Different lots of lead.. how do I mix?

[Swede 45]

First time poster from Sweden here, new to casting as well.
Got my hand on a small Lee bottom pour pot and some Lee molds, and are about to get started casting.
I will cast for soft targetloads in .38 spl and later on, 45acp. I don´t expect to run my loads faster than max 950 f/sec

I have been picking up lead here and there, and I´m now stuck with alot of different lots that I´m not sure about the true alloy of!
Therefore I plan to mix it all into one alloy and pour into ingots so that I don´t have to worry that the bullets differs from cast to cast depending on what leadsource I use..
Good or bad idea?
Please advice!?

This is what I´ve got so far:
30 lb of cable scrap lead (some say this is pure soft lead, some say it already contains antimony and tin?
40 lb of unknown lead ( lead from medical containers)
20 lb of clip on WW.
16 lb of lead ingots (marked "Prime Lead" but the guy called them "babbits" and there is some "babbits" with 12%tin, 15%antimony and 73% lead? I don´t know!?, he´s not sure either! His father was a blacksmith who used these for filling hollow guardrails for weight. I don´t know if "babbit" is a general branch term for lead aloy ingots, or is a name for a specific alloy?)
20 lb of lead for bullet casting (from a retired guy that casted his own way back.. source of lead unknown, probably WW with added car body tin to unknown amount. (( car body tin is usualy 27% tin, 1.5% antimony and 71.5 % lead??)) it´s 30yrs old ingots and he used to cast for 32S&W and 38spl target loads.

I also got about 12lb of pure tin!

My plan is to blend all this unknown lead, and then ad some tin to the ratio of 20 lead/1tin to get something similar to Ideal No4
That alloy would get me somewhere around 10:ish in brinell and that would probably fit my use?
I don´t have any source of testing for brinell hardness in a pro way..

So, first post done! More to come for sure!
Sorry for grammar and spelling.. English is not my first language!:-)

[62chevy]

Welcome aboard Swede 45 !!! Your English is fine and grammar is better than some on here.

The lead from the medical containers should be about as soft as the cable scrap, maybe softer. Mix those two 50/50 with the wheel weights and you should have a good pistol boolit.

[s mac]

Welcome Swede 45. There is a sticky on this page you might read about testing hardness of you alloys with pencils. Maybe check your ingot before blending and after, get a good idea about the what you end up with.

[Hawkeye45]

Welcome to the madness Swede. I am a middle ground person about this subject, don't know as much as a lot of the experts here, but not a complete novice either. I don't think it is necessary to have exact BNH for handgun loads. Here is what I would do if I had your assortment. Smelt each type of alloy that you have so it is nice and clean ( see the stickies on this). Then I would use the ball bearing test for hardness as in Lyman handbook #3 and mark the ingots accordingly.
mix according to the "alloy calculator" in Castpics to get the aprox. BNH you want. This method has worked for me for quite a while now and is not so scientific that you pull your hair out, and will give you what you need for starting out.
good luck and have fun while you are doing it. This is just my opinion, others have theirs and there is nothing wrong with other ways of getting what you are after.

mr. Ed

[runfiverun]

I'd research those medical containers a little bit, they are a big bulk of what you have there.
I have seen them from 1% tin and 3% antimony to 2.5/2.5 to just about pure lead.

the cable lead is soft stuff, if it is newly made it most likely does have 1-1.5% antimony but I wouldn't count on it being there.

if it were mine I would mix the 20 pounds of ww's the 20 pounds of bullet casting material and the 40 pounds of isotope cores.
find a method of testing the ingots a couple of day's later and add in some of the soft as I could. [or as I found out more about it]
keep the tin in reserve for better fill out as needed.

[RogerDat]

I don't think I would just mix them all together. Can't undo that action and figuring out what to add if it turns out too hard or soft would also be difficult. You do not know what you put into the mix so won't really know what to add to fix it.

You also might well end up with too much tin if you mixed them all together. Tin in bullets is typically less than 5% and many bullet mixes would be only 1-2% tin. Tin is expensive so you don't want to waste it.

According to the table on this page Babbitt can be all over the place depending on what the alloy was going to be used for. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Babbitt_(metal) (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Babbitt_(metal) Could be tin based Babbitt at 75-92% tin or lead based Babbitt that has as little as 1% tin. Lead or Tin based both will have antimony. If there is a number stamped on the Babbitt that might be a clue.

Babbitt is used to make machine shaft bearing surfaces. Might look at this page where the table shows the heat/pressure loads of the different Babbitt alloys with the ID numbers used to identify them, plus some cool pictures of giant bearings (the liners are Babbitt). http://www.primemachine.com/files/bbtbrg.html

I would also read the sticky on using art pencils to test hardness and post what you discover. That would be a starting point.
You might melt the cable sheathing into ingots. Melt the medical container lead into ingots. Keeping them separate from the others. I use empty coffee containers with labels.

Then take one ingot of each of your unknown leads to a metal recycling or scrap yard and see if they will test them with an XRF gun. Then you will know exactly what alloy each type of ingot is. Metal scrap and recycling yards use hand held XRF guns to determine the composition of the metal they are taking in but will sometimes do you a favor and test your stuff for you. A university may also have XRF equipment.

Your COWW lead and soft lead cable stuff could probably be mixed 50% of each to yield a suitable bullet alloy. Add a few grams of tin to get it up to 2% tin content. If these ingots pencil test as too hard add a bit more cable sheathing lead to soften.

If the ingots from an old caster pencil test at around 12 BHN then use them as is or blend in a little more of your cable lead to make them softer. Possibly add a few grams of tin if there is a problem when casting bullets with getting the mold to fill in with sharp lines.

Medical containers and Prime lead ingots are the stuff you really need to find out about. Those two mixes I listed above using your known lead should get you around 60 lbs. of usable bullets which even at 255 gr. bullets is over 1,600 of them. That should keep you going for awhile. Would allow you to get started while figuring out your remaining unknown alloy content.

[Swede 45]

Thanks for all the input..
I´ll try to get some pencils for the hardness test, also see if there is someone around here in Sweden that has the ability to make a proper brinell test further down the road.

So far I´ve just used the "fingernail scratch" method!:|
Everything is melted into ingots and sorted by origin..
I´ve already casted some bullets from the pure WW I´ve got..couldn´t hold my self! (It´s a certain weird satisfaction to shooting a nice group with home casted !! :razz:

The "PureLead" babbits are realy soft.. scratches easily with a fingernail.. therefore I think they are just that: Pure lead.
The Medi container ingots (not the kind of coneshaped isocores, smaller like lead pillcans, but used for isotopes.) are also soft and scratces easily.
Those pre-melted ingots I got from the retired caster are the hardest .. to the "feel" just as hard as the WW ingots I got, but shinier to colour.
The cablescrap ingots are on the softer side as well, perhaps not as soft as the "PureLead" ingots.

Today I´m going to collect some rangescrap.. I´ve been standing in the same booth at the range for 14yrs.. should be easy to collect from the sandtrap behind!
Also just about to collect about 20lb of lead from another caster´s son, probably WW´s?

I don´t want to mix the lead in smaller batches, as A with C, and D with B... I don´t have the time or knowledge to get a uniform alloy with that method!?
My plan is to mix all the lead, analyze the outcome and go from there.. I save the tin until I know what my "mixitall" alloy will end up at! Will look into the availability of a RXS gun in the area..

I can always get hold of more pure lead if I have to go softer, and ad tin to the "mixitall" if I need to go harder.. (I´m not able to get Antimony around here..) I estimate that my "mixitall" will be on the softer side of WW´s?

When I have a huge batch with a known hardness and alloy, I plan to cast it all into a HUGE pile of bullets in one go!
I shoot about 500 rds a week and about 150rds at a match.. so I like to have alot of loaded ammo available..:razz:

[mold maker]

You already have several unknowns, why mix good alloys with them so that you have no known place to adjust to, or from? Casting for 38, and 45 doesn't require rocket science, but is not a reason to waste hard alloys. In all likelihood you will be addicted, as the rest of us, and soon find the need to cast for other calibers. At that point the harder alloys will be important. Once mixed its like jello, you can add to it, but not separate it, or ever know exactly what it is.

[bumpo628]

The alloy calculator in the link in my signature may be some help to you. Just estimate the alloys as best you can and go from there.