Casting with Lino.

[mto7464]

If you read my other post you can see I came into a good amount of Lino. As far as casting what it what do I need to do differently? Should I size them different? Any advice taken. Plus should I mix it with WW so not to waste it. I know everyhting depends on what I am using it for. I'm tired and rambling, good night.

[grumpy one]

Lino is very easy to cast and produces accurate, finely-detailed castings, but it is does not make especially good bullets because it is brittle (the bullets are quite prone to fracture if they are used for hunting), it is considerably lighter than lower-antimony alloys, and it is harder than you usually want (pure linotype is 22 BHN). Having said all that, if you happen to need 22 BHN for your particular load, if you don't want to heat treat the bullets, if you aren't going to use them for hunting, and you just happen to have way too much lino and are looking for a way to waste it, sure, you can shoot it as-is.

I think many of us want our cast bullets to be "real" bullets that could be used, sensibly, for hunting if we chose to do that. Some of us also prefer that our bullets be "practical" alloys, meaning that they are no more expensive than necessary, so they could be made commercially if anyone chose to do that. On both of these grounds, lino is pretty much unsuitable for a bullet material. There are many other alloys that cost much less than lino, can easily be hardened to 22 BHN by simple low-cost techniques, and are very much "tougher" than lino (meaning they are less prone to fracture when they hit something like a bone). Hence it is usual to mix up an alloy that each of us thinks is really cool, using the lino in conjunction with whatever cheap scrap lead alloy we've been able to scrounge, to produce our idea of the perfect alloy. A couple of months later we decide some other alloy is even more perfect.

Since lino is worth something like twice as much as common scrap lead, and makes bullets of inferior toughness and sectional density, your best move is probably to do as most of us do and use it as an additive rather than as a bullet alloy.

[runfiverun]

2lb of ww and 1lb of lino with 1% tin added will give you taracorp magnum hardness
same as commercial casters use.@ 15 bhn almost the same bhn as lyman no2
get to 4% tin and you have my rifle mix have taken this up to 2350 fps with gas check.
if you stay 1600 or below ww with 1% tin and p/b or g/c will do the job in lever rifles.
same loads will work fine in pistols. just make sure your diameter fits your throats and bbl.

[Lloyd Smale]

the brittleness of linotype is greatly overrated. It will not fracture at handgun velocitys even at mag handgun velocitys. Weve pentration tested it into some pretty severe media and have seen much more problem with water dropped wws fractureing then lineotype. Now if your shooting rifles thats another game altogether and you can get them up fast enough in a rilfle to fracture. that been said my favorite alloy for rifle and for mag handguns is 5050 ww/lnyo. it has near the strenght that lino has and has a little more weight that aids in penetration and is alot cheap of an alloy to cast.

[johnho]

Only problem I've had with straight Lino is sizing the damn things after sizing with range lead bullets. With range lead i could easily still size down 2 or so thousandths. With lino it takes a real pull on my Star.

[hammerhead357]

Lino can be a real problem if you are trying to size it down to much. Also has some spring-back to it. Depending on the diameter of the bullet it can be as much as 1/2 of a thou. All of that being said lino casts beautiful bullets and you can run the temp. of your furnace quite a bit lower.
My experince with the fracturing is just the same as Lloyd's and I now use ww to lino in 4 to 1 or 3 to 1 ratio for handgun bullets anyway...Wes

[bishopgrandpa]

I'll get into trouble for this one, but I have to know where this "brittle and shatters" is coming from. For years I have used straight lino because I had so much of it. I used it for 44, 357 and 45 colt and no more than about 1400 fps. I have six 45-70's I use with 405 - 450 grain bullets at 1600 -1800 fps. I have shot in the Adirondacks of New York, whitetails and black bear thru the shoulders. I have never seen a shattered bullet that I have recovered. Because of what I have read, I have experimented with shooting into dirt banks and oak and cherry trees. I even put a few shots thru 7 lined up cinder blocks. I have NEVER had a lino bullet shatter. Mine are BHN rated at 20-22. How much of this talk is actual experience and how much is repeated from someone guessing and never actually saw it happen? I don't doubt that it can happen but it will not be on a regular basis. This is from my actual experience. I started reloading in my early 20's and am 69 now. I have said my piece so take your best shot.

[leftiye]

I'd gues it doesn't happen very much. But (but?) I have had experiences where lino didn't break rocks (yeah, when I was young and stoopuder I shot some thangs that didn't need shootin) that wheel weight did break at the same velocity. Hardened .5%tin, 5%antimony 94.5%lead (Lawrence Magnum Shot) Heat treated - BHN42! - was best. (Not stoopid any more Larry).

[bishopgrandpa]

Never ate a rock so haven't tried. How do they taste with mushrooms and gravy?

[grouch]

I've seen water dropped linotype out of a 30 - 40 krag at 2200 - 2300fps be horribly destructive on game. Can't say for sure what happened to the bullet, but I doubt if it was simple expansion. At much lower velocity, there was nothing like the damage, just a small entrance and exit wound. I think there's something to the shatter theory, and it's not difficult to do it. My 2 cents worth.
Grouch

[GabbyM]

Mix 50/50 pure lead to lino for one of the many Lyman #2 recipes.
I have to pay $1.50 per lb. for linotype and 80 to 100 cents per lb. for scrap pure lead.

[Lloyd Smale]

amen to this post. Ive done ALOT of testing and shooting game with them and have never had a problem. Shoot a ww bullet at steal or a rock and it will bust up too.
I'll get into trouble for this one, but I have to know where this "brittle and shatters" is coming from. For years I have used straight lino because I had so much of it. I used it for 44, 357 and 45 colt and no more than about 1400 fps. I have six 45-70's I use with 405 - 450 grain bullets at 1600 -1800 fps. I have shot in the Adirondacks of New York, whitetails and black bear thru the shoulders. I have never seen a shattered bullet that I have recovered. Because of what I have read, I have experimented with shooting into dirt banks and oak and cherry trees. I even put a few shots thru 7 lined up cinder blocks. I have NEVER had a lino bullet shatter. Mine are BHN rated at 20-22. How much of this talk is actual experience and how much is repeated from someone guessing and never actually saw it happen? I don't doubt that it can happen but it will not be on a regular basis. This is from my actual experience. I started reloading in my early 20's and am 69 now. I have said my piece so take your best shot.

[Sundogg1911]

i've shot steel plates with Lino and have never had them shatter. I use 50/50 Lino/WW's for my 44's, and about 3 to 1 WW/Lino in my higher velocity autos. just a small amount if any in my 1911's (45 ACP)

[pjogrinc]

For me, my scrap yard source of lead is unreliable. So I buy what I can find when I can find it and as much as I can get.

A good Lyman # 2 formula that I use, because I stock pile as much as I can, is:

5 LB Lino
5 LB WW
5 LB lead
1 LB 63/37 Tin/Lead

You end up with a mix of 5.3% Tin, 5% Antimony 89.6% Lead. Almost identical to Lyman # 2.
I mix in 32 - 33 lb batches. A shooting friend of mine, who works in one of the local mines, had samples of different batches analyzed at work. The printouts showed my Tin variations at +/- .17%, Antimony variations where +/- .23%, and my Lead variations where +/- .31%. We both shoot this mix, but neither of us have tried this mix at over 1350 FPS (38 Super), as we mostly shoot 38 Spec., 45 ACP or 45 Colt.

[Bass Ackward]

If you read my other post you can see I came into a good amount of Lino. As far as casting what it what do I need to do differently? Should I size them different? Any advice taken. Plus should I mix it with WW so not to waste it. I know everything depends on what I am using it for. I'm tired and rambling, good night.


Absolutely great. But good amount needs to be measured in hundreds of tons. Less than that, and you have decisions to make.

Only you can place a value on lino. Sad part is that we can NOT see what our interests will be in the years to come, and then whatever rational decision we make today, will turn out to be wrong. No mater if you saved it or used it. I recently received a stash for free that I tried desperately to buy 30 years ago as the guy just lost interest in shooting.

So my advice is to have fun with it today in some form based upon your usage today. Not using lino is like keeping a gun in the safe so you don't wear it out. :grin: But in the background I hear my grandad saying, "waste not, want not".

[Lloyd Smale]

bass like you i would have to measure the lynotype ive pumped into the ground buy the ton. Anymore i tend to be more carefull with it but I still use alot more of it then i really need to. Someday ill regret it.

[38 Super Auto]

Never ate a rock so haven't tried. How do they taste with mushrooms and gravy?

You have to cook them a long time to tender 'em up.