Bhn 50/50

[WARD O]

I hear a lot about using 50% wheel weights and 50% lead as a good alloy for general pistol shooting. On the BHN scale, where does this fall? How fast can you push it? Does it help to water drop this alloy?

Thanks for your opinions
Ward

[fredj338]

I find it runs BHN 9+. I run it to 1200fps w/ Lars BAC or Carnuba & have little leadng. It's just about perfect for 45acp or 38sp bullets.

[fusil]

Bonjour,
I got a recipe from an old guy (70+) at the range who use's:
50/50 with 2% pewter by weight.

All pan lubed and used for 32 ACP, 38spl, 9mm , 40 S&W & 45 ACP.

Still waiting for the correct mold to be delivered,..., cant wait to start...

Salut,
fusil

[BABore]

I hear a lot about using 50% wheel weights and 50% lead as a good alloy for general pistol shooting. On the BHN scale, where does this fall? How fast can you push it? Does it help to water drop this alloy?

Thanks for your opinions
Ward

9-10 bhn aircooled and 18-22 bhn water dropped or oven heat treated. Your mileage may vary based on your local WW composition. All stick-on WW's sorted and used as Pb. With my WW's I can go to a 35/65 WW-Pb and get 7-8 bhn AC'd and 16 bhn WD'd. I only add tin if absolutley needed and no more that 1/2 to 1%. You can add all the tin you can afford to Pb and there is no pouring problems. Once antimony is present, you don't want to exceed its content with tin. Causes lots of lumpiness in the pour.

[44man]

That will be the controlling factor. What are the WW's in your area. They are recycled many times and with the stick on weights now common, they can be softer then they used to be.

[outdoorfan]

That will be the controlling factor. What are the WW's in your area. They are recycled many times and with the stick on weights now common, they can be softer then they used to be.

Yeah, I've been experiementing with 50/50 and 70/30 ww/soft, and I have a feeling that the batch of ww's that I've been playing with is softer than it should be. Don't know for sure, though, as I don't have a working bhn tester right now.

[outdoorfan]

Once antimony is present, you don't want to exceed its content with tin. Causes lots of lumpiness in the pour.

This has me thinking because the last batch of soft lead that I smelted was really lumpy. The lead was in the form of a big block, and I have no idea what the exact composition of it was.

[WARD O]

What do you think about using this alloy with gas checks as a hunting load? Maybe drive it a little faster in hopes of some expansion? Say 1600 fps?

[outdoorfan]

I would think that would work great in a rifle, and it could handle even more velocity when ht'ed. For a pistol at those velocities, I would think it would definitely need to be ht'ed to handle the pressures associates with 1600 fps.

[BABore]

45 2.1 shot this 400 gr, 480 Ruger boolit, cast from 50/50 and water dropped (22 bhn). It went into a 50 yard target board and then into soft loam at 75 yards. Velocity was 1,250. HT'd rifle boolits do the same thing at 1,600 fps and beyond. I'm pushing this alloy at 2,400 fps with accuracy. Get rid of the bulk of the antimony and good thing can be found.