Bearing babbit trouble

[bigjake]

I got about 100 lbs or so of this super hard babbit from my boss. The problem is trying to extract the bullets. I'm thinking that it doesnt shrink like pure or WW's. I have to beat the crap outta the molds to get them out.
Has anyone else had this problem?

[Rcmaveric]

What kind of babbit is it? Most of the babbits i see normally mostly tin with antimony and smidge of copper. That might be your problem. You casting a a hard tin bullet and not lead. In mold designed for lead and mostly likely resigned for Lyman #2 lead.

You would normally add 3 to 6 ounces of babbit to 20lbs of lead for a tin percent of 1 to 2%.

And yes, i am jealous your boss gave you that much. Thats almost a life time supply of tin.

Sent from my SM-G950U using Tapatalk

[country gent]

Babbit is a lead antimony tin copper silver ( along with some other metals) that was used for pouring machine bearings. These were easy to fit and do. You need to save and use it to sweeten lead. A small amount goes along ways. We had a couple lathes and a press that used babbit bearings in one shop. Some motors had them along with carious farm equipment. What I would recommend is to contact the member here that tests and send him the sample to have tested to see what you actually have then alloy accordingly.

[Hamish]

This ^

Until it is assayed, you have no idea what you've got.

[RogerDat]

Babbitt can be a large range of alloys. Some are nearly pure tin. Others are lead based and run closer to Linotype alloy in composition. Some good reading in the chart of Babbitt https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Babbitt_(alloy)

I would add that there are many companies that make Babbitt alloys. They give their version of the grades different names. Super Hard is an actual name and it would be a tin based rather than lead based alloy. Great ingredient to "sweeten" lead for bullet casting but not suitable by itself for casting bullets. You might use a couple of pounds tin based Babbitt to a 100 pounds of COWW lead (clip on wheel weight)

It is the sugar and cinnamon in the raisin bread, not the flour. Lead is the flour.

[ole_270]

Babbitt can be most anything, my old Machinery Handbook has about two pages of tables of differing alloys ranging from 90 some % lead to near pure tin. I picked up quite a bit one time that was stamped #4, hoped it was SAE #4 which is mostly tin. Had BNE test it a couple years ago to find it was 2.6% Sn, 5.3% Sb. Unless you can pin it down with a commercial name it's best to have it tested.

[Bookworm]

It is the sugar and cinnamon in the raisin bread, not the flour. Lead is the flour.

Raisin bread.....mmmmm...toasted, with butter.....

[RogerDat]

It is the sugar and cinnamon in the raisin bread, not the flour. Lead is the flour.

Raisin bread.....mmmmm...toasted, with butter.....Wife picked up a loaf recently which was why it came right to mind.

[Peregrine]

Babbit alloys can be mainly tin with copper/tin/antimony and no/some lead, to ~50-80% lead with varying amounts of the other elements.

Given that they boolits aren't shrinking much and are getting stuck i'm going to guess you're dealing with a alloy that is heavy on the antimony/copper/tin and not a majority lead. All of those will give a larger diameter boolit, most alloys we work with shrink as they cool, at least initially, and that's what lets them release easily from the mould.

Such babbit is very valuable for modifying more conventional alloys, and beyond obviously not being suited for use straight, as your original post conveys, it is rather wasteful.

I know member BNE on here will test alloy for an extremely modest fee of a pound or so of alloy per sample tested (I personally have not used his service).
Before you proceed further I would absolutely make use of his generous standing offer so you can quantify what you are working with and proceed logically.


Alternately, just cut your babbit with pure until the boolits start to drop free.
Boolits cast out of pure lead will give the smallest diameter boolit. An increased proportion of lead should allow the boolits to drop free.