stick on ww

[matthewquigley]

:cbpour: i have 100lbs of new stick on weights in the boxes BUT
the box says lead and antimony :holysheep can i still use them for BPCR and frontstuffer bullets???????? are they too hard???????
these are less than 2 years old or is the antimony content low enough that it will not matter?
thanks

[ilcop22]

Does it specify how much antimony?

Clip-on WWs have about 4% antimony. I can't imagine what you have is higher than that.

Stick on WWs are nearly pure lead, so they tend to be softer, actually. The antimony will harden the lead alloy.

I'd say the WWs would be fine. Just be sure to tweak the melt so you get a respectable hardness.

[sqlbullet]

Only way to know is to cast some and see how hard they are. As ilcop22 says, it will depend on the amount of antimony.

Do you have an idea of how hard is too hard, in terms of bhn?

PS. Though I am far from home now, in Utah, I was raised just north of Brazil, Indiana. My grandparents on my dad's side lived in Greencastle, until they headed for Florida a few years ago. I still have some family in GreenCastle, Cloverdale, Terre Haute, etc. Nice to see bullet casting is alive and well there!

[Marlin Hunter]

are they a long strip of weights marked 1/4 in each, or are they individual weights with tape on the bake? Individual weight may be harder the the long strips

Stick-on weights are usually flat. You can do a hardness test on them fairly easy without castign a boolit.

[rob45]

:cbpour: i have 100lbs of new stick on weights in the boxes BUT
the box says lead and antimony :holysheep can i still use them for BPCR and frontstuffer bullets???????? are they too hard???????
these are less than 2 years old or is the antimony content low enough that it will not matter?
thanks

Have to try it and see. You mentioned BPCR and ML so might want to ask in those respective sections to glean info there. You mentioned the presence of Sb, but it could possibly still work, and here's why.

Clip weights have nominal content of 3-4% Sb (usually on the low side), and most folks add 1-2% Sn. The alloys traditionally used for BPCR are the lead/tin alloys of 20-1, 30-1, etc. The antimonial alloy will age-harden, while the lead/tin alloy will age-soften.

Although tin and antimony are vastly different in hardening properties, they are very similar in casting characteristics. Meaning 20-1 alloy with just under 5% tin content will cast nearly identical in dimension to clip weights with 2% tin. To replicate a 30-1 alloy, I use clip weights with 1% Sn.

One caveat to this is the hardening characteristic of antimonial alloys, so for such substitution to work, annealing of the bullets are necessary. To anneal simply place a batch in the oven @450F for an hour and do not quench; simply turn off the oven and leave the bullets in there to SLOWLY go back to room temp. Now you have bullets that approximate the more expensive lead/tin alloy both in hardness and as-cast diameter.
The other disadvantage is that the presence of antimony (and trace arsenic) in the wheel weight metal will cause it to age harden. So people using this method need to load and shoot within a couple of days after the annealing process. My procedure is to cast a bunch in late winter and do nothing to the bullets but store them. When springtime shooting comes, I spend an evening annealing, sizing and lubing (which in itself is a work-softening process), and loading what I need. Then I'm at the range the next day or two.

This whole process is nothing but the "poor man's way" of working with what's available. For most people in our area, access to clip weights is considerably easier (and economical) than pure lead and tin.

For ML, the primary concern is ease of loading. Even with a minor amount of Sb, terminal performance (if hunting) is likely to be unaffected. If using a sabot, just make it fit. If using a roundball, play with patch thickness. If using slugs, if it's too hard to engrave the rifling and load easily, then it's too hard.

I illustrate the above to let you know that this CAN work. We obtain our "soft lead" from various sources including pipe, sheet, tape weights, and other sources too countless to mention. Many would be shocked to realize that much of this material is not as pure as we think it to be. But somehow we still make it work. The original sources of such material did not specify content for our needs but rather theirs, so it's up to us to make it work. But then again that's the fun part!

BTW, just like sqlbullet, I too am happy to see a fellow Hoosier participating in this great forum. It's great to see casting is still alive in our area. I am in the southern part of the state (Warrick county).

[matthewquigley]

ok i got an msds 99.9 lead .6 or .o6 antimony .3 or .03 tin and trace amounts of arsenic and copper so i think i am good to go on ML bullets