Lead alloy for 9mm

[Utah Shooter]

So I finally have access to 94/6 pb antimony and I also have some 60/40 tin solder. So I feel comfortable that I can mix it to whatever I need. I am just curious what thoughts are on what ratio of each for 9mm, 96:2:2? or?????

[Fluxed]

I think you want harder boolits than many here will tell you. I suggest something like "hardball alloy" or harder. Soft lead in my gun shoots poorly with some tumbling. Same bullet in 92-6-2 does not tumble and shoots much better with all other load details the same.

[Newboy]

I use 2% tin and 98% lead for my IDPA loads. Coated and .357 o. d. Walther PPQ.

[Houndog]

I use clip on wheelweights with 2% added lead free solder for alloy and heat treat the boolets at 450 degrees for 1 hour and then dump them in ice water. I let the boolets "rest" for about two weeks before sizing or loading them. I've not had any leading, no matter how fast I push them in any of my M&P handguns, nor in the Glock 17 I used to own using the factory barrel.

[bangerjim]

I have shot THOUSANDS for rounds at 9-12 with PC and no problems with leading....or anything!


You do not need hard lead! Save your Sb and stretch it.

Fit is king today....NOT hardness!


banger

[GhostHawk]

I run mine fairly soft but tend to use .38 bullets which are a touch bigger. I did buy the lee 6 cav .356 124 gr and it seems to be fine in my HiPoint carbines. I just bought my first 9mm pistol so I am sure I will be learning more as I go.

The Lee .358 158 gr round nose shoots like gangbusters in my Carbines. But my buddy did not care much for it in his Beretta. He thought it made for a bit more recoil, that is over 3 grains of Red Dot.

I love the way the boolits rain out of the 6 cavity mold.

[BNE]

I use 50% COWW and 50% Soft + 2% Sn. This makes a pretty soft mix. I then tumble powder coat. So far I have had zero leading and no tumbling or other problems.

[Utah Shooter]

Awesome. I however don't have wheel weights so that doesn't really mean much. I am trying to figure out a mixture of pure antimony and tin

[Driver man]

I use range lead and shoot them unsized at about .3575ish . Tumble lubed and with a touch of bens red if pushing 1100fps or faster. No leading in my CZ75.

[scottfire1957]

Awesome. I however don't have wheel weights so that doesn't really mean much. I am trying to figure out a mixture of pure antimony and tin

As far as mixing your alloys, did you even look at the alloy calculator? You can use it to figure your "mixture," it's a sticky above, and simple to use. Other than that: Fit is king, lube is queen, hardness is joker.

Read, the information is here.

[Utah Shooter]

Yes i have already read and used the calculator. That however is just part of the puzzle. If someone comes and tells me they use wheel weights should i go buy some arsenic as well?

[scottfire1957]

Yes i have already read and used the calculator. That however is just part of the puzzle. If someone comes and tells me they use wheel weights should i go buy some arsenic as well?

No, you shouldn't go buy some arsenic as well, just because somebody uses wheelweights. You should do some of the most basic reading recommended and frequently reffered to on this site. It might even be a sticky, or a site sponsor kind of thing. Something LASC........

Edit: there is no puzzle. Every lead mixture you can imagine for shooting in a firearm, has been explored. Pb, Sn, Sb, Cu, etc. etc.

Edit2: took out the "do" in "do do.":D

[Utah Shooter]

Awesome. I am glad this sight is here for me to ask questions and for you to tell me to just read. SHHHHHH. Quiet please Scott. I am trying to read.

Edit: I just figured you liked do do.

[alfloyd]

Joe:

If you will take 20 lbs of your 94-6 alloy.
Mix with 20 lbs of lead.
Add 2 lbs of 60/40 solder.
You will have an alloy of 94.3% lead - 2.86% ant - 2.86% tin.
For a BHN of 12.06.

That should work fine in your 9MM.

Lafaun

[Utah Shooter]

Thanks Lafaun. Would you suggest quenching? Probably not eh?

[alfloyd]

"Would you suggest quenching?"

I do not quench. I powder coat. :)

Lafaun

[RogerDat]

Experimentation is fun so like why not try a bit of each? Powder coat some, water quench some, water quench and powder coat some, then shoot em all to see what works well.

If water quenching works it would probably be less work than powder coating, both might work out to be a "premium" quality bullet for the extra work. Or it could work out that water quenching gains nothing but wet bullets that need to dry before powder coating.

[alfloyd]

Joe:

I forgot to add 2 lb of your 60/40 solder to the alloy mix.

Sorry about that

Lafaun

[convert69]

Is straight coww ok for 9mm

[gwpercle]

Is straight coww ok for 9mm

It is, but I have also had much success cutting COWW with soft lead 50-50 , air cooled , conventionally sized and lubed.
Three different 9mm's are doing just fine. I use to cast straight COWW but when my free supply dried up I discovered 50-50 worked just as well. I just bought a 9mm mould with a gas check just to see how soft a bullet I could use. Lots of lead, not much COWW's.
In handguns the bhoolits do not have to be as hard as we were led to believe....fit seems to be more important than hardness.
Gary

[40-82 hiker]

Awesome. I however don't have wheel weights so that doesn't really mean much. I am trying to figure out a mixture of pure antimony and tin

Joe,

Those suggesting 49:49 COWW:Pb with 2% tin are pretty spot on in my book for 9mm, .45ACP and the like. With your 94:6 cut 49:49:2 (your mix:COWW:tin) I think you'd have a pretty good alloy since it would have around 3% antimony in it.

If you would like to give this a try I'll send you (at my expense) 12 lbs. of COWW ingots in a SFRB (I use muffin pans, so I can only get 6 muffins (around 12 lbs) in a SFRB). With 12 lbs of your lead and antimony mix, and 2% tin, and my 12 lbs of COWW, you can mold a bunch of 9mms (around 1300 or so ?) to test this out.

PM me if interested.

Others need not apply! [smilie=l:

[Lloyd Smale]

what are you looking for? Is leading your only concern. then something around 12 bhn would probably do just fine. If your looking for the best possible accuracy then id step up to around 16-18 or even harder. Id also run the largest diameter bullet your gun will feed reliably. Most semi autos have very shallow rifling and do better with harder bullets beause of it.

[40-82 hiker]

what are you looking for? Is leading your only concern. then something around 12 bhn would probably do just fine. If your looking for the best possible accuracy then id step up to around 16-18 or even harder. Id also run the largest diameter bullet your gun will feed reliably. Most semi autos have very shallow rifling and do better with harder bullets beause of it.

Since it is on topic for "which alloy to use", is there a particular reason semi autos have very shallow rifling? I've wondered about this, but I'm truly ignorant on the topic.

I have tried 49:49:2 pure lead:COWW:tin in my Colt NM and seemed to get as good results as straight COWW with 2% tin. I just use straight COWW with additional tin as I want to save my pure lead for BP rifles. Could it be the straight COWW is not hard enough, based on your target of 16 to 18 BHN, for me to see a difference? The pistol shoots so good with COWW as it is I'm happy with my load, but just wondering... Oh, I size .452".

[Lloyd Smale]

ive always wondered it myself. I would guess they figure that most semi autos shoot jacketed bullets and don't need the deeper rifling but I sure don't know what it would hurt to have rifling cut deeper. Maybe its a production thing and there easier to machine that way and keep costs down???????????????????? Just for grins try water dropping your ww alloy and see if your accuracy gets better or worse. I will say that about across the board the only time ive seen harder bullets shoot worse is in a gun that doesn't have good tolerances.

[Forrest r]

I believe there's wwwwaaaayyyyy to much over thinking about alloys anymore. Back in the day (80's) most of us either used coww's or range lead, both were free. Those alloys (9bhn/10bhn) were used as cast for any low pressure loads. low pressure ='s 18,000psi or less. If we needed something harder we wd's those alloys making the bullets around 14bhn. The only time we added tin was when the bullets weren't getting good fillout/rounded edges. Got by with those alloy then and free range lead is all I use shoot to this day in the pistols.

Back in the 80's I used/shot a 38super and never had a problem. Used range lead that was water dropped, nra 50/50 lube & sized the bullets to .358. I used the same bullets for the 357mags and never had a problem with either caliber. When the 9mm became popular I fitted a 6" bbl to that 1911 38super and used the same bullets in that 9mm bbl that I did in the 38super/357. Shot 100,000+ of that alloy/bullets in those calibers over the decades.

Well time marches on but the range scrap/alloy stayed the same. I make/smelt the range scrap in a large pot that yields #100 batches. They've tested out at 9bhn to 10bhn for decades. Today I pc my pistol bullets, isn't any harder than the traditional lube/size method I did for decades. I wd the bullets when I cast them, simply because it's faster and the bullets don't bang against each other denting the bases of the bullets. The pc'ing process actually anneals that range scrap making it softer. The coating works as it should protecting the bbl from leading. The end results have been impressive, 3 different 9mm's, 3 different applications for the same alloy/pc.

A 10" contender chambered in 9mm, bbl slugs .355 & the bullets are sized to .356. An extremely light load (7,000psi?) with a 150gr hb bullet. 10-shot group @ 50yds.

http://i162.photobucket.com/albums/t242/forrestr-photo/358709mm_zps9110adbe.jpg (http://s162.photobucket.com/user/forrestr-photo/media/358709mm_zps9110adbe.jpg.html)

I sized a bunch of bullets to .356 to use in that contender 9mm bbl. The misses wanted a small pocket pistol in 9mm and ended up with a taurus pt111 g2. The bbl slugged out at .358, great, now what??? Started thinking about it soft undersized bullets and tested them with a heavy load of a slower burning powder in that taurus. 125gr mihec hp's sized to .356 shot in a bbl that slugged .358 with a 5.5gr load of longshot.

http://i162.photobucket.com/albums/t242/forrestr-photo/9mmtaurus_zpsnlqcm8kg.jpg (http://s162.photobucket.com/user/forrestr-photo/media/9mmtaurus_zpsnlqcm8kg.jpg.html)

While not the greatest by any means, I got 1050fps from that 3.2" bbl and 13 shot groups the size of a baseball @ 7yds. While not good accuracy, that's more than enough for what the pistol is designed for, ccw. I didn't have any leading, keyholing or other issues. The firearm functioned as it should and the hp expansion as actually better than expected.

Bought a springfield 1911, the range officer (ro) chambered in 45acp. Really like that 1911 and missed the 38super/9mm combo that I stupidly sold several years ago. The iron was getting old and I had a itch for something else. So I bought a ro in 9mm. The bbl slugs .356. So now I have 3 different 9mm's that have 3 different bbl diameters. So I said the heck with it and started sizing everything I cast/pc to .358. Now I can use any of those pc'd bullets in the 9mm's/38spl's/357's with loads ranging from mild to wild. Same scrap range lead alloy that I've used for decades in the ro 9mm with a 1100fps load using that same 125gr hp from mihec that is actually very soft shooting in that heavy 1911.

http://i162.photobucket.com/albums/t242/forrestr-photo/ro9mm50ft_zpslprjmumk.jpg (http://s162.photobucket.com/user/forrestr-photo/media/ro9mm50ft_zpslprjmumk.jpg.html)

3 different 9mm's, 3 different loads ranging from mild to wild, same alloy. You need to get out there and test what you have.

[Rattlesnake Charlie]

I suspect your bullets are too small a diameter when fired.

In addition to the sizing die, not having a large enough diameter expander can actually squeeze the bullet down when inserted into the case. The full case crimp dies can do the same. Pull a bullet after it has been loaded, and measure the diameter.

Soft bullets can work too as long as they do not skid (leading at breach end of barrel). At 9mm pressures, soft bullets can actually "bump up".

I use range scrap mixed with soft lead 50/50, Lee 120 gr TC, sized to .358, Lo-Tac Soft, 4.0 gr Red Dot. Works in my two 9mm handguns (Kel-Tek), my 9mm carbine (Mech-Tech), my buddies three 9mm handguns (Glock, S&W M&P and Shield). I use a Lyman M-die through powder expander for .38 instead of the one for 9mm as it is a little larger in diameter. No leading, no keyholes, accuracy as good or better than factory jacketed stuff.

My carbine will keyhole with some military surplus ammo. Pulled a bullet and they measured .355. Too small to grip the rifling in that barrel.

[Utah Shooter]

Wow. Great responses. I am not having an issue with leading however. I just have some lead that I was curious if it would do or if I needed something more.