Making 2 2 96 with Super hard and tin

[mdntranger50]

I have a little supply of pure sheet lead still in sheet form. I was going to try to trade pure for WW lead or lead already alloyed to around 9-10 bhn. I mostly cast for pistol and powder coat everything. I decided to try my hand at alloying some myself to make 2 2 96 mix which if I'm correct show be around 10 bhn? Help check my math. So if I want to use pure lead, super hard, and pure tin to come out with 2% tin, 2% antimony, and 96% lead and have around 10lbs of mix. I figured 9lbs 2ozs of lead, 11ozs of super hard, and 3.2ozs of tin? It's a little more than 10lbs of mix but it's as close as I could figure rounding up some to make measuring easier. Let me know what you think. Will be the first time actually alloying. I have always just used straight wheel weight lead. I have already purchased 50lbs of super hard from rotometals. I have not purchased the tin yet.

[mdntranger50]

Seems this mix may be more around 8bhn from further reading on the lasc site.

[bruce381]

I would download Bumpos alloy calculator saves head scratching have ot google I do not have link right now

[LAGS]

I cast up a mix of 1/3/96 and it is just a tick harder then Wheel Weight castings.
If I cast up a 2/4/94 alloy.
It comes out about a 10 bhn
But the higher Tin percentage makes it cast very well

[LAGS]

I cast up a mix of 1/3/96 and it is just a tick harder then Wheel Weight castings.
If I cast up a 2/4/94 alloy.
It comes out about a 10 bhn

[Sig]

The alloy calculator I'm using has your alloy at:
95.10% PB
2.02% Antimony
2.88% Tin

You can drop the tin down to 1.75oz to get the content down to 2%.

[mdntranger50]

Thanks for all the replies, I did find Bumpos calculator and have been playing around with it. With this calculator it says 2 2 96 is 11bhn but also 1 2 97 is 11bhn. I will just have to alloy a batch and see what I get. I do have a Lee hardness tester. Seems bhn hardness is not as critical when powder coating especially for pistol. I drop out of the mold on a towel and let them air cool but when I powder coat I drop them in a bucket of water straight from the oven. I'm not for sure if this method increases hardness or not but I will just have to make and batch them test both before and after powder coating to see what I get. This site is great!

[kevin c]

Your math looks right to me as far as composition goes, but I’ll let others give more knowledgeable observations on hardness than I can (I also coat my pistol bullets, so I don’t worry about hardness as much as I do about having consistent alloy).

A thought: if you really like a particular alloy and plan on using a lot of it, you might consider making a larger batch in advance, stored as 1-2# ingots, rather than mixing in the pot as you cast, which is slow (have to wait for stuff to melt, mix, and come to casting temperature), possibly dirty (if the source materials aren’t clean) and prone to errors in calculation of ingredients and estimation on how much to mix if you haven’t drained the pot. It does commit your stock to that alloy, though.

Balanced Sn and Sb make for a better alloy, but for paper punching pistol bullets at non demanding velocities it may not be adding much. Otherwise it improves the alloy casting characteristics. Anywhere from none up to 2% is all that’s needed per all the references I’ve seen.

Thrift store pewter (~92% tin from food service items) is much cheaper than certified pure tin from a metals supplier. You do have to be sure of what you’re getting, though, and some parts of the country don’t seem to have much available. Certified tin is a safe place to start from, with pewter as an option later down the road.

[Rickf1985]

You have got to remember that using Bumpo's calculator anything using lead automatically changes lead from pure to lead with tin and antimony with a BHN of 8.6.
I see it in the formula but I am no good at Excell so I am not sure how to change it. I have an idea and as soon as I get some free time I will be experimenting with a version on my computer using pure lead just as BHN5 with no additives. In the calculator as it is this is the formula for pure lead. =8.6+(0.29*B50*100)+(0.92*C50*100) It is adding .29 tin and .92 antimony but when you look at those values in the total columns they are all zeros. And it does this with lead in ANY alloy you try to figure so the BHN will always be off.

[popper]

What caliber pistol? You need 2% Sb to get W/D hardening. 45 & 40sw A/C is probably OK. 9mm needs a slightly harder alloy. I don't use tin and don't worry about BHN. When I need penetration from a bullet I use 4% Sb (plus some Cu) and W/D.

IIRC there was a discussion about this long time ago. BHN of pure lead is difficult to measure so Bumpo used 8.6. Lead stress/strain curve is non-linear until stress is above the plastic region. Most metal are linear below and above the yield point. This is with compression measurement, aka, our BHN testers.