Shoot Or Get Off The Pot!

[Guy La Pourqe]

Good morning fellas.

Question for ya, if I may. I am on my second potful of lead that will eventually be turned into boolits for my roller in 45-70. I have 20 lbs of fluxed lead in the pot, from an old lead pipe that is *probably* pure. I fluxed the crap out of it and should be ready to go soon. My wife got me a pound of tin and some antimony.

Is there a consensus on alloying? I hear 20:1 lead to tin all the time, but some of the guys are saying they go as high as 40:1. I also have a pound of antimony. Should I put some of that in the batch as well? I am not looking to make match grade bullets to take down the snipers at the Quigley match - for now I would just like any recommendations for a good starting point. I am shooting smokeless at black powder velocities; and the boolits I want to make are 510 gr. Postells.

See ya on the range, boys. :)

[Don McDowell]

20-1 works ok with smokeless loads. I do think tho that at the higher pressures smokeless developes going to 16-1 or something along the lines of #2 alloy will give better results.

[NoZombies]

I would probably use 30-1 or 40-1 for a 45-70 at BP speeds, just to save the tin, but 20-1 will be just fine, and should cast very nice bullets.

[marlinman93]

20:1 seems to be the most popular. I mix mine 30:1 personally as it works for my loads, and stretches my tin or linotype out further.

[SSGOldfart]

Maybe 30:1 you'll get much better boolets.

[Rich/WIS]

Antimony will harden your bullets at about 3 times the rate of tin, allowing a harder bullet with less tin. Tin will improve flow and about 2% or maybe a bit less should do it. A 20/1 mix can be duplicated easily, batch size determined by how much Sn and Sb you have and how hard you want your bullets. Most of my cast bullets for rifles are 2% Sn and 6-8% Sb and shoot well in the 15-1600 fps range, with GC. Pistol bullets are about 3% Sb and 1+% Sn and perform well to about 1000 fps, maybe more as I don't load anything faster then that.

[Green Frog]

I was shooting 45-70 with a bit of background in the American Single Shot Rifle Association and early on I read that a good starting point was 25 parts lead to 1 part tin (antimony at all.) That worked so well for the 32-40 and 45-70 rounds I was shooting at the time I never bothered to experiment with other alloys... I spent my time shooting! I don’t know whether this is the best answer to your question, but it “works for me!”

Froggie

[Chill Wills]

Guy, there is no one right answer.
SO, the right answer to your question is "it depends".

It depends on, if your bullet is large enough to fit the throat

It depends on, if the bullet has a long unsupported nose

It depends on, if the bullet is seated short of the rifling

It depends on, if the case is sized and expanded with stock loading dies and the expander is too small for soft lead bullets

It depends on, if the powder used is a starting load of slow burning powder

It depends on, if the old rifle barrel is very large and your bullet is not large enough even as cast-unsized

There are more..... there are combinations of the above.

For light loads using smokeless and limited resources, 20-1, 25-1, 30-1 are all a good place to start and you may not see much difference in them at first. ...or not. The fun is in the trying. You are right to ask about a good place to start but likely 30-1 and unsized bullets will cover many variables.

Get out and shoot and save your data/targets.

[Guy La Pourqe]

Thanks a lot boys!!!

My stuff so far has been *around* 20:1... so I will lean that out to 30:1 and see what happens.

Shoot straight, you guys - and best of luck in the 2019 hunting season.

Cheers!

[Good Cheer]

Once had one of the 1884's with big groove diameter, bigger than the chamber would allow.
Very heavy soft cast and black powder was what made us both happy.:happy dance:

[Jack Stanley]

The question with the antimony would be , is it pure or has it been alloyed with lead . Pure antimony has a good bit higher melt temp than lead . But if it has been alloyed with lead that temperature comes down so you can mix it with what you have .

Jack

[Drm50]

I go 20:1 lead - tin for all my WCs from 32 to 45 in revolvers. Also for my original rifles up to 45/70 with loads of smokeless duplicating BP loads. For Ruger & Marlin 45/70 use 75% WWs : 25% lead and still use same ratio of tin. I don't shoot cast in any HV calibers and haven't had any leading problems. Some tell me I'm wasting tin but it works for me.

[Outpost75]

I would trade the antimony to some young kid who has read and believes all the unaldulterated BS he reads on Internet forums, that he's gotta have "HARD" boolits and use the money to buy more tin. Then be a frugal caster and use no more tin than needed to get good castings. At black powder velocity and pressure 1:75 tin-lead is enough if you cast it all into bullets, don't heat the melt over 750 degrees F and don't have left over to solidify and have to re-melt. If you want to be able to melt, cast some, cool off and re-heat and cast again, then 1:40 or 2.5% tin is the frugal shooter's best bet.

But if you want to go right from the git-go without experimentation, then either 1:30 or 1:25 are glorious.

You don't need 1:20 except for heavier smokeless powder applications above 1000 fps in revolvers or using gaschecked bullets in rifles over 1600 fps.

Using more tin than needed is a costly absurdity.