lead tin alloying

[hillbill]

im a newbie here and to casting my own bullets. im casting for a lee tumble lube mold for my ruger 45 colt. im pushing these bullets at 900 to 1000 fps.my question is i have about 125 lbs of what i think is pure lead. id like to alloy it to make it a little harder and more suitable for what im doing. ive been useing ww for my bullets but im about out of them. they seem to work well in my gun.what do i need to do to make this pure lead into something i can use in my 45?can i add 1.5% tin?or do i need to add something else as well. any help would be appreciated.

[Rock]

Antimony makes lead harder and more brittle
Tin makes the mold fill out better and makes lead tougher.

[hillbill]

my bullets could use a little better fill out, do i need to add some antimony to? if so in what percentage?

[lwknight]

About 3% antimony and 2% tin will be plenty hard for most pistols. 45 acp can be even softer like 1.5% to 2% antimony.

[cajun shooter]

READ THE STICKIE SECTION. Look for all post by Glenn Fryexll. It gives you all the different alloys and how to make them. 15 lbs of lead and one pound of tin is a good pistol alloy. I shoot a 20 to one mix for my Cowboy bullets.

[fredj338]

READ THE STICKIE SECTION. Look for all post by Glenn Fryexll. It gives you all the different alloys and how to make them. 15 lbs of lead and one pound of tin is a good pistol alloy. I shoot a 20 to one mix for my Cowboy bullets.

A 20-1 lead/tin alloy is fine for bullets even to 1300fps or so w/ proper sizing. I even do fine w/ LHP @ 25-1 to 1250fps w/ little to no leading. BTW, adding antimony does nothing for mold fill-out, tin helps with that.

[grumpy one]

A little antimony helps hardness considerably, and increases toughness as well, but as others have said, you can get by without it at the pressures you are currently using. The issue is that historically at least, lead-tin-antimony alloys have been cheaper and more plentiful than lead-tin alloys giving comparable performance. Also, it is not practical to use lead-tin for almost any center-fire rifle applications, due to lack of hardness, so you would be setting yourself up with a non-magnum handgun-only solution if you go in that direction. My preference - and I think many other people's - has been to find what I need for hunting rifles, and dilute it to make a lower pressure alloy for other purposes. In essence, WW plus up to 3% tin gives an ultimate alloy that can be heat treated for just about any high pressure cast bullet application, and mixing it with pure lead or stick-on WW softens it for low pressure jobs without making it a low performance alloy.

Having said all that, it depends on what you can get and at what price. Traditionally clip-on WW have been fairly easy to get and people resented the cost of adding one to three percent tin to improve castability and toughness. If you can't get WW, then a lead-tin alloy can just about do your current job for you, but it probably won't stretch up to magnum handgun applications unless you are very lucky with your handgun.

[hillbill]

jeez thanks guys, the amount of knowledge here is unfathomable.im not looking to push to magnum levels and prob never will. just a good accurate shooting bullet in my ruger 45.im still loading copper for my rifles but im looking for a 45 colt rifle.ill be hauling some scrap iron monday and will ask them boys if they got any ww lead.looks like i may be buying some tin for a 20 to 1 ratio.

[runfiverun]

just cut your ww's with the soft stuff i like 3-1 ww's to soft air cooled you could go 1-1 or even lower with the ww's and water drop to get the hardness back.
you could try 2 parts soft to 1 ww turn the heat up some or add .5% tin to help then water drop should get you back up to the 10 bhn range.