Lead type by scrap roofing, solder, coww, ect

[Dadswickedammo]

So I understand roofing lead near pure soft,
Coww semi hard I think
1x1/2 12" solder bars just not sure.
I have a metric ton of all the above looking to make some harder 30 cal And. 224 bullets.
I have a few bars super hard and a bag Tim nuggets.
Can I just pick up antimony and toss it in at the right mix? Will the antimony mix with the pure soft lead at 800° or so.
Now I have lots of ingots made from everything from bullets, shot, dive weights, coww, fishing weights, and so on how do we handel the unknowen mix? Would be a shame to toss it.

[runfiverun]

lets take this bit by bit.

roofing lead is soft lead like near pure.
coww's are about 3% antimony [depending on when they were made]
the solder bars sound like 50-50 tin/lead
antimony can be mixed in but it generally is done at lower temps [tin helps] like 600-615-f that is below the melt temp of pure lead.
and you need a reductant.

the unknown is probably closer to what most of us have.
you want to batch it all together.
[mix it all together so you have one large complete batch]
if you have an idea of how much ww, shot, type of bullets, and amount of the weights in there, you can make a guess at the alloy's make up.
a hardness tester would help you make a better guess. [an XRF test would be better]

how I would deal with it all would depend on what I wanted.
I like an alloy that is about 2.5% antimony and about 1% tin.
or clip on ww's 3 parts to 1 part soft.

I'm pretty simple.
so I would mix the unknown alloy all up to a big batch.
melt all the ww's into ingots
then mix the unknown and the ww's into a 50-50 mix.

use the rest of the ww's to mix 3-1 with the roofing lead.
and use the super hard to bring the roofing lead up to about 3% antimony.

then I would batch the whole thing together an ingot from each batch at a time into the melting pots.
ladle it all out, stack it, and use it.
I wouldn't add the tin unless I needed it in the casting pot.

want harder?
heat treat or water drop from the mold.

[Dadswickedammo]

Runfiverun All good info and thats what i was thinking on the unknowen I just don't have a pot that big. So for the time being will do the best I can and quit over thinking it and enjoy my new hobby.
Thanx

[runfiverun]

you don't need a huge pot to do this.
I big batched just over 3-k lbs in 2 dutch ovens.
I melted counted out ingots into both pots and let it melt.
once I got them going I ladled out of one pot into the other and kept topping the first one off with ingots from the different piles.
I would clean and scrape and reduce in the first pot and work the alloy over picking the good clean stuff out for the second.
I just kept on working the alloy over to the first pot and making ingots from the mix.
it took me the better part of the day.
I think it was worth the effort since I know any ingot I pick up from the stack is the same or so close it doesn't matter.
it's also clean alloy, I haven't cleaned a casting pot in I don't know how long.
and if I need to cast a certain way with a mold I can repeat what I done the next time and get the same results.

[JonB_in_Glencoe]

Runfiverun All good info and thats what i was thinking on the unknowen I just don't have a pot that big. So for the time being will do the best I can and quit over thinking it and enjoy my new hobby.
Thanx
Yes, don't over think this...just enjoy.

If you have more than enough COWW, than I'd just start casting with that,,,use starting loads from Lyman castbullet handbook for 30 cal and 22 cal, the alloy should be hard enough for that.

set aside the roof lead for now.
I'd have that bar solder annualized, as Tin is quite valuable, it's good to know what you have, so you don't misuse or over use it. Bar solder can be 50-50 or 60-40 or 63-37...and possible something else, it usually is stamped with what it is, maybe in code form? Retail value of bar Solder is over $20 a lb. (scrap value is about $8).