Lee 10% tin alloy?

[HangFireW8]

After owning the Lee 8mm Karabiner die for a while, and having read the chapter from Lee's book on casting, plus this forum, tried it, partially Lee-mented it, tried it again, fully Lee-mented it, and then tried it a third time and got good results, I finally read the instructions that came with it.

Lee recommends a 90% lead/10% tin mixture for rifle bullets. That sounds very rich in tin for me. I have a few questions:

1. What would be BHN work out to?
2. Would the BHN change if water dropped?
3. What are the velocity, bore fouling, and hunting/expansion characteristic of such a boolit?
4. What about all those too-much tin warnings, like whiskers?

Thanks!
-HF

[docone31]

That sounds awfully complicated to me.
What size does it drop, and what size do you need?
I paper jacket, my castings have zinc, tin, all the other goodies most people avoid. They are hard as a rock, I cannot scratch them with a fingernail. When they hit either a target upright, or the berm, they seem to fragment.
By 8mm Karebiner, does it drop .323? What does your bore recquire?
I use exclusively Lee molds. I really like them. I heat them up and cast away. I radically size them down for paper patching which probably compensates for any size discrepency.
If you have prime alloy, I might consider adding wheel weights plus a tad of tin. Antimony is what hardens up in the alloy. I am not sure tin does that also.
The main thing, is sizing.

[HangFireW8]

That sounds awfully complicated to me.
What size does it drop, and what size do you need?


No point in dropping hunting boolits with a plinking alloy, high velocity boolits with a low velocity mold, don't want to waste time experimenting when people here already know...

-HF

[Ole]

I would never use a 90% lead/10% tin mixture for anything unless I was trying to get rid of my tin stockpile.

[Hardcast416taylor]

Hangfire my friend, Iwill point you in the right direction. I will give you tips on how to get there. But, please don`t tell us, especially me, that we have to give up our findings from long sessions of experimentating just so you can take the inter-state to casting and miss out on the scenic and often bumpy side roads of experience.:evil::evil:Robert

[Recluse]

No point in dropping hunting boolits with a plinking alloy, high velocity boolits with a low velocity mold, don't want to waste time experimenting when people here already know...

-HF

Well, if all guns operated and performed the same and all shooters shot and hunted under the same conditions and all game was created equal and fell and died equally after being shot under the same conditions. . .

Not sure what you consider a plinking alloy. I've done all right hunting with a number of alloys that might be considered "plinking."

:coffee:

[Shiloh]

Hangfire my friend, Iwill point you in the right direction. I will give you tips on how to get there. But, please don`t tell us, especially me, that we have to give up our findings from long sessions of experimentating just so you can take the inter-state to casting and miss out on the scenic and often bumpy side roads of experience.:evil::evil:Robert

Hear hear.

Shiloh

[Bret4207]

Hangfire- I'm sure you didn't mean to be insulting. I don't put a lot of faith in some of Lee's opinions on cast. Stick with WW. 90/10 alloy is a huge waste of tin, hard/expensive to get and won't water quench harden. WW alloy has lead, tin, antimony and trace elements like arsenic that help it water harden. Lead/tin won't. WW will expand to an extent depending on velocity and style of boolit.

[HangFireW8]

Hangfire- I'm sure you didn't mean to be insulting. I don't put a lot of faith in some of Lee's opinions on cast. Stick with WW. 90/10 alloy is a huge waste of tin, hard/expensive to get and won't water quench harden. WW alloy has lead, tin, antimony and trace elements like arsenic that help it water harden. Lead/tin won't. WW will expand to an extent depending on velocity and style of boolit.

Thanks, Bret. Yes, I didn't mean to be insulting. Just wanted to hear some experiences, if any. If there are none, that's OK too.

I happen to have a large amount of bar solder and some pure lead, and not a lot of wheel weights, but that may change in the future. That's why Lee's alloy was interesting, but I haven't found anyone writing about it. When I search for 10% tincasting alloy, I got commentary on other ratios involving the number 10 and lower amounts of tin.

By plinking alloy I meant, too soft for deer hunting velocities out of a .308 or 8mm rifle.

As for experience, no one need worry on that account. The vast majority of the boolits I've casted have gone back in the pot, anywhere from 2 seconds to 2 weeks after being dropped. Some that I've shot went well and some not.

-HF

[HangFireW8]

I would never use a 90% lead/10% tin mixture for anything unless I was trying to get rid of my tin stockpile.

Thanks, Ole. That was my first reaction, too.

-HF

[runfiverun]

rcbs uses that same alloy for their rifle molds.
what they are doing is telling you what alloy they use to get the results they are saying the mold will give you.
you can get the same results with #2 alloy etc.
for your question you need to be pretty specific as to what you want.
do you just wanna shoot them at 1800 fps for target practice?
are you gonna use them for hunting? both ,neither.
try 16 to1 or even 30 to1.
you gotta find what will work for you ,with what you have. the rest are just suggestions based on experience.

[docone31]

I am kinda like the dude who comes out of the closet.
I am useing an alloy with zinc mixed in, not really thought well of here. I use it with good success. The fly in the ointment, I paper patch my smokeless loads.
I run full tilt loads in my rifles. I also get better accuracy than the jacketeds with identical powder charges.
Whether or not you paper patch, you will need to get a groove measurement, and bore. Drive a slug of lead down your bore so you can measure it. Lead, and paper are not tolerant of undersize castings. I found that out the hard way, enduring much laughter and redness of face. I was getting 20min of berm if I was lucky!
I am convinced, with casting, incredible accuracy and potential is possible. With sizing.
Two part hunting loads, Palma loads. It goes on, and on.
Why did you have so many culls casting? What were their symptoms.
The 8mm is a friendly paper patch rifle, I load several .30s with paper and it loves them. Makes the bore shiney also. I had one rifle with severe hammer marks in the bore. I fire lapped it with paper patches smeared with Clover Lapping compound. Marks gone, sharp rifleing.
When I first got into this, my frustration, I cannot describe it. I had these molds that cast crap!
Today, my wife shoots my patches, in both .308, 30-06, and .303 British. That was not the case a couple of years ago.
With paper, alloy in smokeless at least as far as my experience goes is not that important. The paper makes the difference. I am pushing at listed 2700fps. Some pure lead, some wheel weights, some with zinc, some with babbit. I have cross blended, added more lead, added more babbit. It all seems to hit the same spot.
A lot of folks here can help you with culls. We all been there for sure. I have remelted a gazillion of my attempts. I have polished my cavities with cast, wrinkled boolitts smeared with Clover, or cranked up the heat, or cooled it down.
I do toss in some 50/50 once in a while. Mostly wheel weights water dropped. Sometimes a bump of tin once in a while. I have found though, a little zinc helps me. Most folks avoid it.
If you want to push those puppies, with castings, you might look into patching. It is not that hard, I found it works with smokeless real well. Some of us patch to .22, or .243. Not too shabby. They are getting good enough results to keep wrapping those itty bitty castings.
It is all I do with my .30s. All 180gn. If I make a grain change, it will be larger, not smaller.
No gas checks! The patch does it.
I have actually worn out the pusher on my .308 sizing die from patching.
I had kinda figuired what you were looking for. I remember my first castings. "What the dickens would anyone do this for?" 20min of berm if I was lucky.
I have come to really respect a lot of folks here. They helped me a great deal. Some I PM, some I just look forward to read their results.
It is all here.

[Lloyd Smale]

some old lead recipes come from an age when the only thing available to harden lead was tin and tin was reliatively cheap and easy to come by. Its probably all they had then to make pure lead hard enough for rifle velocitys. Now wws are the most common type of lead we get and adding more then 5 percent to them is a total waste and can actually make casting good bullets more difficult. 2 percent tin is all you need the only time ive used more then that is to use up a batch of lead that had some zinc comtamination. Adding 5 percent to that did help.

[Bret4207]

Thanks, Bret. Yes, I didn't mean to be insulting. Just wanted to hear some experiences, if any. If there are none, that's OK too.

I happen to have a large amount of bar solder and some pure lead, and not a lot of wheel weights, but that may change in the future. That's why Lee's alloy was interesting, but I haven't found anyone writing about it. When I search for 10% tincasting alloy, I got commentary on other ratios involving the number 10 and lower amounts of tin.

By plinking alloy I meant, too soft for deer hunting velocities out of a .308 or 8mm rifle.

As for experience, no one need worry on that account. The vast majority of the boolits I've casted have gone back in the pot, anywhere from 2 seconds to 2 weeks after being dropped. Some that I've shot went well and some not.

-HF



In my opinion there isn't much chance of getting "too soft" an alloy that will work at the 1500+ fps of a deer hunting load. Even pure lead will work fine at 200+ fps given the right design boolit. Deer are not buffalo and they don't, IMO, require hardened boolits. Your gun might require them, but the deer won't.

[yodar]

No point in dropping hunting boolits with a plinking alloy, high velocity boolits with a low velocity mold, don't want to waste time experimenting when people here already know...

-HF

You ONLY use tin as a surfactant in casting (makes lead fill out the mould by flowing better. It contributes VERY little to ANY hardness to an alloy. Many resources on this, and at $6.00-$12.00 a pound, i sure can think of better things to do with the 1 lb 14 oz i have had for 10 years, nibbling off a skoshe evry once in a while.

Ed Harris, (on my Cast Bullet List) a prominent bullet caster, and bullet designer and Engineer at Ruger and other nice places wrote a seminal work: hunting with cast bullets, where he stated essentially the same thing, cautioning against using linotype based bullets (too hard-would shatter) and instead using wheelweight with 1% tin or less or Lyman #2 for effective bullet action in striking and killing the prey

yodar

[WKAYE]

Even pure lead will work fine at 200+ fps given the right design boolit. Deer are not buffalo and they don't, IMO, require hardened boolits. Your gun might require them, but the deer won't.

What are you using ? A 5 lb cannon ball ? [smilie=1:

[HangFireW8]

rcbs uses that same alloy for their rifle molds.
what they are doing is telling you what alloy they use to get the results they are saying the mold will give you.

Gotcha.



you can get the same results with #2 alloy etc.
for your question you need to be pretty specific as to what you want.


Well, I wanted to do a bunch of stuff, first of all, find out what Lee is smokin'. Tonight, not even thinking about this question, I re-read Sharpe and there he is, recommending 90/10 for gas checked rifle as well. Now I really have to scratch my head, because I respect Sharpe. He never recommended anything unless he tried it every which way.



do you just wanna shoot them at 1800 fps for target practice?
are you gonna use them for hunting? both ,neither.


The question was broad because I was just curious about the unusual nature of the alloy given everything else I've read. Since you ask, specifically, I want to develop 2 loads using the 8mm Karabiner mold, a hunting load and a plinking load. The difference will be a few hundred feet per second. I don't have a specific fps goal in mind there, just "enough" and find out what works and what doesn't, in terms of accuracy and barrel fouling. Let the gun tell me what it likes.

After that, ditto on .308. A plinking load, maybe 1000-1500 fps and a hunting load anywhere from 1400 to 2200 fps. Broad specs, I know, I am not picky on velocities until I learn what my guns like in boolits.

After that, I have handguns 38, 45 (both) to try, the 38 is strictly target as is the ACP while the Colt, again, one hunting and one plinking load.



try 16 to1 or even 30 to1.
you gotta find what will work for you ,with what you have. the rest are just suggestions based on experience.

Yeah, I was thinking about starting out with 38 Special SWC with 30 to 1. Haven't gotten there yet.

Thanks for the help!

-HF

[HangFireW8]

You ONLY use tin as a surfactant in casting (makes lead fill out the mould by flowing better. It contributes VERY little to ANY hardness to an alloy. Many resources on this, and at $6.00-$12.00 a pound, i sure can think of better things to do with the 1 lb 14 oz i have had for 10 years, nibbling off a skoshe evry once in a while.

Thanks, Yodar. I have so much 60/40 tin/lead solder I was thinking of offering it 1:1 for Linotype or antimony or something. I have some pure lead and wheel weight but even with the solder being 40% lead I still have much more tin than lead at this point. As my lead scrounging abilities improve, I hope to get my stock ratios similar to the alloy ratios.

-HF

[HangFireW8]

In my opinion there isn't much chance of getting "too soft" an alloy that will work at the 1500+ fps of a deer hunting load. Even pure lead will work fine at 200+ fps given the right design boolit. Deer are not buffalo and they don't, IMO, require hardened boolits. Your gun might require them, but the deer won't.

I agree with you on deer, I laugh at the guys using super premium $2/pc controlled-expansion bullets on white-tailed deer. "How many trees you plan to shoot through?" I say. :roll: (Hmm this might explain why I hunt alone a lot). :mrgreen:

OK, let's say that I want a 1500 fps 8mm hunting load. Lyman says I can get there with a 214 grain boolit (close enough to the 8mmK) and RL7 at around 20K PSI. The chart that came with my Lee hardness tester says that 20K PSI plus 10% will require a BHN of 16.

Is that right or is my math all wet?

So, I guess the question becomes- can I get to BHN 16 with lead/tin, or what other alloys will get me there, given I've got lots of solder and I'm very short on wheelweights?

-HF

[montana_charlie]

Lee recommends a 90% lead/10% tin mixture for rifle bullets. That sounds very rich in tin for me. I have a few questions:
I find that statement interesting because I am curious about which alloy each mould-making company uses as their 'standard'.

Does that instruction sheet tell you what mix Lee recommends for pistol bullets?
CM

[leftiye]

Most of the guys have given it to you straight here. Wheelweights mixed half and half with pure, and a tetch (1/2 to 2%) of tin will do virtually everything velocity wise, and it is real close to the best alloy for expansion too(that being 2% tin and 2% antimony). A 2000 fps boolit of this alloy heat treated to BHN 22 (mine gets BHN28) Will do a fine expanding boolit job on a deer. As there is virtually no other alloy that is cheaper (except free wheelweights), it qualifies well for plinking too.

I've only made 10 percent tin alloy twice in my life, both for experimental purposes. It toughens the lead (tin does), and 10% tin is the most that will form a true alloy.

[runfiverun]

another option is to contact the antimony man and learn how to alloy antimony into the pure you have.
ww's can usually be picked up from the tire shops with a bit of persistance [keep looking]
you can also go to the junk yard and pull them your self if necessary.
look here and the evil bay you can usually pick them up for a buck a lb or so.
sometimes antimony ain't no help,sometimes it's what you need but not in the amounts that every' publisher" says.
20-1 in plain based rifle boolits might surprise you too.

[mooman76]

I could be missing somethin but I looked through the Lee capter on casting and saw nothing that mentioned using 10% tin to lead. He did say use straight WWs for low pressure rifle rounds and straight Lino for high pressure rifle. I did read somewhere but couldn't find it again that was mentioned tin does harden lead but only to a certain point so duming allot of tin in a mix wouldn't just be a waste of tin. In fact they said since tin has a lower melting point than lead you could see more leading because of this. I scoff at that remark because I believe most of us have asertained leading is not dirrectly from heat but more from gas cutting. I will keep looking, it might have been Lyman that said what the max amount of tin was before it doesn't help but if I recall right I believe it was 5% but it might have been 10%. Then you can add more antimony to make it even harder.

[HangFireW8]

I could be missing somethin but I looked through the Lee capter on casting and saw nothing that mentioned using 10% tin to lead.

I found it in the "LEE BULLET MOLD INSTRUCTIONS" paper that came with my 8mm Karabiner single cavity mold from MidSouth.

To quote:

"Bullet Metal
Pure lead is too soft to make good bullets for all but very light loads or black powder guns. To harden, mix one part tin to ten parts lead. For most pistol bullets, one part tin to 20 parts lead is adequate."

He then goes on to discuss linotype and wheel weights.

-HF

[HangFireW8]

Re-reading that quote, I guess my thread title is wrong. 10:1 alloy is about 9.1% tin, not 10%.

-HF

[leadman]

I sent a mold back to Lee and Pat e-mailed me concerning this. I called him on the phone after the mold was sent back to me with no changes. We were discussing the alloys most casters are using.
Pat stated Lee has been using 90% lead to 10% tin as long as he could remember, but did not know why. I mentioned to cost and that most casters don't use that mix. He seemed to think what they are using is fine.
I tried the 90/10, they mold cast much better without any changes. I "leemented " it so I can use WW.

[mooman76]

I never noticed that before, probubly because I never read the directions. Maybe that's why the lee moulds work so well for me LOL! I wonder why he didn't state that in his reload manuals?

[runfiverun]

richard wrote the book [the dad]
and john now runs the company.

[Dale53]

HangfireW8;
Here is a hardness chart for the various lead alloys:

http://www.pnjresources.com/Hardness%20of%20Lead%20Alloys.htm

Dale53

[HangFireW8]

Pat stated Lee has been using 90% lead to 10% tin as long as he could remember, but did not know why. I mentioned to cost and that most casters don't use that mix. He seemed to think what they are using is fine.

Thank you leadman, for some actual insight into Lee's thinking.

-HF

[HangFireW8]

HangfireW8;
Here is a hardness chart for the various lead alloys:


Great table, Dale53, very concise. Saved and printed for future reference.

Thanks,
-HF

[madsenshooter]

The Dr., Mann, wasn't it, that helped in the design of THE Krag bullet, the 308284, was using 10% tin alloys back in 1906 to equal the accuracy of the service round at 600 yards. Finally got around to adding antimony for hardening. Tin as a hardener can't do much, it's BHN isn't much above that of pure lead, 7 vs 5. But as some have said above, it makes the alloy tougher, and it's more lubricative in nature than lead (lower coefficent of friction?). Babbits, bearing alloys had a high percentage of tin for a reason.

[Dale53]

Lee must have a repeatable standard that they size moulds for. 90/10 lead/tin is repeatable. Wheel Weights vary greatly in their make-up. There is NO standard. Most of them are 4% antimony and .5% tin with the remainder lead. However, they can vary considerably from that.

Lee publishes their "standard" so we all know what that means regarding mould size.

Dale53

[montana_charlie]

Being a 'stick fluxer' I am usually prone to 'stir the pot'. How about this...

Dan Theodore is (still) chasing absolute accuracy, and examining every 'variable' that he can think of. His latest experiment is to determine how stable bullet casting alloys remain over time. He mixes an alloy with certified components, casts some samples, then measures their hardness at predetermined intervals.

The idea is that you might have a smokin' load with bullets cast yesterday...which might tank with those same bullets when you shoot them the following summer.
That is an interesting experiment, and if any of you are interested I will hunt up a link so you can follow along as he adds information.

But my 'pot stirring' comes from this. Theodore has found that those hardness tables we always refer to are wrong...!?!

Below is part of his discussion with 'Kurt' in which he lays out some of the 'inaccuracies' he has discovered, so far.

Kurt,

I'm using the Lee BHN tester for the long-term testing. It works very well once one has a good, consistent technique developed. The Log Cabin tester has also been used to verify the Lee numbers. They agree very well.

The Lee measures the certified lead, tin and Lyman # 2 right on the money; 4.5, 5.0 and 15.4 respectively.

If one checks-out some of the popular cast-bullet sites, one finds that the published information is not accurate for some BHN's. In particular The Los Angeles Silhouette Club has the following BHN's (http://www.lasc.us/CastBulletNotes.htm)

Lead = 5
Tin = 7
1 to 40 = 8
1 to 30 = 9
1 to 20 = 10
1 to 10 = 11

Those numbers are off, some of them by a "country mile." Stabilized 20-1 is about 7.8 and 16-1 is 8.2. Pure lead is 4.5 and pure tin is 5.0.

According to tests by Dan T, actual BHN numbers should look like this:
Certified Lead: 4.5
Certified Tin: 5.0
Certified 20-1: 7.8
Certified 16-1: 8.2
Certified Lyman # 2: 15.4

Since he is concentrating on alloys suitable for BPCR, he probably won't provide new values for all the rest of the alloys in the commonly published tables.

CM

[Dale53]

Montana Charlie;
That data from Dan Theodore is interesting. That might explain why I could find no difference in shooting my BPCR (40/65) between 20/1 and 30/1 on target. Since I could see no difference with my rifle with a 20 power scope mounted, as far as I am concerned there was NO difference in performance, so I opted to use the 30/1 as it used less of the expensive tin. My BPCR was a VERY accurate rifle and if IT couldn't see the difference, then neither could I.:mrgreen:

The moral of the story, is you don't have to believe or not believe data given to you. But, test it out yourself before blindly accepting what could turn out to be an urban myth.

I have corresponded with Dan in the past and found him to be a "careful workman" not prone to hasty conclusions.

Thanks for sharing this with us.

Dale53

[HangFireW8]

Thanks for everyone's input.

I live in a high density shooting enthusiast area, and the wheelweights here are not just spoken for, but subject to bidding wars.

Since I am tin rich and antimony poor, I am open for trades. See my ad in Swappin & Sellin.

-HF