux? Please post some pictures.

[lathesmith]

I had some unknown alloy form the most beautiful purple oxide on top the other day. I have a suspicion that I may have gotten hold of some battery lead...humorous responses aside, I suspect you may have gotten hold of some also. All kinds of interesting reactions can occur with traces of this stuff...just make sure your casting area is well-ventilated, and as long as you don't have any corrosive effects on your equipment, it really shouldn't be a problem. Enjoy the pretty colors!
lathesmith

[4060MAY]

monotype has a tendency to cast with a pinkish hue.
only saw it once and the type was suppose to be only the first casting, close to virgin metal

air cooled should be 22-30 bhn

[jhrosier]

It is definately some kind of type metal.
Is there any way to tell whether it is lino or monotype?
When I add new metal to the pot, it turns "slushy", like oatmeal and needs more heat to melt. Once it is melted and fluxed, I can turn the heat down about 100 degrees.
The bullets are off the scale on my hardness tester and I can't make a mark with the thumbnail. The Lee 429214 SWC mold is throwing 195 gr boolits at .430 dia.

[floodgate]

jhrosier:

If it shows the "slush range" you describe, it is NOT linotype - at least, not fresh lino without some of the alloying components burned out. Linotype is a "eutectic", which means it is a metal compound that melts and/or freezes all at once. I am not acquainted with the characteristics of monotype, so can't help there.

floodgate

[Lloyd Smale]

i was once given some lynotype plus (at least thats what he called it) from a printer that was suppose to be a high tin high antimony additive that printers added to lynotype to get the tin and antimony percentages back up on tired lineotype. It would act simularly as to the sludge. I figured what it was was the high level of antimony in it. I never casted anything with it straight so i dont know if it would cast pink or not. If i remember correctly adding 2 lbs of that stuff to 8lbs of ww would get me hardness about like good lineotype. He had a special flux that he gave me along with it and said it was nessisary to get it to mix well. This was about 10 years ago and I wish i could get some more to play with seriously. He gave me about 25lbs of it and i just mixed it with lead and blasted it up.

[garandsrus]

I had some type metal that had a slushy stage with a pretty good percentage of the pot being slush. It took more heat to get the melt uniform.

After smelting, I took a chuck to a local recycler and he told me it was very high in tin and Antimony, making it Foundry type. I wrote about the composition here quite a while ago.

John

[Ricochet]

Lloyd, that sounds like the Plus Metal that wiljen recently had a group buy for.

[KCSO]

I think you have lino tempering material. I got some and it is used for restoring the tin and antimony to much smelted metal. Mine came in a 40 pound ingot divided into 5 pound slugs and was added 5 pounds of tempering to 40 pounds of lino.

[jhrosier]

Well, I think that I will load up a few and see if they don't lead up the bore.
I'm thinking that if the alloy is some high percentage of Antimony and tin, that I will save it for high speed rifle bullets.
I don't think that this is some sort of tempering metal as it came to me already cast into type. I have three five gallon pails of it so I should be able to get quite a few thousand nice hard rifle boolits.:-D
I will try to post some photos later tonite.

[Lloyd Smale]

stereotype is another possiblity. Its real high in antimony

[7br]

iffn ya figure it out, let me know. I have an 8yr old daughter that would think that was the bee's knees.

[jhrosier]

The photos didn't work out. The hue is quite light and subject to the viewing angle.
The flash on the camera just washed out the color.
We will just wait for the weekend to test these, and see if pretty is as pretty does.

[Linstrum]

Colored alloys that are in the range of pink, lavender, purple, or other reddish hues have a large copper content and it is the copper that is responsible for the color. Bismuth, the end member of the family that also contains antimony, arsenic, phosphorus, and nitrogen, is also a pinkish metal but it is so lightly hued that it is not responsible for creating colored alloys.

I have been experimenting with an alloy that is a lavender-pink color from a high copper content, with the copper intentionally added. My goal is to develop an easily cast alloy that is good for 2800 fps in rifle cartridges like the .30-06 and .308 Win without any worry of leading. Since the alloys that use the traditional components of lead, tin, antimony, and arsenic have already been played around with I'm heading off using different materials since alloys using the components I just mentioned have already been taken to their limits over and over again years and years ago, so if something new is wanted there is no point in continuing to use only them since new results are not possible unless some technology never tried before is used, like cryogenic treating with liquid hydrogen to make a hydrogen-lead alloy. I'm not done yet with phos-copper boolits because for the last three years I have not had the time or place to shoot like I would like to, but I have had some pretty encouraging results. If anyone else wants to try my "recipe" it is simple. As the base I use wheel weight alloy that is known to be good and add phosphorus-copper brazing rod to it. The phosphorus-copper brazing rod melts at a dull red heat and to get it dissolved into the wheel weight alloy, the wheel weight alloy has to be heated red-hot and that MUST be done either outside or with adequate ventilation since the temperature is getting into the range where lead vapor is produced strongly. Not all of the alloy has to be heated red hot, just where the brazing rod is submerged is all that is necessary and I do that with a propane torch played on the surface of the alloy. Once the phosphorus-copper brazing rod gets dissolved into the base alloy it melts at a lower more familiar temperature. I have had some pretty encouraging results producing a good slippery boolit that shoots more like a Barnes solid copper than a traditional lead-tin-antimony boolit.

[Sundogg1911]

I had some monotype recently that ended up with a purple tint . Once I mixed it with WW alloy it looked "normal" again. I kida liked it! ;-)

[Linstrum]

Sundogg1911 said:

I had some monotype recently that ended up with a purple tint . Once I mixed it with WW alloy it looked "normal" again. I kida liked it! :wink:
~:/+\:~:/+\:~:/+\:~:/+\:~:/+\:~:/+\:~:/+\:~:/+\:~:/+\:

Yeah! Last week's Mystery Metal posted by cohutt was a wild but nice bright blue color in the photos he posted!

I have seen some pretty wild colors that showed up in a "Who Knows What It Is" alloy I got from the scrap yard to make boolits from. Pink and lavender are pretty common, but the blue one "blue" my mind!

[jhrosier]

Well, it just keeps getting more interesting.
I cast a few in the 31141 mould last night.
I got a bit of something on ths face and cast a couple with fins.
When the boolit cooled, I snapped the fin off like a corn flake!
That seemed awfully brittle for any kind of lead alloy.
I put one of the boolits in the vise by the nose and gave it a light tap with my nylon mallet.
It snapped in half through the crimping goove like a dried twig.
The boolit is completely crystalized.:confused:
I'm just guessing that this stuff is way high in antimony and way low in tin.
I already have 20 8x58RDs loaded so I will shoot them but I won't be at all surprised if they lead ferociously.
I'm thinking that if I add two pounds of this stuff to four pounds of WW, it will probably make some good hard rifle bullets.

[buck1]

My foundry type isnt even that brittle. I say you got yourself some great ++ alloy there!!
I bet you can cut it a lot more than that. 7:1??....Buck

[leftiye]

It could be an alloy similar to cerro safe. They're brittle and etc. as you describe. I think they also contain Bismuth, though I'm not sure. These compositions aren't hard to find. If it is, and it's also pink, I'd guess that linstrum was right about it containing copper too.

[jhrosier]

Update:
The 8mm "pinkies" didn't lead up the bore of my 1869 Swedish rolling block, and shot reasonably well at an average velocity of 1670fps.
The .44s were not so good though, some leading and poor accuracy at 1200+fps.
The two parts mystery metal and four parts WW is still too brittle so I'm going to try it one part in four the next time. The pink color went away but the slush stage is still a problem, requiring too much heat and a long wait between pours. It also takes a vicious whack to break the sprues.
The hardness is still off scale, at two parts to four, on my Saeco hardness tester
All of the moulds that I have tried are filling out nicely though.
I might try a batch with PB, in stead of WW, to see if there is enough tin. If it works, I have a big pile of PB that will become useful.:-D