Composition of stick-on WW

[sleeper1428]

I'm fortunate to have a relative who works for one of the largest tire companies in the West and as such, I'm fairly well supplied with WW. However, I've started to notice a sharp increase in the number of stick-on WW as compared to the standard clip-on ones. Does anyone know if there is a difference in the composition of these stick-on WW as compared to the clip-on ones? When melted down and poured off into ingots they appear to be considerably more 'shiny' than the ingots poured from the clip-on WWs. I keep the melted WWs in my 20 plumbers pot at slightly less than 700F, a temp at which any zinc WWs will not melt and can be skimmed from the surface before they contaminate the melt. Same holds true for the stick-on WWs and I skim off any of them that don't easily and immediately melt. From the appearance of the poured ingots, there must be a difference in the composition of these stick-on WWs but multiple searches on the Web have yet to yield the answer. I'm hoping that someone out there has the info on the composition of these stick-on WWs because I've been separating them from the clip-ons so I can melt and pour them off as ingots separately. If I can find out the composition of these stick-on WWs, I'll be able to determine the appropriate amounts of tin and antimony to add in order to come up with an alloy close to Taracorp Magnum Alloy.

[grumpy one]

There have been a number of rather fragmentary references to the subject on this board. Bear in mind that stick-ons are not all the same. There is a distinct subset of very soft ones. I separate those and find they make ingots of 5.3 BHN, which is fairly close to the hardness of pure lead. The others are distinctly harder and are shiny, which the soft ones are not. Someone posted here a few months ago saying that the shiny ones are 1.75% tin, which would be consistent with their observed properties. I doubt they have much if any antimony.

Until two or three months ago the WW I collect contained 25% of the tin-bearing stick-ons, and very little of the dead soft stick-ons. Unfortunately the batch I am melting right now contains hardly any tin-bearing stick-ons, which is messing me about because my standard rifle bullet alloy at present consists of 75% clip-ons and 25% stick-ons. There was a considerable lift in the zinc stick-ons in my latest batch, but not enough to explain the difference in the amount of tin-bearing lead stick-ons. I wonder if the tyre or wheel suppliers might not have stopped including such vast amounts of stick-ons with their normal shipments?

[sleeper1428]

Thanks for the info, Grumpy One. I suspected as much, just from the looks of the ingots. Very 'shiny' and looking much like the bars of tin that I use when alloying normal clip-on WWs. I will probably elect to treat these ingots as if they contain at least 1.5% Sn and will adjust the percentage of the other components, Sb and Sn, accordingly to achieve close to Taracorp Magnum Alloy specs. Obviously, it will be a guess but a few BNH tests and some shooting tests should tell me if I've guessed correctly.

I also noticed that there were a LOT of zinc stick-ons as well as a considerable number of zinc clip-ons in the last three 5 gallon pails that I processed. Guess we'll have to get used to this since virtually all of the tire, or more properly, tyre, companies are changing over to non-lead WWs at a fairly rapid rate. That's why I'm trying my best to accumulate as many WWs as possible in anticipation of the time in the near future when we'll no longer be able to find one of the basic ingredients in producing our wonderful cast boolits. I probably have more right now than I'll ever be able to use myself but at least I'll be able to leave them to my son for his enjoyment in the years to come when cast boolits will have become a rarity and perhaps even an excellent investment. Who knows? How many of use knew that the first comic book introducing Superman (1932, if I'm not mistaken) would now be worth a minimum of nearly 200K and would bring several times that amount at auction!! Wonder what a nice clean RCBS, SAECO, Lyman, Lee, LBT, NEI, etc, etc, mold will bring at auction 50 or more years from now?