Super light bullets, help what do I have?

Got a hold of some lead today. Looks exactly like pure lead, so I test some. What would normally be a 215 gr. .41 mag bullet comes out at 199 gr. and hard as a rock. What magic potion did I get? Any suggestions? Melted just like lead.

Hoooo Heebs. That's a brain teaser. I have no Answers but want to say WELCOME! Hope you find this a comfortable place and stay a while. Helice

Sounds like it has a lot of tin.
I had some do that. I just added roofing boots. As the alloy blended up with more pure, the weight went up.

Is it really. really hard? Does it fracture or break when you hit it lightly with a hammer, or just smash down?

Yes it is really really hard. With a normal swing of the hammer it compresses. With consecutive hits, it fractures and pieces fall off.

Helice

Glad to be here. I see your from California, my condolences.

Might be linotype. What's the melting temp?

Regards,

Stew

Don't know the melting temp. Didn't put the thermometer in as I thought it was pure lead.

I think AZ has it right you have lino or someones attempt at it.

If you were planing on shooting these at full magnum velocity and have them sized for the chamber throats I say go for it! use a good lube like Lar's I think full bore loads with alox will get you leading.

If you were looking for plinker loads in the 900 FPS range these are going to be to hard! I will suggest mixing this stuff 1 lb clip on WW to 9 lbs of your "lino" for plinker velocity range.

If you have a hardness tester - determine the Brinell Hardness of the mystery alloy

Years ago I was given a few bars of what was called #4 babbitt. It was free, so I used it "as is". Cast some very nice looking bullets that shot well, but were pretty light for size. This metal was used to pour wire rope sockets in the oil field. I later discovered this metal was very high in tin, and I could have used it to "sweeten " a lot of wheel weights. Oh well, it was free![smilie=p:

Don't have a hardness tester, always wanted one though. I guess I have the excuse now.
Anyone else venture a guess? I was told that big bearings run on it. It is "dished" on one side.

OK, here's a Do-It-Yourself Tester. Compliments of Driftwood Johnson, CAS Shooter and it works:

Lead Hardness Test
Here is a simple way to test the Bhn number of unknown lead samples: all you need is a caliper, two bottle caps, a vise, a 5mm diameter (aprox. size) ball bearing, and a known pure sample of lead (Corbin can furnish pure lead of 99.995% Pb with trace silver).
1. Melt enough lead to fill one bottle cap with unknown sample, and the other with known pure lead. Make sure the surface is smooth and flat when the lead hardens and cools.
2. When the lead is cold, put the ball bearing between the two lead surfaces and squeeze this "sandwich" in the vise until the ball is driven partly into both surfaces (just enough to make a fair sized dent, but not past the middle of the ball).
3. Remove the sandwich and measure the two dent diameters. First measure the known pure lead dent and write down this number. Then measure the dent diameter in the unknown lead sample and write it down. Square both numbers (multiply times themselves). Then divide the resulting square of the unknown lead dent diameter into the square of the known pure lead dent diameter. This could be written as (L times L) divided by (X times X) where L is the pure Lead dent diameter, and X is the unknown lead dent diameter.
4. The answer should be a number of 1 or greater. If it is a fraction, or less than 1 in value, you have inverted the two dents and divided the wrong way. In that case, try again. When you get an answer that is 1 or greater, multiply it by 5. This is the actual Brinnell Hardness Number of the unknown sample.
The reason that you will always get a number of 1 or greater is that the ball will always go further into soft material (pure lead) than it will into hard material (any alloy of lead with tin, bismuth, antimony, etc.). Therefore, the diameter of the dent will always be smaller in the unknown sample, if it is harder than pure lead, or the same as the known pure sample, if it is also pure lead. When you divide a smaller number into a larger one, you always get something greater than one for an answer. Brinnell numbers are all greater than one. You must multiply the answer by 5 because this is the adjusting constant for pure lead, which is Bhn 5 hardness.
This method is as accurate as your sample purity and your ability to read the diameter of the dent. A smooth surface is necessary so you can get a clean diameter to measure. A rough surface will throw off the answer because you may not get a true diameter to measure, if one side of the lead surface is higher or wavy. But in general, this is as accurate a method as any that uses tools which cost less than $500. A reading with an accuracy of only Bhn plus or minus 0.5 will be more than sufficient for purposes of swaging. When the Bhn number actually increases from 5 to 10, or doubles, the pressure goes up by a factor of four, or the square of the increase in hardness. A number of 5-6 Bhn is close enough to be called pure for swaging purposes. A number of 10-12 is close enough to be considered about "medium" hardness or suitable for -S dies. A number of 18-20 is hard enough to be considered strictly for the -H type hydraulic dies even if used in the CSP-2 hand press.
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Sounds maybe too hard even for lino.
It might be monotype (17% antimony)
Boolits from monotype are hard as blazes and will fracture if tapped sharply from the side with a screwdriver shank.

Jack

John Boy
Thanks a lot. I'll try this tomorrow. I found my Lyman cast bullet book and just using their figures, a linotype bullet looses about 7 % from pure lead and I'm in that ballpark. As an aside, what is Babbitt bars that Softpoint was talking about?

jack
These fracture pretty easy when tapped with a screwdriver tip and hammer. I think I have lino or mono.
If it's mono, I'll just have to cut it further with WW or pure lead.

Big bearings run on it? I'm guessing babbit but what kind of babbit I can't say for sure guessing by the weight and hardnes I'm thinking high speed babbit with a high tin content. Just my guess worth excitaly what ya paid for it. Alloy it with ww's and shoot it enjoy it, it ain't rocket science. Dennis

Now I "almost" feel guilty getting this stuff. Sounds like this will last me a loooong time.