Original alloy for 38-55

[Goshawk]

Anyone know the alloy used in the old 1320 fps loads before smokeless powder. How about the first smokeless loads?

[HWooldridge]

My great uncle used to hunt with a 38-55 and had a couple of factory rounds from the 1920’s that he gave me (I may even have one still floating around here somewhere). The bullets were very soft - probably solid lead or close to it, and the lube looked like straight beeswax. It may have been softer at one time but was hard by the time I saw them in the 1980’s.

[Outpost75]

Factory swaged lead bullets of the black powder era prior to 1900 were typically 1 to 16 or 1 to 20 tin-lead. After extrusion into wire and being formed into bullets the recrystallized structure would be softer, about 8 Bhn. Cast bullets of 1 to 25 or 1 to 30 will approximate the hardness of the thoroughly cold- worked and recrystallized tin-lead.

After WW1 and through to the present day common swaged factory bullets are not produced from primary lead, but recycled lead-antimony alloys of 2-3% Sb with only trace amounts of tin and other elements, but generally no harder than 8-10 BHN so that the extruded wire can be coiled onto rolls to be fed into the swaging machine.

To approximate the correct hardness for black powder and mild smokeless loads below 24,000 psi a good mix is 50-50 wheeleeights or backstop scrap with soft plumber's lead, adding 1-2% tin as needed to get good fill-out. There is no need for bullets harder than 10 Bhn until chamber pressures exceed about 24,000 psi.

Effective home made lube for such loads up to a out 1600 fps is 60-40 beeswax and olive oil. Or use 50-50 in cold weather.