Lyman's definition of Linotype alloy and #2

[awaveritt]

Maybe I should just contact Lyman but I thought I'd give you guys a shot first. Why does Lyman's Handloading for Handguns manual show the .357/358 bullets tested with linotype while all the other cast bullet loads are shown with Lyman #2 alloy? Is it because the 357 magnum loads need the harder alloy. My current alloy is 60%clip-on/40% stick-on with 2% Tin added. Is this closer to Lyman #2 or what they list as "linotype" (which I'm assuming is harder). BTW, some of you here have estimated my alloy to have a BHN of 10-12 in a prior post. Thanks.

[454PB]

I don't know why Lyman does this, they tend to recommend overly hard alloys. Lyman #2 is 5% tin, 5% antimony, and 90% lead (15 BHN) . Linotype is generally 4% tin, 12% antimony, and 84% lead (20 to 22 BHN). Your recipe would be considerably softer than either Lyman #2 or linotype, probably around 8 or 9 BHN.

[southpaw]

I believe that they use these as a standard for their moulds. So they can say that these are the dimensions that we got. That way you know what alloy they used to get said dimensions. If I am wrong someone please correct me.

Personaly I think that your alloy will work fine. I use 50-50 ww-pure for my 357's and don't have any problem with leading.

Jerry Jr.

[Edubya]

Maybe I should just contact Lyman but I thought I'd give you guys a shot first. Why does Lyman's Handloading for Handguns manual show the .357/358 bullets tested with linotype while all the other cast bullet loads are shown with Lyman #2 alloy? Is it because the 357 magnum loads need the harder alloy. My current alloy is 60%clip-on/40% stick-on with 2% Tin added. Is this closer to Lyman #2 or what they list as "linotype" (which I'm assuming is harder). BTW, some of you here have estimated my alloy to have a BHN of 10-12 in a prior post. Thanks.

awaveritt, you might be able to heat your blend up to about 475 degrees for an hour then drop them in cold water to heat treat them. That will harden them up some. With your blend, you won't have to worry about them being too hard.
What velocity do you want to shoot them? If they are just for target practice or small game (rabbits and such), they'll do just fine up to about 1K fps.
You might read this thread: http://castboolits.gunloads.com/showthread.php?p=674786
Good Luck,
EW

[Edubya]

http://www.castbulletassoc.org/downloads/alloycalculator.zip
If you have Window XP all you have to do is right-click any file with a ".zip" extension and Windows will unzip it.
EW