Cast bullets with copper enriched alloy

[Dutch4122]

I note that Edds join date is Feb 2008, Matts join date is Mar 2005, Mikes join date is Jan 2006, my join date is Mar 2005. I have 109 e-mails from Mike that give a different story than the BS statement he made given above where he clearly states just who told him the alloy. As for not interjecting something that has already been done and written about for about 100 years.....You never, ever mentioned that in the past either. Seems to me that two and a half years ago would have been a good time. If you had the books why not share them? nobody from Michigan has taken much at face value,What were we supposed to take at face value? Exagerrated claims made here at Cast Boolits with a keyboard? You brought one Ruger semi-auto .45 pistol with 7 rounds to the first get together at Bruce's house. The next year we traveled to your place in Southern Illinois with my camper and you brought out a 24/47 Yugo shooting the 200 grn 8mm SIL loaded over 15 grains of Unique; and a few Mosin Nagant carbines that you didn't shoot, but judging by the rust I saw in the end of their bores I could tell you'd been shooting them with corrosive milsurp ammo. The third year you brought the new Marlin Stainless .357 Mag carbine which shot incredibly at 300 yards with your 360640-PBHP; and a semi-auto Soumi 9mm that none of us that tried it could hit anything with. Fourth year was a scratch due to conflicting schedules. And last summer, a 1903 Springfield with some low powered load that sounded like 13-15 grains of Unique again, the same 24/47 Yugo with the same 200 grn SIL and 15 grains of Unique, again. And, a Remington 25-06 with a load you said was 2,400 fps; but really turned out to be 1,900 fps when it was shot over my chronograph. Common denominator, nothing over 2,000 fps yet. Even after you had been told several times by Mike, Edd, and Bruce to bring the rifles with the high velocity sooper dooper pooper scooper clumping filler loads and shoot the darn things in front of us (or have Bruce shoot the groups) as witnesses to the fact that your 6.5 Swede load techniques worked at the velocities claimed with accuracy you still didn't do it. Instead we got excuses. all of you had to try it to see if it was true. It does no good to tell you anything until your ready to here it.I've heard a lot and spent a lot of time trying to decipher it. Mostly vague and incomplete information. Quite a bit of it contradictory if one goes back to the "teacher" for more info often enough. Always something left out that somebody didn't do right or was accused of not listening the first time. Another kernal of info that doesn't change the results for those that were trying. Matt, Bruce, Edd... you want to see Mikes e-mails, I would forward them to you.

You already have my email address. Feel free to send them.

So, once again, here I am full circle. Somebody told me once that the definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting a different result. Time to get off that train was a while ago. Please don't worry about leaving me at the station as I hopped over to a passing train before the last stop.

[Dutch4122]

Enough of this on this thread, you all know how to use e-mail or PMs.

By the way, don't presume to be ordering anybody around here. Last I checked I was a grown man that had been around the block once or twice. I guess that means I can decide for myself how, why, and when I respond to, or deal with this little disagreement.

No more holding court over our little group like some kind of "Grand Pooh-Bah" passing judgement on everyone else's hard work while bringing nothing to the party. Got it?

[Mooseman]

Guys...This either stays on track or Gets shutdown and we will NOT tolerate personal attacks of any kind here.PERIOD.

[Dutch4122]

Guys...This either stays on track or Gets shutdown and we will NOT tolerate personal attacks of any kind here.PERIOD.

That is more than fair enough for me. My sincerest apologies to all the membership and moderators here for getting off track.

Now back to the business at hand.

The following alloy is a base copper enriched alloy that Edd recently worked up on his alloy calculator. From our previous experiments Edd was able to determine that a balanced alloy works the best for higher velocity/pressure rifle loads. The way it works is this; once this alloy is mixed up in the casting pot you can then add pure lead to it in any amount and the resulting alloy will remain balanced so that the amounts of Copper and Antimony combined will equal the amount of tin in the mix. The remaining elements will be almost entirely pure lead, with the usual small amounts of trace elements.

In other words, mix up this base alloy; and then add pure lead to it in order to soften it to different degrees when water dropped. Edd also advises to "add no more pure lead than 1/2 the weight of COWW in the balanced alloy base mix." Any more than that and you will be producing alloys that won't provide any benefits over 50% COWW and 50% pure lead, even when water dropped.

Here is the base alloy given as a total of 9.985 pounds:

9.56 lbs of Clip On Wheel Weight Alloy (153 ounces)

.425 lbs of Roto-Nickle Grade 2 Babbit as sold by Roto-Metals (6.8 ounces)

As you can see, the total amount in the base alloy of this expensive babbit is less than 1/2 of a pound for every 10 pounds of alloy. After the pure lead is added that amount will decrease even more in your total alloy. In other words, a little bit of babbit goes a long way.

Now, obviously it is difficult to get the total weights down to exactly .001 lb. or .01 lb. What I do is use a bass fishing scale set to zero with a light weight small metal bucket hanging on it. I cut or chop ingots of the needed COWW or babbit until they weigh out to within .1 lb. of what I need. That's close enough and it goes in the pot. Heat it up. Flux lightly and it's ready to cast. If you have a 20 lb. casting pot you will double the amounts going into the alloy; a 40 lb. pot will require that they be quadrupled, etc.

That's it. I encourage, and I think Edd would agree that we welcome, other members to try these alloys in high velocity/pressure rifle loads (water dropped) as well as full tilt magnum pistol loads (air cooled) in both handguns & carbines.

Any and all thanks or credit for this information goes to BadgerEdd.

[popper]

Stephen Cohen - I don't know how making 'soft-points' from this would work. I think the purpose of this alloy is tougher to avoid slump , etc., at HV - maybe HP? You can't anneal it, it appears to have same hardness AC or WD after a day. WD is hard in 1 hr. First time I've used it, maybe others with more experience can chime in. For me it works better than sulfur toughening and is cheaper and easier. Good hammer expansion and not brittle.

[badgeredd]

I note that Edds join date is Feb 2008, Matts join date is Mar 2005, Mikes join date is Jan 2006, my join date is Mar 2005. I have 109 e-mails from Mike that give a different story than the BS statement he made given above where he clearly states just who told him the alloy. As for not interjecting something that has already been done and written about for about 100 years..... nobody from Michigan has taken much at face value, all of you had to try it to see if it was true. It does no good to tell you anything until your ready to hear it. Matt, Bruce, Edd... you want to see Mikes e-mails, I would forward them to you.

AGAIN Bob, you are missing the point. This thread is not about 50/50 alloy. It IS about alloy (which may be 50/50) that is enriched with copper. You had no hand in or contribution to the experiments. I thank you for putting myself as well as others on to the 50/50 mix, it is an improvement over straight COWW alloy but it fails when one loads a high pressure/high velocity load above 2400 fps. Actually it is a three part alloy that Larry Gibson based a lot of his past experiments on and formulated the RPM threshold theory on. Larry has been helpful in my experiments by providing information about high copper alloys as written about by Townsend Whelen. His information caused me to slightly change my direction in my experiments with a copper enhanced alloy. Larry has also provided me some truly helpful information about how the copper seems to affect peak pressure.

When someone has joined the forum has absolutely nothing to do with what they have learned or done. It isn't relevant to the topic at hand. It is no more relevant than their birth date. Time only proves age, nothing about knowledge. I dare say I have learned a lot about lube and other things from guys who have joined the forum after I did and who are younger than I. As for emails from anyone, I really don't care what you are trying to prove...again it has nothing to do with the topic of copper enriched alloys. I suggest you contribute facts to the thread that are relevant to the thread.

"...nobody from Michigan has taken much at face value, all of you had to try it to see if it was true." Sorry if this offends you, we all have a need to try things for ourselves to understand what is going on. I've learned a bunch from guys here by trying what they said did or did not work...it is how I learn and accumulate a data base for future reference.

Edd

[badgeredd]

That is more than fair enough for me. My sincerest apologies to all the membership and moderators here for getting off track.

Now back to the business at hand.

The following alloy is a base copper enriched alloy that Edd recently worked up on his alloy calculator. From our previous experiments Edd was able to determine that a balanced alloy works the best for higher velocity/pressure rifle loads. The way it works is this; once this alloy is mixed up in the casting pot you can then add pure lead to it in any amount and the resulting alloy will remain balanced so that the amounts of Copper and Antimony combined will equal the amount of tin in the mix. The remaining elements will be almost entirely pure lead, with the usual small amounts of trace elements.

In other words, mix up this base alloy; and then add pure lead to it in order to soften it to different degrees when water dropped. Edd also advises to "add no more pure lead than 1/2 the weight of COWW in the balanced alloy base mix." Any more than that and you will be producing alloys that won't provide any benefits over 50% COWW and 50% pure lead, even when water dropped.

Here is the base alloy given as a total of 9.985 pounds:

9.56 lbs of Clip On Wheel Weight Alloy 153 ozs.


.425 lbs of Roto-Nickle Grade 2 Babbit as sold by Roto-Metals 6.8 ozs.

As you can see, the total amount in the base alloy of this expensive babbit is less than 1/2 of a pound for every 10 pounds of alloy. After the pure lead is added that amount will decrease even more in your total alloy. In other words, a little bit of babbit goes a long way.

Now, obviously it is difficult to get the total weights down to exactly .001 lb. or .01 lb. What I do is use a bass fishing scale set to zero with a light weight small metal bucket hanging on it. I cut or chop ingots of the needed COWW or babbit until they weigh out to within .1 lb. of what I need. That's close enough and it goes in the pot. Heat it up. Flux lightly and it's ready to cast. If you have a 20 lb. casting pot you will double the amounts going into the alloy; a 40 lb. pot will require that they be quadrupled, etc.

That's it. I encourage, and I think Edd would agree that we welcome, other members to try these alloys in high velocity/pressure rifle loads (water dropped) as well as full tilt magnum pistol loads (air cooled) in both handguns & carbines.

Any and all thanks or credit for this information goes to BadgerEdd.

This basic alloy has close to the following percentages of the base metals:

90.48% Pb
4.39% Sn
4.28% Sb
0.15% Cu
0.24% As

It probably wouldn't (but I haven't tried it) work as is for an alloy for hunting as is, but by adding 5 # pure lead one gets an alloy with near 3% Sn and a nearly equal total of Sb/Cu which makes a good hunting boolit that can be pushed to higher pressures and velocities without alloy failure. In my experiments to date, I have found that one doesn't need a high concentration of copper to have a noticable effect on boolit performance. It also has caused me to experiment with higher copper content in a balanced alloy to see where that goes. We're currently working on trying to get the copper content up to about 0.5%. Judging from what I have read from others, I suspect that the "balance" in an alloy is just as important as getting the copper into the mix to start with. I may be wrong, but that is where my playing is leading me.

To me "popper's" method of adding copper to an alloy may prove beneficial in raising the copper content in an alloy. I haven't as yet tried it so, I can't say if I will use it much in the future, primarily because it varies enough from my current methods that it won't allow me to continue with my experiments. I definitely will try it to remove zinc from some contaminated alloy! My biggest problem is I don't fully understand how one "knows" how much copper he is adding to an alloy which kinda confuses my experiments into how much copper is enough and when does the content become too much.

Edd

[onceabull]

Not a lot to be gained by trying to inject reality into an professional engineers life... Onceabull

[nighthunter]

Trying to stay on topic ... so ..... During the last week or so I trimmed and deburred about 3500 .223 cases. Today I was looking at the pile of brass cuttings and had an idea (kinda hard to believe). I melted up a pot of 50/50, COWW/soft lead. This was in a Lee 20 lb. pot. I cranked the dial to 10 and let it heat up. I then added 2 tablespoons of the brass trimmings and let them heat up. I worked them into the sides of the pot for about 15 minutes then fluxed the alloy several times. There were a few small flakes of brass still visible but I couldn't get the last to alloy into the melt. I cleaned the dross off the top of the pot wich appeared to be what usually cleans out of smelted WW. I then cast up some bullets with the alloy. After sitting for about 6 hours these bullets are HARD. I think I accomplished nearly the same as adding just the copper into the alloy. I know I added a small amount of zinc but the amount should have been minimal. Copper + Zinc = Brass.

Nighthunter

[badgeredd]

Trying to stay on topic ... so ..... During the last week or so I trimmed and deburred about 3500 .223 cases. Today I was looking at the pile of brass cuttings and had an idea (kinda hard to believe). I melted up a pot of 50/50, COWW/soft lead. This was in a Lee 20 lb. pot. I cranked the dial to 10 and let it heat up. I then added 2 tablespoons of the brass trimmings and let them heat up. I worked them into the sides of the pot for about 15 minutes then fluxed the alloy several times. There were a few small flakes of brass still visible but I couldn't get the last to alloy into the melt. I cleaned the dross off the top of the pot wich appeared to be what usually cleans out of smelted WW. I then cast up some bullets with the alloy. After sitting for about 6 hours these bullets are HARD. I think I accomplished nearly the same as adding just the copper into the alloy. I know I added a small amount of zinc but the amount should have been minimal. Copper + Zinc = Brass.

Nighthunter

Nighthunter,

Can you check the BHn on the castings?

The test will be in the shooting as to whether or not you've accomplished something similar to adding copper. Popper has mentioned hammering a boolit to kinda test the "toughness" of the alloy. You might want to try the same thing to see if the boolits are brittle as well as hard. Either way it should help us all to understand what the characteristics are of the alloy. I'd guess that even if it is brittle, it still will allow you to load to higher pressure than WW alloy before you experience alloy failure.
Let us know will you?

Edd

[GabbyM]

Trying to stay on topic ... so ..... During the last week or so I trimmed and deburred about 3500 .223 cases. Today I was looking at the pile of brass cuttings and had an idea (kinda hard to believe). I melted up a pot of 50/50, COWW/soft lead. This was in a Lee 20 lb. pot. I cranked the dial to 10 and let it heat up. I then added 2 tablespoons of the brass trimmings and let them heat up. I worked them into the sides of the pot for about 15 minutes then fluxed the alloy several times. There were a few small flakes of brass still visible but I couldn't get the last to alloy into the melt. I cleaned the dross off the top of the pot wich appeared to be what usually cleans out of smelted WW. I then cast up some bullets with the alloy. After sitting for about 6 hours these bullets are HARD. I think I accomplished nearly the same as adding just the copper into the alloy. I know I added a small amount of zinc but the amount should have been minimal. Copper + Zinc = Brass.

Nighthunter

Interesting:

According to wiki. Cartridge brass is 30% zinc.

[Box13]

This is highly interesting to me as I have about 40 lbs of an unknown babbit and Ive been using it to harden pure lead to simulate ww.Ive only used it in a 44 mag but it looks like I can get pretty good speeds without any leading from a mix of 90% pure and 10% of this babbit....Robin

[357maximum]

Trying to stay on topic ... so ..... During the last week or so I trimmed and deburred about 3500 .223 cases. Today I was looking at the pile of brass cuttings and had an idea (kinda hard to believe). I melted up a pot of 50/50, COWW/soft lead. This was in a Lee 20 lb. pot. I cranked the dial to 10 and let it heat up. I then added 2 tablespoons of the brass trimmings and let them heat up. I worked them into the sides of the pot for about 15 minutes then fluxed the alloy several times. There were a few small flakes of brass still visible but I couldn't get the last to alloy into the melt. I cleaned the dross off the top of the pot wich appeared to be what usually cleans out of smelted WW. I then cast up some bullets with the alloy. After sitting for about 6 hours these bullets are HARD. I think I accomplished nearly the same as adding just the copper into the alloy. I know I added a small amount of zinc but the amount should have been minimal. Copper + Zinc = Brass.

Nighthunter

You have my attention and I would like to know more. I actually thought about doing similar, but I lacked the stones to try it and intentionally add zinc to my melt. I have successfully cast with alloys that have had miniscule amounts of zinc, but I did not put it there on purpose.

Did you have good fillout and how did the sprue area act as it cooled?

I would like to see how one of these boolits behaves when sat on an anvil and hit with a heavy hammer.If you happen to hit the boolit a bit off center it would really tell us alot about it's integrity/mallability/toughness.


There may be a way to add the brass/smelt and then incorporate poppers copper sulfate method to suck the zinc back out and add more copper in the process to give us a richer enhancement alloy...just spitballing here.

[madsenshooter]

Had the 6x45 AR out a couple days ago, using the Cu containing, lead based babbitt I've been using for a few years now. Tried a couple loads. In one the powder was slow enough, managed a 1.5 tall x 1.25 wide 100yd group at around 2600fps. With a slightly faster powder things went awry and it was difficult to keep the bullets on an 8.5x11 target. I'd guesstimate that load was going close to 2700fps. I'm thinking the AR is going to be sold so I can buy a bolt gun with a slower twist and some tools I need.

[357maximum]

No time like the present to sell anything AR. The mall ninjas and tacticool crowd have plumb lost their minds. I wish I had a couple dozen to sell.

[Jim Flinchbaugh]

Today I was looking at the pile of brass cuttings and had an idea (kinda hard to believe).
Nighthunter

I kinda did this by accident a while back. I had some tin inogts I wanted into smaller pieces. I used a 44 mag mold for an ingot mold.
Need a small ladle. Hmm, I made a slick, small ladle out of a piece of 44 brass. When I stirred the pot, the ladle disappeared! OOPS

[Jailer]

No time like the present to sell anything AR. The mall ninjas and tacticool crowd have plumb lost their minds. I wish I had a couple dozen to sell.

With prices where they are right now I'm sitting on a small retirement fund.

[madsenshooter]

Wonder if the mall ninjas have every heard the word Obermeyer? If so, more money for me! .223 upper with a DEZ heavy fluted barrel is going along.

[303Guy]

......thus far tonight we have learned that Wd'ed 50/50 = good and that adding a bit of tin and copper to the fray make it Mo' Betta........am I keeping up with the curve?

I have a problem with that - I can't get ahold of any WW! So what can I do to get the desired alloy? Mmm... well I suppose I betta go find a fishing sinker caster and trade ordinary lead scrap for his WW's. Heck, I'll even smelt the stuff into usable ingots for him.

Would someone please point me to the post with the base alloy make-up? Or just repost it? Thanks.

[I'll Make Mine]

303guy, you could just get some ingots of antimonial lead and tin solder (plumbing solder is generally tin or tin with a little antimony these days) to make your own wheel weight (ish) alloy -- as I recall, the average composition is about 3% to 3.5% antimony, and 0.5% tin, remainder lead. Hard antimonial lead is (again, from memory, so worth double checking) 6% antimony or so, so half and half hard shot and pure lead, then add half a percent tin, should be very close to clip on wheel weights.