99.375% pb .625% tin

[Johnch]

I was having a bear of a time getting a new to me .440 rb mould to cast a decent round ball tonight [smilie=b:[smilie=b:
No matter how many times I cleaned the mould , how hot I ran the pot or how I preheated the mould

So I dumped the lead into ingots
I then refilled the pot with 10 lb of pure lead and added 2 oz of 50/50 bar solder in the Lee pot

Then it would cast a great round ball every time
I would not have thought that little tin would make a huge differance , but it did

Pure lead is 5 BH
From memory I belive .5% tin added to pure lead is 6 BH

I was thinking these should still be soft enough ............RIGHT ????
I guess I should have thought about this while I was casting

But when I am pissed off , I don't always think straight

Guess I will find out in the AM
As I plan on checking the sights and trying for a few smokepole ground hogs

John

[HeavyMetal]

I have always thought of tin as a "wetting agent" ,sorry soap anology, in essance it helps the lead flow better which allows better fillout and sharper corners but since your casting round ball I guess thats not an issue!

Tin has never really added any hardness I use just about the same mix for full wadcutters for my model 52 smith bhn is 4.5 to 5.5.

Think your good to go.

Something else to try in the future is dipping the sprue plate itself in your casting pot!

Laast weekend I was casting some 38 S&W round nose boolits and was getting rounded base's. On a whim I dipped the sprue plate, that section your supposed to hit with a mallet, into my pot all the way to the block and held it there until no lead stuck to it.

From then on I had no more issue with base fillout!

I continued to dip the plate for a second or two from then on and my scrap rate dropped drastically! I switched to an HP mold, which had given me fits with both nose and base fillout the first time I used it, and using the same techique, as well as a set up to keep my HP pin hot, I cast 185 HP's with 8 rejects total!

Something to think about?

[Dale53]

Some time ago, I had a long talk with one of the previous Presidents of The National Muzzle Loading Rifle Ass'n. He was one of the early members of the Ass'n and was a serious competitive muzzle loader shooter from the early days. He told me that they nearly ALWAYS "tempered their balls" - added a small amount of tin for better fill out and more consistent ball weight. It was as much as 2% (1 in 50) and as little as .5%.

Dale53

[masscaster]

Nice thread.
Jeff @ Forefather's here heading to post my BP projectiles info in the Vendor Sponsor area in a couple minutes. Be sure to head there, read the info and hit the email link to get the forms/shipping info.
Anyhow, the old timer's called these ballits "tinners", they are excellent shooting ballits especially for in-line and under hammer BP firearms. And, low and behold this is one of the alloys I offer for purchase for rifle ballits and Maxi's. The tin is malleable (soldering tin), which is easily loaded at 95% Pb 5% tin, and can run up to 7.5% tin without much trouble. This is provided your lead alloy is as close to pure as possible.
Roof vent flashing is the best for this, as it has a good tin content per size of collar.
Weighing it out by the sizes of the collars will pretty much give you a consistent melt. More info on this in my Vendor area.
masscaster

[mooman76]

I used to use straight WWs because I didn't have pure or soft lead and it worked fine so yours should work fine too easy enough. I now have allot. Not pure but it is very soft. It's window lead for the stained glass. I hear it is near pure with a small amount of tin for fill out.

[Johnch]

Well they seemed to shoot just fine
No change in POA over the last batch a freind cast for me out of pure lead

As for the ground hogs
3 dead and 2 clean misses
But the misses were my fault

John