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Thread: Little experiment

  1. #1
    Boolit Buddy Krh1326's Avatar
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    Little experiment

    After pouring through a ton of archived and current posts, I decided to make a little experiment.

    My situation is:
    1) I have a lot of unknown lead that is very dull grey, has almost a powdery texture to its surface, but it is soft enough to bite into with diagonal cutters, and pliers will deform it. I call it unknown because I didn’t melt it and make the ingots. I did, however, remelt it, treat it heavily with Sulfer, just in case, and made mini muffin tin ingots. It makes fine boolits for my .357/ .38 , 9mm and .45 acp… even does ok for .223 with mid range loads. The weight is not too far off mold stated weight.

    2) My son now works for the local water district, working on mains and hydrants and such, and constantly bringing me pure lead pipe. The pure lead mini muffin ingots are chrome shiny, but I know that I need to alloy it up.

    3) I am a retired steamfitter, and I have accrued a massive supply of Sterling lead free solder. I have found that 50:1 seems to be pretty much the standard lead to solder mix, in this forum.


    After reading so many posts, this is what I did…

    I cleaned out my Dutch oven, and melted down about 8 lbs. of Sterling solder. I stripped about 15 feet of heavy guage stranded copper wire and completely saturated it in Utility Flux ( did I mention I was a retired fitter with a large cashe of trade goods, lol ?) I dissolved the wire into the molten solder, til it wouldn’t melt anymore copper. I poured a whole bunch of ingots.
    They are totally impregnated with copper. You can see it glistening, in it.
    I put 20 of the “unknown” ingots , plus 30 pure lead ingots and 1 of the solder/copper ingots in the pot, on the burner. I poured up these ingots, and found them to be smooth, pretty hard , they have the right sound when dropped on concrete, but they all took on a real dull grey, but not to the extreme as the original unknown ingots. I decided I can’t wait til tomorrow, I need to play, now.
    I casted about 20 of the heaviest boolits of the molds that I have. 255 gr .45acp RF.
    They look really good. Lube grooves sharp definition , good fill out and a real bright shine. They run thru the Lee push thru sizer, real nice with only a bit of effort.
    Unfortunately I don’t have a hardness tester….. yet.
    Diagonal cutters still bite in, and pliers still deform them.
    I set one on the anvil and gave three easy, controlled whacks with the lump hammer. It gradually pancaked to what looks like a stack of nickels without a single crack… I can’t wait to try to accurately check the hardness, let alone load and fire some.

    Gosh I really wish I knew what was in the original unknown ingots…..

  2. #2
    Boolit Master

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    imo, most hobby casters heat their melt to no more than ~750ºF, where lead and tin melt but zinc does not, rather than ~2000ºF where copper melts.

    How will the copper "react" in a 20# pot at or about 700ºF while attempting to cast (say) 158 gr. 357 Mag boolits?

    Do you cast at 1985ºF, which rules out every aluminum mold (melts at 1220°F)?

    Use the "Pencil Test" method to get a fair assessment of the Brinell Hardness Number (BHN) for your ingots.
    https://castboolits.gunloads.com/sho...s-with-pencils
    Last edited by Land Owner; 07-27-2022 at 04:54 AM.
    If it was easy, anybody could do it.

  3. #3
    Boolit Buddy Krh1326's Avatar
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    I did not monitor the temp of the iron pot while making the solder/ copper ingots… my bad. I blended my 50 lead ingots and one solder/ copper ingot in same cast iron pot on burner. I do not know what that temp was. I took a few of those blended ingots and used my Lee bottom pour pot, to cast those .45 acp boolits at about 750 .

    Edit: thanks for pencil suggestion, will try to find them today.
    Also, one of my three muffin tins is aluminum and didn’t melt when breaking down first blend from cast iron pot, so couldn’t have been up near 1220.

  4. #4
    Boolit Master Sasquatch-1's Avatar
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    It seems like you would have had to get that cast iron pot glowing in order to melt copper.

    A simple trick to see about how hard your bullets are, is to take a bullet of known hardness and one of unknown hardness and squeeze them together in a vice. The one that crushes first is softer.

    If you are looking for a hardness tester, may I suggest the Cabine Tree, Sold at Buffalo Arms:

    https://www.buffaloarms.com/lead-har...ard-ctlt1.html

    I have one of the originals and it is very easy to use, although a bit costly for most.
    A vote for anyone other then the conservative candidates is a vote for the liberal candidates.

  5. #5
    Boolit Buddy Krh1326's Avatar
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    I did not see the pot glowing, and I did do it outside in the dark of night, though I did have a light on.

    That tester looks perfect… just made my wish list.

  6. #6
    Boolit Grand Master
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    Interesting experiment. Looking forward to your shooting results.

    We learn by doing and experimenting. Good to see out of the box thinking. Look at it this way. We would have one lube recipe if people had not tried different things.

    For hunting and self defense, bullet malleability is an important feature. If your alloy smashes down as described that is a great attribute. How it shoots wrt to accuracy and velocity will be informative.
    Don Verna


  7. #7
    Boolit Master

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    For comparison, LBT Hardness Tester...:

    https://lbtmolds.com/Products/tabid/...lt.aspx#tester

    guess you gotta ask for a photo of the thing...not shown on their web site.
    If it was easy, anybody could do it.

  8. #8
    Boolit Master
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    Lee also makes a simple hardness tester - I have one and it seems to get me close enough on Brinell.

  9. #9
    Boolit Buddy Krh1326's Avatar
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    I just cast up several different molds. They all look pretty darn nice. I’m going to take some pics of the copper infused solder ingots, and some of the various molds I just dropped, as well as the pancaked .45 slugs… brb

  10. #10
    Boolit Buddy Krh1326's Avatar
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    These are ( l to r) : 255 grain .45 acp , 158 gr .357/ .38 spl, 125 gr 9mm , 125 gr 9mm Erik @ Hollowpointmold conversion, and a 120 gr TC. Above them , or behind them, are the two 45 acp slugs that I whacked down. It amazes me to still see the meplat, lube grooves… all uniformly crushed , and the perfect circular shape, still intact zero cracking.

    Click image for larger version. 

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    These are a couple of the copper impregnated Sterling Solder ingots. When I made them, I saw how some of the copper comes together to form radiating stripes, even though up close you can clearly see copper twinkling all through out the ingot. I kept this and the ingots of lead that I blended it with, constantly stirring… I only stopped stirring while I needed hand to cast boolits.

    Click image for larger version. 

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    Last edited by Krh1326; 07-27-2022 at 11:29 AM.

  11. #11
    Boolit Buddy Krh1326's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by dverna View Post
    Interesting experiment. Looking forward to your shooting results.

    We learn by doing and experimenting. Good to see out of the box thinking. Look at it this way. We would have one lube recipe if people had not tried different things.

    For hunting and self defense, bullet malleability is an important feature. If your alloy smashes down as described that is a great attribute. How it shoots wrt to accuracy and velocity will be informative.
    Exactly! I’m down to the last half, of the last box of .35 Remington Core-Lokt 200 gr , that I and my son use for whitetail in our .35 R Marlins. All I can find are those Leverlution jammies, and no matter what they say, I don’t want pointed ammo in my tube. And can’t even always find them.
    I bought the dies for .35 Rem, and lees .35 200 mold, have tons of brass for it… might as well. Then found several threads of guys precipitating copper to make tougher boolits, without increasing the hardness. Giving it a shot.
    Maybe it makes the difference in penetrating that rib or scapula… if it works out, I’ll prolly get that MP .35 mold, that’s been on my watchlist f o r e v e r, lol.

  12. #12
    Boolit Master

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    I'm still stuck on the smelting process and the comments about the temperatures needed to "melt" the copper. Did the copper melt into the alloy or did it dissolve? Did the OP's use of his flux help the copper to dissolve?

    Just thinking out loud here, but isn't that how antimony is added to a lead alloy? It is dissolved vs melted.
    “Some people spend an entire lifetime wondering if they made a difference in the world. But, the Marines don't have that problem.” Ronald Reagan


  13. #13
    Boolit Buddy Krh1326's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by oley55 View Post
    I'm still stuck on the smelting process and the comments about the temperatures needed to "melt" the copper. Did the copper melt into the alloy or did it dissolve? Did the OP's use of his flux help the copper to dissolve?

    Just thinking out loud here, but isn't that how antimony is added to a lead alloy? It is dissolved vs melted.
    This ^ I believe it is actually dissolved, not melted. If you look in the STICKIES on this, there was a post about tinning the copper wire. It had to be done with the solder only, no lead present… yet. One fella went on to speculate about adding a low current, similar to plating, to assist the process.
    I got the 100% Sterling Solder completely melted. I dipped 4” long cut pieces of the stranded copper cable, into it , to heat it up. Then jammed the wire into a tub of Utility Flux ( plumbers soldering flux ), then dropped it into the molten solder. I continued this until the pieces of wire stopped dissolving into the solder. I scooped out whatever fragments remained. Then I poured this solder / copper into mini muffin tins. One of which is Aluminum… so there’s no way I had the temps listed above. Those posts in STICKIES, also talk about how copper has an affinity for tin, and it wants to bond with tin, very much like copper plating, the copper goes to the lead with just a little current… and that process doesn’t produce heat, much less than 1000’s of degrees needed to “melt” copper.

    The one on left is aluminum. The other two, I have to go hide in my barn, before wife sees.
    Click image for larger version. 

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    I then took one of those solder/ copper ingots, and melted that with 50 lead ingots. Which is what I used to cast those boolits, up there ^

    Edit: Yeah, I’m a strange dude, and really like living on the other side of the envelope. I’ve spent my entire career as aUnion Steamfitter, and retired as a Heavy Rescue captain in FD after 20 years. I still run my 42 flathead , 74 sporty chopper and 86 custom …flat out. Life is good, keep it interesting.
    It’s not my fault… actually it’s my wife’s fault… she still goes to work, and leaves me unsupervised.
    Last edited by Krh1326; 07-27-2022 at 12:55 PM.

  14. #14
    Boolit Grand Master popper's Avatar
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    Sterling Solder is tin copper solder. Solubility of copper in tin is pretty high at high temp. With the flux it will chemically get absorbed. At room temp, not so high so you get the copper coloring - solid Cu. Solubility of Cu in Pb is near ZERO. Cu will make molecules with tin/antimony but not Pb. Molecules remain at room temp so you don't get solid chunks of Cu, which will fracture when mixed with lead.
    Whatever!

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Abbreviations used in Reloading

BP Bronze Point IMR Improved Military Rifle PTD Pointed
BR Bench Rest M Magnum RN Round Nose
BT Boat Tail PL Power-Lokt SP Soft Point
C Compressed Charge PR Primer SPCL Soft Point "Core-Lokt"
HP Hollow Point PSPCL Pointed Soft Point "Core Lokt" C.O.L. Cartridge Overall Length
PSP Pointed Soft Point Spz Spitzer Point SBT Spitzer Boat Tail
LRN Lead Round Nose LWC Lead Wad Cutter LSWC Lead Semi Wad Cutter
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