Rotometal foundry metal. Reasonable?

[mkj4him]

ROTOMETALS.COM
Foundry Alloy Pieces ~34 lb Box with Freight ~(12%-Tin, 26%-Antimony, balance-Lead trace of CU and FE)
On sale for $129 shipped.

Does this sound reasonable or should I look elsewhere? Looking for high antimony and tin to add to my keel lead.

[farmbif]

yes, good stuff. and buying from reputable source you know exactly what your getting. price is very fair, if you buy the 5lb cast blocks they offer the cost is closer to $5/lb isn't it.

[bangerjim]

Good hard alloy used for sweetening your pure Pb to where you want it. I always go 9-12 for all my cast boolits, + PC, of course!

And......................you can trust them. Unlike some of the garbage found on evilbay.

[mkj4him]

So should I get the bits and pieces or the 5lb ingots. Ingots would be easier to deal with for sure.

The ingots are 23% antimony 12.5% tin.but they run $5 per pound as mentioned.

[mkj4him]

I just ordered 68 pounds of the scrap.

[Rickf1985]

That is really heavy on the antimony, if that is all you are using to alloy with you will never get a good balance of tin/antimony/lead. You are going to have to get some tin to add into the mix to even things out a bit.

[mkj4him]

I have wheel weights and I have tin

[Cosmic_Charlie]

I have wheel weights and I have tin

I would hunt up a source for pure lead then. Roto sometimes puts that on sale.

[mkj4him]

You must have missed my other post. I just acquired 4900 pounds of keel lead. Seems close to pure. Need to wait two weeks to test hardness of bullets I cast with it with no additives.

[kevin c]

That seems like a very satisfactory deal.

Buying from RotoMetals is easier than scrounging type metal yourself: it may cost more, but you can get as much as you need whenever you want while saving all the DIY time and expense. And in this case, the sale price isn’t really too far off from what you might pay on the S&S.

For a given amount of antimony added to your lead, the type you bought will cost less than the ingots or even RotoMetals’ own Super Hard (ignoring the value of the lead in the Sb rich alloy, the calculated cost per pound of final alloy is 14.6¢ per percent added versus 26.1¢ or 21.3¢ respectively).

True that you are also adding in tin at a fixed ratio, and changing that ratio requires other sources of tin and antimony. You have the tin to make balanced alloys, but higher Sb:SN ratios need another source of Sb (with less or no tin) besides the type you’ve ordered.

[GregLaROCHE]

That seems like a lot of antimony. If you are going to add it to pure lead, why not consider some of the other alloys they offer like super hard? If you have a good stock of tin available, I guess it should work for you and the price seems reasonable.

[Rich/WIS]

I use foundry type from Rotometals for alloying range lead, for handguns about 5/1 range lead to foundry type. Makes nice hard bullets that are approximately COWW with 2% tin. Prefer the nuggets as they are easier to get the mix wanted than using 4-5 pounds ingots of FT.

[RogerDat]

Take some of the Rotometal alloy and add pewter or other high tin alloy to it until you get tin/antimony about equal. Makes for an easy addition to plain lead to get anything from softer revolver alloy of around 1.5% each to Lyman #2 alloy at 5% each.

Having the tin and antimony equal helps them bond with each other in a way that is stronger than either would be on its own. Greater strength than sum of the ingredients strength/hardening.

I tend to make Lyman #2 because at 5/5/90 I can cut it with plain for softer casting needs or use as is for higher velocity/pressure loads. I also tweak foundry lead to get the tin and antimony equal so I can make other alloys as needed.

I don't do all the foundry that way. Just do some to have on hand so I can make a pot of whatever balanced alloy I need at the time. Keep some in the original form. Just because it is a known ingredient.

Boat keel. Sweet find. Set for soft lead so getting a supply of additive alloys will leave you sitting pretty.

[Tazman1602]

I’ve bought Lyman #2 and Rotometals 30-1 (for BPCR) for close to twenty years and have never been dissatisfied with any of their products.

I collected lead (not zinc..) wheel weights for close to 20 years before that and still have some 5 gallon buckets of that along with some 5 pound buckets of linotype from when the local high school went digital.

Postman used to curse me whenever those packages from Rotometals came in, I think he made references to my mother…

Art

[mkj4him]

My foundry type arrived. Now what?
Need to add to my soft keel lead to make a good bullet alloy. Anyone ever deal with this foundry type to make bullets? They say it is 12% tin and 26% antimony .

[243winxb]

https://www.thehighroad.org/index.ph....902491/page-2 See photos at link.

After melting it together to make ingots. 10 pounds of pure or WW, add 1 pound of the foundry metal. Or 10 to 1. Would be my guess.

With pure, should cover target loads. 38 spec, 45acp.
With WW, should be good for 357, 44 magmuns.

I add 2" of Rotometals Linotype bar to 9 lbs of scrap or WW.

[BIGOX]

1 pound of that foundery type to 6 pounds of pure lead should give you 1.7% tin 3.7% antimony and 94.6% lead with a bhn of 12.5 according to the lead calculator. Going up to 1 pound of that foundery to 11 pounds pure lead and 0.25 pound of 50/50 solder should produce an alloy of 2% tin 2.1% antimony and 95.9 lead with a bhn of 11.1
Are you looking for something harder?
Are you planning on powder coating? What pressures and velocities are you planning to shoot with for this alloy?

[super6]

There is ten ways to Sunday you could go with the things you have acquired, Share what your plans are, Otherwise its a crap shoot. Rifle, Pistol, Shot,? I don't think there is a one size fits all. I agree with the matching tin antimony % to get as close to do all. Lessen the pure lead, Or add more.

[mkj4him]

1 pound of that foundery type to 6 pounds of pure lead should give you 1.7% tin 3.7% antimony and 94.6% lead with a bhn of 12.5 according to the lead calculator. Going up to 1 pound of that foundery to 11 pounds pure lead and 0.25 pound of 50/50 solder should produce an alloy of 2% tin 2.1% antimony and 95.9 lead with a bhn of 11.1
Are you looking for something harder?
Are you planning on powder coating? What pressures and velocities are you planning to shoot with for this alloy?

Ok.
Plans are to powder coat most bullets or Alox tumble lube the bore riding bullets that don’t want to chamber correctly with PC.
I am casting for typical 32 SW Long, 380, 9mm (pistol and AR-PCC), 38 SPL, 40SW, 45 ACP. These all would be mostly standard velocity to +p’s (850-1000 fps or so.
Then there are magnum pistols in 357 mag, 44 Mag and 460 Rowland. Pushing them fast.
Rifles would be most surplus calibers as well as moderns. 5.56, 6.5’s(swede,Carcano, Creedmoor), 7x57, 280 Rem, 270 Win, 30 carbine, 308/7.62, 7.5 Swiss, 30-06, 8x5741Swiss, 35 Remington, 458 Socom (sub and super), 43 Dutch Beaumont. I guess I should have said most everything. I want to push these caliber as fast as possible using cast PC and gas checked bullets.
So I guess I need to mix alloys for standard handgun, magnum handgun as well as plinking and high velocity rifles. Some of the rifles are not exceeding 2000 fps.

[super6]

That's Quite the spread.