How far ahead to pour ingots in terms of final boolits hardening?

[huntinlever]

Hi all -

Very much at the initial stages. Have an Accurate mold coming and learning from this site, been spending time on this section mostly.

Is there an effect that has to be taken into account in terms of final BHN when smelting ingots with pure Pb and tin? I know it's costly, but just wanting to dive in so mixing some Home Depot 95:5 solder with some pure lead I have on hand to get 20:1 ingots ready. If there's a significant lag between pouring the ingots, then melting and casting boolits, is there a significant effect on final boolit hardness?

I hadn't even remembered before today the effect of curing on final hardness. I've the 45/70 and will be shooting 1650 fps or less, and see lots of people shooting COWW, COWW/pure, or 20:1 - which I always presumed to be around 10-12 BHN. But understand now, with aging, this gets much, much higher. Because I'd like to control the final hardness, it would be good to know if I need to understand this lag effect between ingots and casting. Thanks.

[Deadpool]

Dynamic hardness is more closely related to the lead alloy having a content of Antimony and Arsenic. Just lead and tin, it won't respond to hardening or softening. In an oven, water-dropping, or over time. No hardness or volumetric changes over time should be expected.

COWW are 97/2.5/0.5 of Pb/Sb/Sn, FWIW. And also a smidge of Arsenic.

Generally it's best to either water-drop your alloy, or bake it in an oven and quench it for hardness. And then let it sit a week because the volume does slightly change before sizing or doing anything with it. Some will size first and then harden, and the size change from aging is negligible for most people.

You should totally read up on http://www.lasc.us/FryxellCommentsCBAlloys.htm and read most/all of the other pages on lasc.

[JSnover]

Hi all -

Is there an effect that has to be taken into account in terms of final BHN when smelting ingots with pure Pb and tin? I know it's costly, but just wanting to dive in so mixing some Home Depot 95:5 solder with some pure lead I have on hand to get 20:1 ingots ready. If there's a significant lag between pouring the ingots, then melting and casting boolits, is there a significant effect on final boolit hardness?

None whatsoever. You can measure changes to your ingots as they sit in your shed but all of that is irrelevant when you melt them to cast boolits. Your alloy goes back to Square One.

[huntinlever]

Thanks guys. I did print off From Ingot...., and will also read this.

Just bought some 95/5 to join with my lead; but having found a source for sorted COWW at $0.75, I wonder if that's the best price I'm going to find and if using my existing lead with this COWW and some tin will get me a better, curable, and greater volume of finished boolits, perhaps I'd better not do anything to do and just read for an optimal alloy for my 45/70m between these two options.

Edit: Whoa. Just saw this is a ridiculous price for w/w. Assuming an average Pb yield of a 5 gallon bucket is 135 lbs., costing $0.70/lb means I'd be paying close to $100 for a bucket - when I've seen people elsewhere on this site saying $50 is a possible turning point to saying forget the COWW route. And that's it so far, locally (this is truly a hippy town. Or let me say, hypocritically hippy town, since most of these idiots don't know a thing about nature or the rural life, but pretend to by shopping Whole Foods).

[fredj338]

THink about this, you are going to be remelting the ingots, so whatever they harden to sitting over 2m or 2yrs, isn't gonna matter much. Look at buying bulk tin from Rotometals vs HD solder, probably cheaper. A little goes along way.

[huntinlever]

Thanks Fred. Makes sense to me, but I'm shooting blind. I just thought I recalled somewhere someone saying that not only does casting protocol make a difference, but smelting did as well....probably misread it or they were talking about something other than aging ingots.

And thanks, too, on the bulk tin notion. Yeah, I know that was a waste of good money. Just wanted to get started sooner. Once these are down, planned to look here, Roto, or Buffalo.

[Deadpool]

100lbs of COWW to get you going would be around 3500 200gr boolits. I say it's better to have something than nothing, and you can keep an eye out for lead until you use that up. If you have nothing else, COWW shoots just fine. Sweetened with an extra 0.5% tin is all you need. $10 per pound of tin is common on here, or get 1 or more bars of AC Pewter from roto (http://www.rotometals.com/product-p/alloy_ac_pewter.htm) for $20/lb. Extra antimony & copper from that is good.

[VintageRifle]

Last month I paid $25 for two buckets (2 cat litter buckets) of wheel weights. Out of the 214lb I got 140lbs of wheel weight alloy. 74lb was clips and steel weights. Most of the non lead was from steel weights. I would say over 60lbs was non unable just in the form of steel weights. Have to watch the contents of the buckets.

However, not counting time and gas to get them, sort, and melt, it came out to be about $0.18/lb.

[RogerDat]

Nothing says you have to start with 100# of WW's people do 50/50 WW/Plain with a bit of tin for lower velocity all the time. If your just itching to get started buy 30# of WW's should give you plenty to get started.

At $0.75 for sorted WW's I would really consider finding some WW ingots in swapping and selling. At $1 a lb. for ready to go ingots that is certainly cost effective compared to 75 cents for raw WW's you have to smelt and with some loss of weight to the steel clips when you smelt.

Maybe someone will sell you a USPS Small Flat Rate Box of WW ingots which should hold 20 - 25 lbs. Shipping is about $5.25. Most prefer to purchase Medium box because it ships for $10 but holds close to 70# of lead. Lowers shipping cost per pound of lead but not everyone wants to drop $70 on lead in one shot or you may find local sources at a more reasonable cost before you use up a small initial purchase.

Think someone pointed out already you get about 35 200 gr. bullets to the pound of lead. Close to 700 from a 20# pot that is a lot of boolits and a lot of casting, especially when you are just working out what that mold and firearm likes in terms of lead alloy. No point in making 700 that need to be harder or softer, better to do 50 and find out how they work.

[MBTcustom]

A word on COWW alloy content:
I have performed dozens of XRF tests on COWW alloys over the past five years, and I have a pretty good handle on it at this point. Every single batch of alloy I have mixed has been tested before and after for alloy content to see how close the adjusted alloy calculator hit the real number.
I have seen no significant trace of arsenic in the COWW I have recently smelted.
The XRF showed the antimony content always between 2.5 and 2.3%, and the Tin as being 0-.5%.
Unfortunately, using these numbers in the calculator NEVER yielded a predictable alloy.
After taking several tests of smelted alloy and observing the trends, I set the tin and arsenic to 0.0% and the antimony to 2.33%
With the alloy calculator adjusted accordingly, I have been able to call my shot every time, and get the results I am after, based on testing before and after every smelt.

I hope this helps.

[Deadpool]

A word on COWW alloy content:

Interesting. We've been guessing Sb is around 2.5%. WWs used to be 3.5% to 5%. That trace of arsenic may not be easily detectable, it's only a trace amount (0.01%) that does the trick. What is the sensitivity on that XRF?

As an aside, I recall a year or two back on that show Hardcore Pawn, they used an XRF on a sweet old lady's Japanese WW2 military katana bring-back. It read "Fe 99%" and didn't pick up the carbon. Tool said it was an iron sword, not steel, and therefore a fake. She knew it was sitting in her place for over 60 years, but accepted what she was told because hey, it's technology, it doesn't lie. The interpretation of the data was confounded by ignorance. They gave her the equivalent of nothing for it, and she accepted. They really ought to make amends with her. It was a SHANDA.

[MBTcustom]

That's funny. As you obviously know, and others may not, XRF is completely blind to carbon.
You also bring up a good point about the sensitivity of the machine. It is not sensetive enough to read that minute trace of alloy. Of course, nothing I am using the alloy for is sensetive enough to detect it either, so it becomes a "if a tree falls in the woods when no one is there to hear it" proposition.
Since I cannot observe the benefit of this supposed alloy, and neither I, nor anyone I have spoken to about it, can prove its certain presence in modern day COWW across the board, I dismiss it.
Also, I would have thought that in the 100 or so analysis I have had performed on my alloys, a small trace would have appeared in at least one or two of them as an error or something.

Im not saying my science is good on the subject of arsenic. It's an educated guess based on the limited evidence I have, which I don't see as any better or worse than the ones that claim arsenic is present based on antiquated evidence that was given even less support other than the name on the book?
For the record, I'm willing to change my position on this, but I require two things in order to do that:
1. A reason why it matters accompanied with a demonstration.
2. Solid, current, evidence spanning at least seven samples taken from random locations.

I'm not trying to be unreasonable, but this is what I base everything I do on. Many have accused me of reinventing the wheel, and several have become offended when I said "show me" but too many times I dig under the screaming defenders to find myths associated with the shooting sports that are based completely on bad science and what someone said 85 years ago.

[Yodogsandman]

Ok, so why do we care if there's any arsenic? Hasn't it been proven that it only slightly helps the Sb to add hardness?

[MBTcustom]

Ok, so why do we care if there's any arsenic? Hasn't it been proven that it only slightly helps the Sb to add hardness?

It's suppose to be a grain refiner, as well as an aid to hardness. I'm totally willing to accept that as a scientific fact.
What I cannot prove or disprove is its presence within the COWW alloy, and I don't know anyone who can, nor can I find anyone who has done the testing themselves who is standing on current knowledge. Rather, they are parroting what was written in a book back in the 60s and they were parroting what had been told them by a COWW manufacturer back in the 50s and the guy they were talking to probably made it sound as impressive as possible.
"So and so said or concluded" just doesn't cut much mustard with me. All I want to know is what they measured the results with, and (like deadpool very wisely asked) what is the accuracy of that instrument.
Im getting all my testing done with a bench mounted XRF that cost half a million dollars, is kept in a laboratory environment, and is calibrated regularly, but it's accuracy is only good to .05% and that's only with certain metals. Lots of the XRF tools out there are much less accurate, but they will spit out all kinds of interesting .01% numbers.
What I have found is the best way, is to shoot each sample 5 times, average the results, and dismiss anything that doesn't show up consistently in all five shots. The machine gets confused when you get down to its resolution limit.

[Edward]

When I could find CWW I had to pay $.75 per pound ,then sort and then pay and those days are gone . Your lucky !!!!

[Yodogsandman]

It's suppose to be a grain refiner, as well as an aid to hardness. I'm totally willing to accept that as a scientific fact.
What I cannot prove or disprove is its presence within the COWW alloy, and I don't know anyone who can, nor can I find anyone who has done the testing themselves who is standing on current knowledge. Rather, they are parroting what was written in a book back in the 60s and they were parroting what had been told them by a COWW manufacturer back in the 50s and the guy they were talking to probably made it sound as impressive as possible.
"So and so said or concluded" just doesn't cut much mustard with me. All I want to know is what they measured the results with, and (like deadpool very wisely asked) what is the accuracy of that instrument.
Im getting all my testing done with a bench mounted XRF that cost half a million dollars, is kept in a laboratory environment, and is calibrated regularly, but it's accuracy is only good to .05% and that's only with certain metals. Lots of the XRF tools out there are much less accurate, but they will spit out all kinds of interesting .01% numbers.
What I have found is the best way, is to shoot each sample 5 times, average the results, and dismiss anything that doesn't show up consistently in all five shots. The machine gets confused when you get down to its resolution limit.

Sulphur might be a cheaper manufacturing alternative to arsenic, now. I certainly don't know. I agree that the "trace amounts of arsenic" has probably been "parroted" without scientific support for a long time. My understanding is that some XrF guns can be set to look for certain programmed materials.

While your arsenic discussion is interesting, the OP wants to make boolits to the best of his ability and go shoot them. That was my contention. A discussion of what he might want to use to make his alloy for his purposes might be less confusing to him as he starts his new hobby.