More 357 bullet testing

[hunter01]

Feb 3, 2024 19:05:31 GMT -5 ideal said:

Feb 3, 2024 15:49:43 GMT -5 hunter01 said:

Ill be the first to admit that im a cheapA$$ so i will be using the coww and range scrap i have available now. I do have a little over 100# of tin and pewter to add if i need it.

I keep a boatload of range scrap on hand, but use 20:1 or 30:1 for hollowpoints when I'm feeling serious . I can't recall the last time I added tin to anything. I had an unfortunate incident years back with adding too much tin and I got my antimony/tin balance way out of kilter. It was ugly.

Please expound on the ugliness of it all!😁

[ideal]

I didn't realize exactly what was happening, my alloy turned into oatmeal because I evidently had far more tin in the mix than antimony. I sent pics to a friend of mine who opined that I had added far too much tin (pewter actually), or that the scrap already had plenty of tin and what I added took the mix over the line. He recommended that I start out cutting the alloy 50% with pure lead and see where that took me. To do this I had to pour the pots contents into ingots. I dug out my scale and set out 10 lbs of alloy and 10 lbs of pure. That's not as easy as it sounds, my ingots at that point didn't all weigh the same but I got tolerably close.

The resulting alloy still showed issues, but not as bad so I called my friend again and told him what was happening and asked about adding antimony since that was the element that was apparently out of whack. since my pot will handle 23-24 lbs of alloy up to the top, I added a couple lbs of virgin lino which seemed to satisfy the antimony balance. So I poured the alloy into ingots and samples for hardness testing. I then did the same thing again to the remaining alloy from the first pot.The ingots were the purtiest ingots I've ever poured. All bright and shiny!!!

Then I waited a week before checking hardness, IIRC the sample I took for testing came out around 15 bhn, right at the hardness listed for Lyman #2 alloy, and the bullets were every bit as purty as the ingots were. I set one sample on the floor and smacked it really good with my 3-1/2 lb hammer and it deformed, but didn't show any cracking. Never again will I just dump an unweighed halfish sized ingot of tin into 20 lbs of range scrap. I should have tried out the range scrap alloy as initially poured before making such a large change. I suspect the range scrap probably already had plenty of both tin and antimony already and would have been fine if I had just left them alone.

Now I never add tin at all until I'm convinced it's really necessary. Funny thing, I haven't added tin to an alloy for several years now. I did buy a supply of 2:1 & 30:1 foundry alloys for lower velocity hollowpoints though.

[hunter01]

Feb 4, 2024 13:39:41 GMT -5 ideal said:

I didn't realize exactly what was happening, my alloy turned into oatmeal because I evidently had far more tin in the mix than antimony. I sent pics to a friend of mine who opined that I had added far too much tin (pewter actually), or that the scrap already had plenty of tin and what I added took the mix over the line. He recommended that I start out cutting the alloy 50% with pure lead and see where that took me. To do this I had to pour the pots contents into ingots. I dug out my scale and set out 10 lbs of alloy and 10 lbs of pure. That's not as easy as it sounds, my ingots at that point didn't all weigh the same but I got tolerably close.

The resulting alloy still showed issues, but not as bad so I called my friend again and told him what was happening and asked about adding antimony since that was the element that was apparently out of whack. since my pot will handle 23-24 lbs of alloy up to the top, I added a couple lbs of virgin lino which seemed to satisfy the antimony balance. So I poured the alloy into ingots and samples for hardness testing. I then did the same thing again to the remaining alloy from the first pot.The ingots were the purtiest ingots I've ever poured. All bright and shiny!!!

Then I waited a week before checking hardness, IIRC the sample I took for testing came out around 15 bhn, right at the hardness listed for Lyman #2 alloy, and the bullets were every bit as purty as the ingots were. I set one sample on the floor and smacked it really good with my 3-1/2 lb hammer and it deformed, but didn't show any cracking. Never again will I just dump an unweighed halfish sized ingot of tin into 20 lbs of range scrap. I should have tried out the range scrap alloy as initially poured before making such a large change. I suspect the range scrap probably already had plenty of both tin and antimony already and would have been fine if I had just left them alone.

Now I never add tin at all until I'm convinced it's really necessary. Funny thing, I haven't added tin to an alloy for several years now. I did buy a supply of 2:1 & 30:1 foundry alloys for lower velocity hollowpoints though.

I actually have/had the exact same issue. It seems this last pot of alloy didnt mix properly and i get the "oatmeal" symptom but it seems to want to stay at the bottom of the pot. I added "about" a pound tin ingot to my 20# pot before this issue started. It seems to still cast fine, but at a higher temp. Dont mess with what isnt broken i guess.

[revolvercranker]

ideal, you're alloy is really messed up. Linotype has a very high content of antimony and tin. You made it worse adding Lino. Go to this website and read and a learn some:

www.lasc.us/castbulletnotes.htm

An alloy I've been using is 50/50. That 50%wheelweighs/50%lead. You don't need very much tin in an alloy that has antimony in it to lock in the antimony. There's an idiot on another forum we joke about behind his back. He loves 4895 powder for almost all his cast rifle loads, loves to put a tuff of Dacron in the case atop the powder, and he loves to add more tin then needed. So the joke is when so and so goes to a restuarant he has three salt shakers, one filled with 4895, another with tin, and another with Dacron.

Check that site and one more thing, a very good flux is beeswax (if you don't have that use just about anykind of wax) and sawdust. They both do different things to fluxing the alloy. That 50/50 I mentioned you can shoot it air dropped or water dropped. The dentrites and tree crystalline structures in the alloy are moving and it takes them about two weeks to reach their hardened state. They shoot better when we call the "cured". For a lead alloy to be able to be hardened it need antimony, arsenic, and tin in it....along with the lead of course. Old wheelweight were great for all those, the newers one little less great, and today they've just about done away with them. Hope this heplps you.

[ideal]

Lino is 84% lead, 12% antimony and 4% tin according to my lead alloy calculator. I was primarily after the lead and the antimony and I was hoping the 4% tin wouldn't send me back in the wrong direction, and it didn't. The only other option would have been to order something like Rotometals "Super Hard" alloy, and I wasn't going to spend the money to save a pot of range scrap with an unknown, but obviously excessive amount of tin in it. I had lino to work with, and it worked. I suppose I could have taken a sample around to the salvage yards to see if anyone could scan it, but it wasn't that important. Like I said, it worked.