linotype alloy question

[Boolseye]

I have come into a 25 lb. bar of raw linotype. I have lots of pure lead–any suggestions on a good ratio for an upcoming smelt? I shoot primarily PB pistol boolits, 900-1000 fps. I also have some pewter I can throw in the mix.
-BE

[Bonz]

I would hold onto the Lino bar and just trade someone the pure lead (5 bhn) for lead that is already hardened. A lot of members swage bullets and pure lead (5 bhn) is perfect for swaging dies. But that is only if you are sure its pure lead (5 bhn when tested with a lead hardness tester). I have bought pure lead from a few members on our site and some of it tested out to 8 bhn or higher. Swaging dies are expensive and most of us will not risk using lead that has been hardened or alloyed in our swaging dies.

[Boolseye]

It's mostly roofing lead, straight off the roll. That and lead pipe. Pretty pricey to mail–would it be worth it to smelt it up and trade for WW lead or the like?

[Lloyd Smale]

mix it 2/3 pure 1/3 lino for 38,44spec, 45acp ect. 5050 for mag pistol and rifle bullets.

[Bonz]

It's mostly roofing lead, straight off the roll. That and lead pipe. Pretty pricey to mail–would it be worth it to smelt it up and trade for WW lead or the like?

The roofing lead that I have tested comes back at 8 bhn or higher, lead pipe about the same or harder. So I would just add Lino to it, which would add tin and harden the lead and make great bullets.

[bangerjim]

Keep all your alloys separate! Do not melt into a big huge batch. Later on, you may be sorry if you want to change the mix. I keep all my alloys (many MANY hundreds of #) in 1# ingot bars for easy mixing in my casting pots. I leave roofing lead as-is....in sheets. Stacks and stores easily in 3x12" strips! I can adjust the mix on the fly to whatever I need.


Download the free alloy calculator spreadsheet on here to answer all your "what if I do this" questions....now and in the figure. A valuable tool! Do a search in the little white box at the top of the page.

banger

[Hardcast416taylor]

I agree with Lloyd on the alloy mix ratios. Myself I am a great believer in the 50/50 ratio alloy.Robert

[Ballistics in Scotland]

The information I have is that linotype would have 2½ to 5% tin and 10 to 15% antimony. If the alloy really is linotype rather than monotype (5 to10% and 15 to 19%), it will take the shape of the bullet extremely well - all the type metals do. If it was to be used on big game, where the bullet needs to avoid fragmentation or expand without the edges breaking off, it might be better to add some lead and tin.

[bangerjim]

One thing to keep in mind: is your "raw line" bar still in the oroginal foundry pig with foundry markings on it? Then it is probably standard %'s of metals. Print shops refreshed older lino with those. But lino did deplete Sn due to oxidization. If the shop was big eough, they could cast their own pigs and the lino may not be the industry standard purity. Only pigs with foundry marks cast in can be considered pure lino.

Just food for thought.

banger

[fredj338]

4-1 works for me at those vel / pressure levels.

[RogerDat]

You might melt that plain lead down. If you have a lot of the two types mentioned it can be worthwhile to keep them apart. Much easier to repeat a recipe that casts well if you have the same scrap source each time. However if you have bunches of sheet lead and just a little of the pipe no reason not to just make one big consistent batch of "plain".

The trick is to make sure that you are mixing like with like. As Bonz indicated there can be some variation in "plain" lead composition. If you found you had some stuff that was much softer than the other it would be worth keeping it apart. Also cutting out any soldered joints from the lead pipe to keep apart. The solder is tin so melting the solder joints on its own makes sense as a way to keep the lead free of tin alloy and have the tin out for inclusion where and when you need it.

Shipping is not too expensive US Postal it fits it ships! Up to 70 lbs. Cost would be at most about $13 as ingots that would fit in Medium Flat Rate Box (MFRB) You would need to melt down the scrap into ingots you could pack in the flat rate shipping boxes. My personal cheap choice for making ingots is bread loaf pans or muffin tins, buy them at garage sale, thrift store, or even new from Wally Mart. All allow you to form decent ingots without dropping big bucks on the molds. I can by counting ladles make bars in loaf pans that range from a thin 4# to 16 or even 20#. For the smaller flat rate box (SFRB) the muffin tin "pucks" pack pretty well and fill the box. Bread loaf pan is too big for the small box.

Lino bar should break if hit with a hammer, you can snap off chunks fairly easily, then mix in some plain to get the 2/3 plain to 1/2 lino ratio for small manageable batches to use for casting. It is smart to not make a lot of one alloy until you need it because you can't get the ingredients back out once they are mixed. I sometimes will mix a larger batch of something that I know I will use for rifle and can cut with a known amount of plain lead for pistol plinking ammo. Lyman #2 or Hardball alloy work well that way.

You could even go to 2.5 lbs. of plain to 1 lb. of Lino and end up with what would essentially be COWW lead + 1% tin. BHN of approx. 12 so fine for most pistol use or even modest rifle velocities. Especially if powder coated or gas check design. That 2:1 mix would be just a bit harder and probably fill out a mold a bit better if that was a problem. Lee tumble lube mold design comes to mind as one that would favor that extra tin. Ran that 4:1 mix and still BHN of 11 making it perfectly fine alloy, you might want to add a bit of solder as the tin is under 1% but not by much.

Alloy calculator is really helpful, Art pencil hardness test is useful. Both are stickies at the top of this forum. Worth noting we are not mixing cancer or heart medicine here. For most uses modest differences in the alloy won't matter. Slightly depleted Linotype or a little arsenic and antimony in the plain lead is not an issue for most target ammo. Muzzle loading or precision accuracy or firearm that demands precise ammo configuration to perform well do make the composition more critical. Puching holes in paper and killing a dirt pile little bit one way or the other ain't no big thing.

[Boolseye]

Thanks guys. As always, a most helpful and informative response from the crowd here. I especially appreciate the the suggestion to do small batches, much more manageable. No foundry marks on the pig. Lotta big print shops up here back in the day, I've heard the place used to be swimming in lino.

[Lloyd Smale]

Ive shot probably 20 deer and maybe a half a dozen bear and a few pigs and put many of them through penetration testing using lineotype bullets out of a 44mag, 444s and even 4570s at up to 1800 fps and have never seen where they fractured. 99percent of the time your not even going to find a bullet to look at to say it fractured. I know I cant ever remember finding pieces of bullets in the wound channel. I think the rep linotype has for fracturing comes from rifle shooters pushing them to 2000 fps and more. Now what I did see at one linebaugh seminar was water dropped ww bullets fracturing. Now this was a pretty intensive test as the bullets had to first pass through a buffalo or cow shoulder but swcs were many times shearing off the noses. there was If I remember right 5 instances that day and all the bullets came from the same manufacture (one with a great reputation) and all were water dropped @ww alloy. When we asked the owner of the company he said all his bullets are water dropped as are just about all commercial bullets because if they didn't the bullets would get dinged up falling onto each other in a bucket and nobody would want to buy them
The information I have is that linotype would have 2½ to 5% tin and 10 to 15% antimony. If the alloy really is linotype rather than monotype (5 to10% and 15 to 19%), it will take the shape of the bullet extremely well - all the type metals do. If it was to be used on big game, where the bullet needs to avoid fragmentation or expand without the edges breaking off, it might be better to add some lead and tin.

[Outpost75]

Linotype-plumber's lead blends are ideal for most bullet casting and enable excellent fillout with good strength and predictable repeatability using simple weight ratios which can be produced at moderate cost.

You can estimate the hardness of your blend easily:

[LinoPounds(22)+LeadPounds(5)] / TotalPounds = EstBHN

A 50-50 linotype-lead blend at 13.5 BHN is slightly softer than commercial hardball or Lyman No.2 alloy. (22)+(5) /2 = 13.5

A 1:2 linotype-lead blend at "about 10.5 BHN" approximates 1:20 alloy and is well suited for revolver and black powder cartridge "smokeless" applications. (22)+2(5) /3 = 10.6 BHN

A 1:4 linotype-lead blend at 8.5 BHN approximates the hardness of 1:30 alloy and is best for black powder cartridges, in subsonic, smokeless revolver loads, or with plain based rifle bullets below 1300 fps and is satisfactory up to 1700 fps with gas checks in rifles for hollow-point hunting applications. (22)+4(5) /5 = 8.5 BHN

A 1:5 linotype-lead blend at 8 BHN approximates 1:40 alloy and is the frugal shooters best bang for the buck to make your alloy go far as possible in revolver, cowboy loads, black powder cartridge, and subsonic hollow-point hunting applications. (22)+5(5) / 6 = 8 BHN

Substituting wheelweights or backstop for the plumber's lead you can stretch your linotype farther as enrichment alloy:

Linotype and Wheelweight blends, to estimate hardness:

[Lino-Pounds(22) + WW-pounds(12)] / TotalPounds = BHN

1:10 linotype to wheelweights 1(22) +10(12) = 142/11 = 12.9 BHN
1:5 linotype to wheelweights: 1(22) + 5(12) = 82 /6 = 13.6 BHN
1:4 linotype to wheelweights: 1(22) + 4(12) = 70 / 5 = 14 BHN
1:3 linotype to wheelweights: 1(22) + 3(12) = 58 / 4 = 14.5 BHN
1:2 linotype to wheelweights: 1(22) + 2(12) = 46 / 3 = 15 BHN
1:1 linotype to wheelweights: 1(22) + 1(12) = 34 / 2 = 17 BHN

[lobogunleather]

For decades I used wheel weights and linotype metal. For pistol calibers (non-magnums) I used 1/4 linotype and 3/4 wheel weights. For rifle bullets I used a 50-50 mix.

I melt, clean, and flux each separately and pour into ingot molds (actually I use aluminum muffin pans), then mark each ingot with contents (WW for wheel weights, L for linotype). Then I use those ingots to make up a pot for casting.

Similar results should result from your roofers lead and lead pipes when combined with linotype.

I remember a couple of experiences with salvaged lead pipe. Very dirty stuff, usually full of mineral scale and built up crud. I would definitely handle that stuff separately.

Wheel weights are typically dirty as well. I always processed those separately. Used an old cast iron pot (kept separately for this purpose) and worked on a camp stove outdoors. Lots of fluxing and skimming, lots of smoke and odor.

[montanamike]

For light pistol loads 1 part linotype and 4 parts pure will get you .8 tin 2.4 antimony and be around 11 bhn. That would be a good all around mix for about any pistol.

[Boolseye]

Wow!! Thanks guys. That Lead-Alloy calculator is a revelation!