I have 500 lbs of pure lead...how do I make it usable as a hangun boolit alloy?

[Jayhem]

So if I use pure lead and 1-2% tin will it increase BHN at all? If this would help fill out for muzzleloading boolits I'd buy some tin for this as 4 lbs of tin would treat about 300 lbs of pure lead for this application.

[454PB]

Tin has minimal hardening qualities. Though I've never done an actual test of this, I doubt you could measure any appreciable increase in hardness by adding 1 or 2% tin to pure lead. It will cast better, but very little increase in hardness.

[Jayhem]

Tin has minimal hardening qualities. Though I've never done an actual test of this, I doubt you could measure any appreciable increase in hardness by adding 1 or 2% tin to pure lead. It will cast better, but very little increase in hardness.

Got ya. So what of this:

Pure lead + 2% tin + X% antimony = BHn of wheel weights

What % antimony would I have to add to get my alloy the hardness of clip on WW's?

[454PB]

In general, wheelweights have around 4% antimony.

[Jayhem]

In general, wheelweights have around 4% antimony.

Ok. Well being as I don't have wheelweights I have ordered 5 lbs of the 30% antimony ingots from rotometals.com. I also ordered 2 lbs of the tin sticks. I will use this to create a 4% antimony, 2% tin alloy for my handgun boolits!

[G- Unit]

get a copy of lyman's cast bullet manual, 3rd edition it's a good source for alloy formulation

[lylejb]

From the bottom of rotometals bullet alloy page:

Basic Rules for Harding Lead-


For every 1% additional tin, Brinell hardness increases 0.3.
For every 1% additional antimony, Brinell hardness increases 0.9.
For a simple equation,
Brinell = 8.60 + ( 0.29 * Tin ) + ( 0.92 * Antimony )

Also check out LASC's cast bullet notes page. It has some good info on hardness, alloys, recipes, ect.

http://www.lasc.us/CastBulletNotes.htm

While straight wheel weights ( or equilivelant) will work fine, You may be able to use less hardness, which would make your rotometals ingots go farther.

The boolits I'm using in 38 / 357 mag are BHN 10, and are 2/3 WW. I've shot these at 1200 fps with no problems.

You might try: 10lb of your pure lead + 1lb of the 30% antimony + 3.5 ounces tin
That comes out 2.7% antimony, 2% tin, and about BHN 10 or 11.

[leadman]

Linotype is also a good alloy to harden pure lead with . This can be found on the Selling & Swapping site here and sometimes e-bay or scrap yards. A ration of 10/1 to 20/1 is usually good for handguns and some rifles.

[Barnowl]

See the following link for more info and posts #12 & 22 for an Alloy Calculator spreadsheet that is quite useful for seeing the projected outcome of various alloy mixes.

http://castboolits.gunloads.com/showthread.php?t=67401

Kevin

[Jayhem]

From the bottom of rotometals bullet alloy page:

Basic Rules for Harding Lead-


For every 1% additional tin, Brinell hardness increases 0.3.
For every 1% additional antimony, Brinell hardness increases 0.9.
For a simple equation,
Brinell = 8.60 + ( 0.29 * Tin ) + ( 0.92 * Antimony )

Also check out LASC's cast bullet notes page. It has some good info on hardness, alloys, recipes, ect.

http://www.lasc.us/CastBulletNotes.htm

While straight wheel weights ( or equilivelant) will work fine, You may be able to use less hardness, which would make your rotometals ingots go farther.

The boolits I'm using in 38 / 357 mag are BHN 10, and are 2/3 WW. I've shot these at 1200 fps with no problems.

You might try: 10lb of your pure lead + 1lb of the 30% antimony + 3.5 ounces tin
That comes out 2.7% antimony, 2% tin, and about BHN 10 or 11.

Thanks! That's what I'm going to try. I'm only shooting at 800-950 fps in .40 and .45.