where and what are good sourses of tin?

[GLynn41]

I have asked around here and sssooo far nothing-- -- I normally do not seem to need to fool with it but I now have two HP molds -- one buckshot did for me and a group buy .41 -- soft is not a problem but I do not want brittle as mine are range lead ,,ww and some roof lead etc all air cooled-- so any suggestions thanks?

[docone31]

I would run with that mix.
Run the pot hot, and cast away.

[sagacious]

Range lead, or range lead + ww's + roofing lead should not be at all brittle. Neither is a bad alloy for your purpose. Unless you need better mold fill-out, tin probably won't do much. For example, adding tin to a brittle alloy-- such as lintoype-- will not change the brittleness even a tiny bit.

You can use solid lead-free solder if you really need tin. Most hardware stores should have it.

Hope this helps, best of luck! :drinks:

[Bulltipper]

Take a peek at the properties of pewter, it can be purchased in second hand stores sometimes for next to nothing and is usually about 80% tin. Candleholders, figurines and beer stiens are the most common. usually stamped and act like lead when bent. I try to keep some on hand for when i need to add tin to my alloy.

[leadman]

Check in selling and swapping here. There were some organ pipes for sale that were mostly tin.

Others also sell tin at times.

Rotometals has it also. There is a link on this page.

[lwknight]

For example, adding tin to a brittle alloy-- such as lintoype-- will not change the brittleness even a tiny bit.
I have to disagree. It depends how much tin you add. I made rotometals 30% (superhard) as mallable as Lyman #2 by adding 20% tin. It was a bust and or waste but an experiment none the less.

Its a make believe scenario but, if someone had only linotype and tin to work with , they could match the antimony content with tin and get a hard , strong , tough and mallable boolit. It would not be excessively hard and heat treating would do nothing.

[corvette8n]

got to your local scrap yard and pick up some "block tin" some of the tubing used in refridgeration was block tin. I tihink I paid 2.00lb.

[kawalekm]

This is what I use now, in order of choice

scrap pewter (melted down mugs, candle sticks, plates, ect all is 80-97% tin)

lead-free plumbing solder (95% tin, 5% antimony, perfect, but expensive)

regular 50/50 lead solder (cost per lb of tin actually higher than plumbing solder)

recycled babbit metal (bought several lbs from a scrap yard).

I've gotten the best deals at the flea market for scrap items like beer mugs with broken glass bottoms. Also, look for used rolls of solder, which they might sell for a dollar.

[GLynn41]

thanks guys

[beagle]

If you're really serious about tin, and this may be a candidate for a group buy, there's a foundry in Brooklyn, NY that sells tin and very nice tin too I might add. My shooting partner and I split 50 pounds about 10 years ago and I still have a lot.

Comes in nice clean ingots and the price was right but the breakover point was 50 pounds and that's a little heavy for most casters./beagle

[Tazman1602]

Beagle I've been working on this one. I have emails and phone calls out to half a dozen companies I found on the web that offer what I thought would be an ideal bullet mix: 95/5 tin/antimony solder bars. Been trying to get 50 and 100 lb lot sales out of them as they advertise bars but they aren't real hot to trot for 100lb sales which are small to them.

A few still might respond, I'll keep an eye out here. I've bought some pure tin from a guy on ebay that seems to be a straight shooter but I'm pretty sure if I can get bulk solder bars it would be cheaper yet.

Art




If you're really serious about tin, and this may be a candidate for a group buy, there's a foundry in Brooklyn, NY that sells tin and very nice tin too I might add. My shooting partner and I split 50 pounds about 10 years ago and I still have a lot.

Comes in nice clean ingots and the price was right but the breakover point was 50 pounds and that's a little heavy for most casters./beagle

[sagacious]

I have to disagree. It depends how much tin you add. I made rotometals 30% (superhard) as mallable as Lyman #2 by adding 20% tin. It was a bust and or waste but an experiment none the less.
...
A long while back, I had a huge quantity of free tin given to me, and I had a friend with a printshop, and was given hundreds of pounds of free linotype and monotype. Eventually, I tried the same thing-- using the tin to make the linotype softer. Did not work for me, even with the large amounts of tin that I used. The very high antimony content is the rub, and that remains.

The Rotometals 30% antimony alloy, + 20% tin equals an alloy that is 58% Pb, 25% Sb, and 17% Sn. The projected hardenss of this alloy is around 32.5 to 38BHN depending on whose formula one applies. This alloy is almost exactly the same as foundry type (62Pb, 23Sb, 15Sn), and could be expected to be as brittle as foundry type. Foundry type has only a few percent less Sb and Sn, and the nominal hardness of foundry type is 25-27BHN, which agrees well with the predicted hardness of the richer 58Pb/25Sb/17Sn alloy.

Lyman #2 is 90% PB, 5% Sb, and 5% Sn. Lyman #2 is 15BHN.

I'll certainly take your word that it may have worked for you, but trying to get anywhere near that softness did not work for me, and the numbers don't make it look like a very promising route no matter how much tin one adds. I cannot recommend adding any amount of tin to linotype in an attempt to soften it.

That's just my experience and my take on it. :drinks:

[lwknight]

What I mixed up just playing around experimenting was hard as all git out but you could beat it into a ball or flat and it would not break up like the lino would. In fact once I got it to Pb47/Sb20/Sn37 it was no harder than 92-2-6 hardball and very mallable.
I might have lost track of exact amounts on part of it but I did figure out that excessive amounts of tin would cancell antimony hardness and enough tin could make extremly hard boolits mallable or tough/strong.

If we really can get 30+bnh and have non fragmenting boolits "Frank" will be happy. He has been working on that for awhile. I have not read any recent updates on his work though.

Since I really had no interest in making really hard boolits or wasting SB and Sn I really never persued a controlled and documented experiment.
I eventually just added my experiment to pure lead to make good old standard hard cast boolits.

[sagacious]

... I got it to Pb47/Sb20/Sn37 it was no harder than 92-2-6 hardball and very mallable.

To get those alloy ratios to be the same hardness would require some really super-duper tin! Your alloy ratio works out to be 104%, which means you really did squeeze a lot of tin in there. But I hear ya, I did a lot of experimenting like that, and unless one keeps accurate notes on alloy composition, it's almost impossible to remember the exact composition and hardness.



I eventually just added my experiment to pure lead to make good old standard hard cast boolits.

I did the same. I had also made up a large quantity of brittania metal (for another purpose) and haven't yet used up the last of that as a source of tin, and just recently used up the last of my other 'experimental' alloys that were tin-rich. It sure was fun to be able to just use tin like it was water.

Keep on keepin on! :drinks:

[lwknight]

LOL, that was a typo, I meant 47/20/33 and that was rounding off the decimals too.

[fredj338]

I have asked around here and sssooo far nothing-- -- I normally do not seem to need to fool with it but I now have two HP molds -- one buckshot did for me and a group buy .41 -- soft is not a problem but I do not want brittle as mine are range lead ,,ww and some roof lead etc all air cooled-- so any suggestions thanks?
You'll probably find 50/50 lead/ww mix will give you good expansion. The less antimony in the mix the better for expansion vs fragmentation. I like 25-1 lead/tin mix for expansion to 1200fps or so.

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v703/fredj338/452-268-1K.jpg http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v703/fredj338/9mm-136-1200.jpg

[GP100man]

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v703/fredj338/9mm-136-1200.jpg

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v703/fredj338/452-268-1K.jpg

That`s a purty boolits , Were they shot into water???

[randyrat]

Sources of Tin (Sn)
****Wineries- When they bottle they have some reject caps, some quality wineries use 100%pure Sn on their bottles. Buy/recycle the rejects.
****Second hand stores- they sort out metal with a magnet, a magnet won't work on Pewter so lots of them throw it out. Learn about it and go in and talk to them. Offer a little more than a scrap yard would pay.
*** slavage /Junk yards. they may sell to the public, sometimes cheap
*** Learn the sources, do your homework and you'll find Tin (Sn)

[sst04]

got to your local scrap yard and pick up some "block tin" some of the tubing used in refridgeration was block tin. I tihink I paid 2.00lb.

When you say "used in refridgeration", are you saying that older refridgerators and such use this in the coils.