9mm alloy

[duck hollow pete]

If 16 to 1 was good enough for Elmer and the 44mag how about the 9mm.

[sqlbullet]

should work fine.

But, that works out to about 5-6% tin. Pretty expensive bullet metal. 1% tin and 2% antimony water dropped will be just as hard, but cost far less.

[odfairfaxsub]

Shoot. I just use 50-50 ww and pure. Never had a issue and all my 9's like it. No extra tin

[6622729]

If 16 to 1 was good enough for Elmer and the 44mag how about the 9mm.

Anything close to COWW will work fine for 9mm. I was using straight COWW water dropped but the water dropping was for convenience not directly for hardening. I've shot them immediately and I've shot them more than a year later. They all seem to shoot the same. I've shot purchased hard cast boolits as well and they are clearly much harder and they work well also. I'd say aim for an alloy that mimics COWW with maybe a pinch more tin and you'll be golden. I have more than a lifetime supply of components so I've started alloying to mimic 90/5/5 Lyman #2 for 9mm and 300AAC (the only two I'm casting for). Long term I hope to start creating larger batches of ingots in Lyman #2 (90/5/5, not hardball 92/6/2 that some like to call Lyman #2) to keep on hand ready to cast. It gives the tin misers a coronary but I don't care. I don't care that it's more tin that necessary, I don't care that it's a little more money. I'm having fun and I have more tin/solder/pewter on hand than I will ever use.

[websterz]

Powder coated range scrap works just fine for me.

[6622729]

should work fine.

But, that works out to about 5-6% tin. Pretty expensive bullet metal. 1% tin and 2% antimony water dropped will be just as hard, but cost far less.

"Pretty expensive bullet metal" is a relative term. Let's say he makes a 10lb batch and he's using 5% too much tin. Tin is available everywhere for $10lb and less. So, he's tossing an extra $5 into his pot of 10lbs of lead. If 16:1 or COWW or whatever he chooses is $1.50 a pound that 10lb batch is $15. That's 560 125gr 9mm boolits. That's 2.68 cents per bullet. If he decides to toss in that extra $5 worth of tin, his batch now costs $19.25 or 3.44 cents each. I shoot about 100 rounds of 9mm per outing so that "pretty expensive bullet metal" costs an extra 76 cents for the day.

[duck hollow pete]

Thanks' for all of the replies, I knew the money side would come up, I should have said that it would not be an issue as I can recover it to reuse. I started casting 40yrs ago for the 45 acp and 308 win, not the 9mm, got the bug to start when I get the time, but the some of the horror stories got me to think if that alloy would be Ok. I wasn't lucky enough to work anywhere for a lot of yrs, but they all had some form of lead or alloy free for the asking, in the form of scrap. One place even thanked me as they had to pay on rental for the container, I miss working there. So I'm set for the metal Thanks again. Duck

[NoAngel]

Air cooled 50/50 has been working for me for years. I size to .357 and have zero leading.

[leeggen]

Just remember FIT if primary.
CD

[zubrato]

Honestly, I've cast a hell of a lot of 9 and I'm still experimenting. For a long time it was coww water dropped with almost no leading.
Recently, I tried water dropped 50/50 + 2% tin and I think the accuracy is better and the minimal leading disappeared entirely, hell the bore looked wet.
Seemed the softer boolit was able to actually pump more of the bullet lube out, instead of just scattering it on the target after it barely scraped by in the bore.
A lot of your alloy experimentation will be halted by inappropriate case expanders meant for jacketed bullets. I use a 38 sw expander from lee, which works great but I am looking to switch to something not as clunky and jerky for progressive loading.


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[Silverboolit]

I have heard that if you champher the inside mouth of pistol cases, they won't grab on the LEE PTX dies. Haven't tried yet, but it does sound plausible.