So, I'm seeing that I can treat SOWW about the same as COWW, PLUS they will respond to heat treating. Is that basically correct?
So, I'm seeing that I can treat SOWW about the same as COWW, PLUS they will respond to heat treating. Is that basically correct?
That is incorrect.
The painted SOWW are about the same as COWW.
Unpainted SOWW while not pure Pb are close.
That's wrong on both questions. When heat treating a lead alloy it's the antimony (Sb) that causes the increase in hardness and without Sb there will be no increase. Stick-on WW has from very little to no Sb and only a trace of tin (Sn). Most casters treat stick-on weights as pure lead and unless your a front stuffer purist it can be considered as pure. Clip-on weights if done properly can be oven heat treated as high as 30 BHN, the stickies little to no increase.
I add 2% Sn to my WW alloys and even so the stick-on weights will age to about 7-8 BHN. Clip-on weights with 2% added Sn will age harden to 11-12 BHN. Thus a significant difference between the two. When processing raw WW's always separate the stick-on and clip-on weights and make ingots of both.
A good average of clip-on weights is about 2% SB and 0.5% Sn. The stick-on weights will have at best a trace of either.
Rick
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Looking at BNE's photos, all three, there is a good mix of Sn, Sb and As in his samples. Heck, you throw sample 6 (I think) in the alloy calculator, you get a BHN of 12! By itself!
I'm new, I admit. My usual practice is to mix 45-48# of COWW with 1# pewter. Looking at the alloy calculator, I'd be real close using either COWW or SOWW with the results posted . It would be BHN 8-14 vs 12-14, and with the pewter I'd have the Sn and Sb, along with the already As to heat treat or water quench.
EDIT: All estimates, of course.
This is great stuff for those who are particular about their alloys! Me personally, I don't shoot much blackpowder so I have a stash of pure lead devoted to that; otherwise once I cull out zinc/steel WW's it's "everybody into the pool", stick-ons included. I think it's a fantastic thing when those with the resources, time or inclination actually do some solid analysis and share with everyone else here. Thanks much!!!
Glad I found this thread. I just finished sorting a bucket of WW's and was wondering how much softer the stick on type were.
I just did a batch of sowws and ended up with 57lbs of 99.99% lead
Today I rendered down my SOWW's and separated the ones as shown at the bottom of BNE's photo and info in post#1. Those ingots had a definitive "clink" when de-molded onto the cement. They look just like my 50/50 alloy, almost a galvanized look.
The other SOWW's came out looking shiney like pure lead and "thudded" onto the cement.
From 4 buckets of WW's, I got about 130 lbs of SOWW's and they ran just about 50-50 between the "clink" type and the "thud" type. This was my first time smelting stick-on WW's and is all new to me..
Last edited by Yodogsandman; 05-15-2015 at 08:44 PM.
I know I'm a "little" late on this thread, but I just finished sorting wheel weights today and ended up with about 75# of the various stick-on weights. I'm getting ready to do my first smelt as soon as my pot gets here, so I'm wondering if I should separate the stick-ons by type, or can I just toss them all in one smelting pot? I have very few of the ones in the last column of the first photograph example. Would it be best to toss those in with the WW?
Chris
I mix them all up, except for the last type. I throw those in with the COWW, because they have about the same amount of antimony. If you don't have a lot of them, just throw them in all the other SOWW. A little antimony won't hurt.
Thanks. That's what I've done. So now all I have to do is wait on the pot I ordered from ncbearman.
Chris
Great info, thank you for sharing.
There are a few COWW that are most common in my experience. I get loads of the "P" and "MC" marked ones. A while back I separated a bucket by type and smelted each separately. They have differing characteristics and hardness. Some had a very sharp edge on the surface of the cooled ingots, while others had a much rounder edge or meniscus. Some were very shiny, some dull. I also got some reddish and bluish surface coloring on some.
They all made good boolit in the end. I wish I had access to an XrF to have accurate composition data.
BNE just sent me the results of some samples that I sent for test. It seems that stick-on weight alloy is still about the same as it was 4 years ago when the samples were posted at the beginning of this thread. The two samples that I sent in were from ingots randomly selected from two 350# batches of weights.
Sample #1 Sample #2
PB - 99.7 PB - 99.4
SB - 0.3 SB - 0.4
SN - 0.0 SN - 0. 2
These were 100% stick-on weights. They were not sorted by brand but the painted weights that usually test like clip-on weights were removed. These were mostly new looking weights and some were new and unused.
Good info. Years ago I realized my soww ingots weren't as soft as I thought they should have been. The socc ingots shouldn't "ring" when dropped, but those would. Not sure how I figured out it was due to the few #6s in the melt...they have been going into the coww ingots ever since.
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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 |
GC | Gas Check |