I did as “ordered” and fluxed with parafon wax.
btu was wondering what it actually does?
I learned my lesson the first time i tried this yesterday... wow it caught fire like gasoline
I almost fell over backwards lol!
well i learned anyway and no burns.
I need to order the book on casting.
Jeff
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Fluxing cleans the impurities. I think it actually breaks the surface tension of the junk allowing it to float to the top. If it ignites spontaniously, you may have the temp up a little high. Usually, I cast @ about 700-750 and I have to light it off.
Lyman's new Cast Bullet Handbook, 4th Edition is due out soon. Last time I checked, it's supposed to ship this month. It should be worth the wait, Jeff.
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What fluxing does is it takes oxygen out of the mix. anything that burns can have this effect. anything that burns is oxidizeing.
Jim Wilcox
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What fluxing does is it takes oxygen out of the mix.
It returns metal from the oxides to the mix by releasing the oxygen.
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I have my own thoughts on “what it does". None the less it does several things and does them at different temps. For the most part, I have found fluxing at a lower temp, between slush and fully molten, to work best for me. I used to put my flux in and it would flash pretty quick. I never really saw anything more than the dross rise. I started fluxing at a lower temp, alloy seemed to flow better. I also give the pot a stir about every 10 minutes. jeff
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I'm going to keep that in mind - sounds interesting.
I do things a little differently - as I do. I keep a layer of Kity Litter on to of my melt and I stir and flux with a dry stick. The carbon released gets trapped over the metal within the Kitty Litter. The Kitty litter allows for a higher melt temperature and prevents oxidation. Nevertheless, oxidation takes place when the ladle remains are returned to the pot and also the sprew plugs. Those get dropped onto the kitty litter and warm up and melt through, leaving a skinr of oxide. That gets returned to the melt by fluxing from time to time.
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Flux comes from the latin word meaning 'to clean'.
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I learned my lesson the first time i tried this yesterday... wow it caught fire like gasoline
I almost fell over backwards lol!
The same thing happened to me when I started casting about 50 years ago. Scared the heck out of me. I have tried many fluxes and find that Ivory soap works about as well as any. Just take a bar and shave off some slivers. Don't just toss in big chunks. No smoke and smells pretty good.
Jim
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What exactly is Ivory soap? Does it have a brand name? (Remember I'm from 'down under' where things are.... well.... a bit upside-down!/images/emoticons/134.gif)
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Ivory Soap is a bar soap and a product of Proctor and Gamble of Cincinnati, Ohio. It has been very popular in the U.S.A. for about 100 years.
FWIW Dale53
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You say: I'm going to keep that in mind - sounds interesting.
I do things a little differently - as I do. I keep a layer of Kity Litter on to of my melt and I stir and flux with a dry stick. The carbon released gets trapped over the metal within the Kitty Litter. The Kitty litter allows for a higher melt temperature and prevents oxidation. Nevertheless, oxidation takes place when the ladle remains are returned to the pot and also the sprew plugs. Those get dropped onto the kitty litter and warm up and melt through, leaving a skinr of oxide. That gets returned to the melt by fluxing from time to time.
Forrest:
How do you cast with all that stuff on top of the molten alloy? ~ Doesn't the litter get into your casting ladle and thus into the mold?
Good morning, Forrest
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How do you cast with all that stuff on top of the molten alloy? ~ Doesn't the litter get into your casting ladle and thus into the mold?
I just dip down the side of the pot. The kitty litter is very light and if it does get into the ladle it does not get into the mold. What it does is keep the alloy at a uniform temperature by insulating it - my pot is also insulated. I allows me to dump the sprues plugs straight back into the pot where they sit on top and warm up until they get pushed under with a wooden stick which then is used for fluxing and stirring. I never have to worry about skimming. Eventually the litter gets heavy with oxides - yellow and red, depending. This stuff is toxic and needs to be disposed of safely. Before removal of the kitty litter, I give the pot a goodly fluxing with the stick to get all the un-oxidised metal out of the dross then let it cool. The pot then gets tipped over and the dust and crud removed. (Keeking upwind). There remains a porous latticework of partial oxides. This get returned to the melt with the addition of new kitty litter and a goodly fluxing.
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I have done some lead up yesterday and I fluxing it with grouned up corn cobs that I have a famer do for me .I use it for cleaning my brass. I try it out yesterday on fluxing and it work really good for me just put enough to cover the top of the melted lead and let it start to turn black and mix and then it will catch fire and mix it again and then skim. It seem to draw the impureitys . I did have alot of cobs grouned and it is safer then wax .I had use that before . It look like the cobs a little better.Just to let you all know of something else that can work good.
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I tried the floor dry/kitty litter trick. I t works very well when using a bottm poor. beware you may have to turn your heat down as it keeps a LOT of it in. I used this method for a while and the cleaning of the pot is a necessary chore about every third to fifth session. Or, at least I thought it did. Any of you folks that want to try this, make sure you put the stuff on top of the pot BEFORE you turn it on. Yes it feels dry, but it will attract moisture from the air. I never had any bad mishaps, but it did get close to the point of being exciting......... jeff
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It does keep the heat in! If'n you place sawdust or something onto the metal then the Kitty Litter on top, it keeps a layer of carbon over the melt. If you stir, the black carbon gets exposed and quickly dissappears. That shows it's keeping oxygen away from the melt surface. It does become contaminated with oxide and need changing from time to time.
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You say;
I just dip down the side of the pot..."
Forrest;
Thanks for the detailed explanation - I would have never tried that technique on my own.
My method, by comparison, is rather crude. For example I have not ever cleaned out a casting pot beyond merely scraping out the obvious junk.
I know that the cat litter's absorption of oxides make it into very dangerous stuff. Do maintain extra care in handling it at all.
My casting furnace has a wild capability for production of heat - such that I really avoid casting at all unless the outside temperature in below 40 degrees F. As you can see, this eliminates the possiblity of running into unstable temperature.
In use my alloy will gradually oxidize such that black lead oxide will accumulate on top of the metal. This is easily removed by “normal” fluxing procedures.
I flux by use of old Canola oil that the wife allows (now and then) to become rancid. I put it into an oil squirt-can and pump it onto the hot alloy as required. If I run out of this stuff I use olive oil. This method alows me to scrape off the still sticky dross and toss it into the coffee can for safe disposal in the toxic area of our local land-fill.
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What the act of fluxing does is allow the metals to blend into one and bring all the contaminants to the top of the mix.They then can be skimmed off and thrown away. I have been casting since 1970 and in the past I always used a little of the bullet lube. What you are supposed to do when it ignites is light it so that you burn off most of the fumes and keep them as a carbon in the alloy which will again make the dross come to the top to be skimmed.The flux of my choice is now purchased from a member on the Cast Boolits forum. It is a wood shaving like product that is long and not like a fine sawdust. It has the best smell while burning and if you stir your alloy all the dross comes to the top very fast.It is a cedar type of wood and he sells abox for about $20 that I have been using for over 18 months. Later
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I had an interesting session today. I fired up the old turkey fryer and proceeded to melt weel weights. I ended up with 117 pounds of ingots but it was a struggle. I normally utilize used motor to flux this and have not had any problems other than lots of smoke and flame. A while back I was given several four gallon jugs that had contained deep fat fryer oil. I used the dregs of this oil to flux the first pot of lead. What a mess! The oil burned with a clear flame and almost no smoke and I thought GREAT! Then the residue turned into a black tar like substantce that contaminated my spoon and the wall of the pot. I added a double handfull of pine sawdust to absorb and remove this crud. The resulting melt appeared to be good. When I poured the first eight ingots however things were very different. The surface of the ingots looked a bit funky but I just shrugged my shoulders. When I dumped the ingots out of the mold they looked like large silver sponges with all the large black inclusions. Dirt, crud and a large amount of the ash from the sawdust was being held in suspension in the melt. My comments were a bit stronger than “OOPS"! It took multiple fluxing with sawdust, stirring and scraping to clean this goop out of my melt. I eventually ended up with a clean melt and a clean pot but it took about 45 minutes. I wonder how Ivory Soap would have worked at cleaning up this mess. Would have tried it but found that the Verdamnt mice had left me nothing but the wrappers. Ah Well! Neil
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First lets dispel the myths. Fluxing does not allow the tin, antimony and lead to mix properly, or prevent their separation. Tin and antimony alloy (mix) with lead easily, and once alloyed, neither can be separated from lead except by sophisticated methods avilable to laboratories. Fluxing has no role in that.
Fluxing cleans the alloy, but only in the respect that it separates the dirt and dross from the alloy and allows them to be skimmed off the top of the melt. It does not get the dirt out of the alloy. Basically, the dirt and dross float to the top being lighter than the alloy, but that requires vigorous stirring. Dirt is what's on the lead before melting, dross is created by oxidation. So they are different, but removal is the same so they can be regarded as the same for practical purposes.
Although the alloy has been cleaned before use, it will accumulate dross over time. The hotter the alloy, the more dross it will accumulate. It takes the form of a thick sludge on the top of the melt. The sludge is particles of dirt and dross entrapped in the alloy. If you don't mind losing some alloy you can just skim off the sludge.
The only purpose of fluxing is only to save the alloy by separating the dross out. There can be a lot of it in a fresh batch of alloy. On one occasion I weighed five pounds of it from a 60 pound melt. If it is not fluxed out, a lot of alloy can be lost if the sludge is skimmed off without fluxing.
I note your concern about flaming. Some books say that flaming is not desirable, that it retards the effect, but I have found that it works better if it flames. Note that you don't need fancy fluxes. The foundries consider them too expensive for the volumes they melt, and use the dry drossing technique, which is sawdust and caustic soda.
Here's how I do it. I use cheap common candles as a flux. Cut them into one inch lengths. Drop one piece into the melt and stir it in. Wear a welding glove to protect hand from the flames. After a few seconds stirring it should flame. If it doesn't, the second piece should do it. Keep stirring as it burns. It will burn for a few minutes. You should end up with a pile of fine powder-like dust. If it is more solid than powdery, it has not fully separated. Give it another go. Finally, skim it off.
Nothing I write is theoretical, it is all tried and tested. I use this fluxing method for every 60 pound bulk ingot melt from raw materials, and whenever the sludge on my casting melt gets thick enough to remove.
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Good to hear that Dicko,
That is exactly what i did with wax candles on my first smelt of wheel weights yesterday. Like someone said, it was a surprise to see flames leap up but so long as it isn't a bad thing.
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I don't think I've flux once in the last 20 years. In maybe a half million bullets I've not fluxed once. If there is a downside to not fluxing I've not seen it.
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Of course there's a downside. It is the loss of the “sludgy” alloy that occurs at the surface of the melt if it is not fluxed occasionally. But klw's reply pretty much confirms my point that fluxing does no more than that, and should be needed only occasionally if the alloy is not run too hot. Dicko
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I did as “ordered” and fluxed with parafon wax.
btu was wondering what it actually does?
I learned my lesson the first time i tried this yesterday... wow it caught fire like gasoline
I almost fell over backwards lol!
well i learned anyway and no burns.
I need to order the book on casting.
Jeff
Nothing good.
Years ago I did several casting experiments where I save the bullets in their as cast order. Every 20 minutes or so I would flux. Without exception the visual rejection rates went up in the minutes after the fluxing. As near as I could ever tell fluxing does not good whatsoever and increases the likelyhood of a visual rejection.
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"Years ago I did several casting experiments where I save the bullets in their as cast order. Every 20 minutes or so I would flux. Without exception the visual rejection rates went up in the minutes after the fluxing. As near as I could ever tell fluxing does not good whatsoever and increases the likelyhood of a visual rejection.” ...klw
Post hoc, ergo propter hoc? My experieince is 180 degrees different than yours. However, fluxing while casting can be overdone. I only do so when I start to cast, but rarely after that.
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I don't think I've fluxed in maybe 20 years. Personally I don't think that it does any good at all.
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I don't flux while casting. I scrape the slushy stuff off the top of the alloy and save it. Top of the alloy is shiny and clean. Now and again, when starting the pot, I put the slushy stuff-now hard-in the pot and turn the pot up high. When it's melted and very hot I flux with any left-over lube, and the pot catches fire. If it doesn't catch fire the pot isn't hot enough. Stir, and all the slushy stuff goes away, leaving a dense black powder that I guess is oxides.
I flux when melting WW or lino or ??, and when making big batches of a certain alloy, e.g. 3 WW + 1 lino.
I have fluxed in the past, but never seen that it did anything.
joe b.
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I don't flux while casting. I scrape the slushy stuff off the top of the alloy and save it. Top of the alloy is shiny and clean. Now and again, when starting the pot, I put the slushy stuff-now hard-in the pot and turn the pot up high. When it's melted and very hot I flux with any left-over lube, and the pot catches fire. If it doesn't catch fire the pot isn't hot enough. Stir, and all the slushy stuff goes away, leaving a dense black powder that I guess is oxides.
I flux when melting WW or lino or ??, and when making big batches of a certain alloy, e.g. 3 WW + 1 lino.
I have fluxed in the past, but never seen that it did anything.
joe b. I think I'll try that, Joe. I had read where someone did alloy testing after fluxing periodically, and also using your method and, while fluxing did return some tin back in, the amount was so small as to be inconsequential. I guess save the slush and add it into the pot whem I melt 100# batches of WW.
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1st time I fluxed and had it flame up I was stirring with saftey glasses and welders gloves, I flinched with spoon in mix splashing lead droplets on my cheeks and chin , I laugh now ,but scared the sh*t out of me when it happened. I wear a face sheild with glasses now.
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Chemically it is known as a reducing agent in what is known as oxidation-reduction reaction. In short it causes the slag scum etc to be freed or reduced by forcing the reaction to go the opposite way. Oxidation is just a direction of the reaction not to be confused with Oxygen. Generally carbon from wood chips, paraffin forms CO (carbon monoxide) which is the reducing agent in fluxing. 'Protecting' the surface from further oxidation.
Charlie
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Yeap this is all correct. Chemically it's a reducing action. Carbon, coke etc grabs all the bad stuff and basically turns it in to Al Gore's gas or CO2. Candle wax is fine, but you light it to remove the smoke. Pure powdered carbon is best, insulates too. Charcoal briquets have a lot of dirt in them and will float to the top and should be skimmed off. I find it interesting these ideas have been around of a couple hundred years.
Charlie
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I did as “ordered” and fluxed with parafon wax.
btu was wondering what it actually does?
For all practical purposes fluxing does absolutely nothing. I stopped doing it well over 25 years ago and in the 750,000+ bullets I've cast since not fluxing has made no difference.
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I flux when I make up a batch of alloy, or when I clean up range lead.
When I cast I look at it this way. The crud that forms on the top of the surface of the alloy is oxidized lead/tin and other junk. I Leave it there so it forms a layer so no more of the desirable metal will oxidize. I will push it around to get a clean scoop with a rowell #1 ladle. For those that dont know what that is, it is a bottom pour ladle. I have found that the weight consistency of the poured bullets are much better with a tighter spread. And it makes for some very good looking bullets!
I dont always flux, but when I do, I flux with church candle remnants.
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Hello, everyone..Interesting posts! Wonder who can tell me why this is so? No matter what commercial brand of flux I use, either NEI, Bill Ferguson's, Marvelux..after skimming & metal is mirror bright..if I drop in a small piece of pure beeswax..I get all kinds of junk floating to top..like I had never even fluxed!
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Well howdy stranger! The material that is left when the beeswax burns off is the remnants of the beeswax and perhaps a little of oxidized metal or the commercial flux. I stopped using commercially made fluxes because I didnt like the mess it left in my pot.
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Fluxing cleans the impurities. I think it actually breaks the surface tension of the junk allowing it to float to the top. If it ignites spontaniously, you may have the temp up a little high. Usually, I cast @ about 700-750 and I have to light it off.
That is what I do. A small bit of bees wax added to the lead and it starts to smoke. Touch it with a lighted match and it burns off and the garbage rises o the top ready to be scooped off.
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Got to put my 2 cents in. I think Dicko is closest to the truth here. Dross forms only on the surface of a melt, it is oxidised alloy.It can't form under the surface so why stir and scrape the bottom of the pot. The alloy will not seperate , tin comes to the top, just does not happen so again why stir. I have been casting since 1960s and I quit fluxing years ago. I cast using a 10 lb. pot,when dross builds up I use a stainless serving spoon to skim the dross to the front of the pot and just leave it sit there. Continue casting and repeat as needed. When the pile of dross is big enough I use the back of the spoon to roll over the dross against the side of the pot wringing any alloy out . Then with the bole side of the spoon scrape the dross pancake up the side of the pot and discard . As to the old wives tale that flux will reduce alloy oxides to alloy returning them to the melt , Not at casting temps. This is my understanding and I welcome a metallurgist to weigh in here. I cast nice clean bullets without inclusions etc. all without flux and smoke .
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The best flux I have used is thin slivers of Ivory Snow; workks well, little smaoke or smell, and cheap.
Jim
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Fluxing makes my shop smell like a smoker because I use Lizard Litter ground walnut shells to flux with. Even the wife likes the smell of it. Hardwood smoke. :cool: Most of it goes out the big vent in the roof of the shop anyway. I like to put a couple of spoonfuls on and just let it sit there and disintegrate. Keeps the sludge from forming in the first place. But mostly, it smells great!
I tried wax... once. :shock: Holy crapoly! BONFIRE! You know... paraffin is made from petroleum. And Petroleum is made of dinosaur poop. So I don't like poop in my melting pot.
Now this post can go back to resting...
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I don't usually flux. I take my spoon and rub the slushy junk against the side of the pot until I get regular old dirt. I keep a stainless table knife around to scrape the sides and bottom of the pot to get the stuff that doesn't want to come up by itself. Fluxing didn't help to release this junk for me so I just kind of forgot to do it after a while.
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Ok, newbie question here. It appears most people don't flux WHILE making bullets, but how about when you're making the ingots. I've only make about 15 muffin sized ingots so far out of old wheel weights. I kept the stick on weights to melt for fishing weights and have the clip on ones for bullets. After the initial melting (no flux) when I poured the lead into the muffin tin it was full of pock marks. When I remelted the lead ingots and fluxed it, they poured a lot smoother. Is that not because of the flux? Or just from the second melting? Thanks in advance.
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Abslolutely when making ingots. In my experience WWs usually are coverd to varying degrees with dirt, dust, oil, etc. They stink and smoke when melting. When flux is added to the smoking smoldering mass of WWs, tire stems, cigarette butts, sunflower shells, and adhesive from tape on WWs When lit, the resulting flames burns off the noxious cloud of smoke and who knows what else. The pot marks on the “muffins” seem to occur only with the first batch of the day, I have never worried about it. When your ingots are poured they will be nice and clean, then you sit down to cast you do not need to focus on cleaning up you melt before getting started. Flux a bit just before starting to cast and you are good to go. Michael
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very interesting word"dross". never heard it before. i had been calling it slag dross.my issues are that after my first casting i decided to recast some of my rejects.during my second casting, still using the same mix with a little more flux added, i started accumulating some serious “dross". i hadto constantly shovel this stuff to continue. my initial casting was near flawless, at least in my world. the second cast was sort of discouraging, especially after myfirst cast. i am using parafin as a flux in a bottom feed pot
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You cooled the metal in the pot by adding the rejects and then did not get the pot hot enough again to re-flux. You skimmed off and threw away good metal that was not hot enough to re- alloy and flux.
A casting pot thermometer and knowing what temperatures you need to re-alloy and flux will avoid that problem every time.
Dross is a light weight gray powder of lead and trace metal oxides, so light that you actually could blow some of it away. You threw away metal that could have easily been re-introduced to your pot and made into bullets.
Gary
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thank you onondaga. makes much sense. I was hoping to slide by without buying a thermometer but it doesn't look like thats gonna happen. I will try again and let you know.thx again. tom
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You have to get the metal in the pot hotter than fluid point of any individual metal in the pot for them to alloy and flux well.About 650 F. does it well.
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You have to get the metal in the pot hotter than fluid point of any individual metal in the pot for them to alloy and flux well.About 650 F. does it well.
OK, but antimony has a melting point of 1167.
??
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Antimony doesn't actually fuse into alloy either. It will melt and dissolve slowly into Lead/Tin and disperse in floating crystal patterns with Tin as they attract each-other. The pattern locations can also be relocated by heat treatments to finished bullets. We use up to about 5% Antimony in some bullet alloys and get it to behave as a a hardening additive in bullet alloys, but it doesn't distribute as a soluble in alloy like Lead with just Tin.
This characteristic of Antimony is what makes it most practical to get Antimony into bullet metals by adding an already Antimony rich metal to Lead or the bullet alloy. Sure some casters will buy pure Antimony and dissolve it into Lead/Tin and are successful at it. This also leaves them with the problem of determining the % of Antimony that actually did dissolve into their alloy and assay is not cheap.
Linotype alloy is commonly used as it is Antimony rich and alloys readily with Lead. Linotype and Pure Lead at 1:1 by weight will yield a BHN15 alloy similar to the traditional “Hardball Pistol” alloy.
Virgin Linotype is alloyed at very high temperature close to the fusion temperature of Antimony and the Antimony is dispersed into virgin Linotype much better than any one of us here could hope to do with our bullet casting, melting pots. But once it is in there, it is easy for bullet casters to make use of it.
Virgin Linotype has 12% Antimony with 4% Tin and 84% Lead. Getting that much Antimony into Lead/Tin is way beyond hobby skill level. It is much more practical to buy Antimony rich scrap or certified alloy. I buy certified alloys from RotoMetals and avoid worrying about the accuracy of home made alloys:
http://www.rotometals.com/default.asp
I actually use only 2 metals for all my bullets, either Lyman #2 alloy for hunting bullets or pure Lead for muzzle loading projectiles and very low pressure subsonic center-fire bullets.
Gary
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Antimony doesn't actually fuse into alloy either. It will melt and dissolve slowly into Lead/Tin and disperse in floating crystal patterns with Tin as they attract each-other. The pattern locations can also be relocated by heat treatments to finished bullets. We use up to about 5% Antimony in some bullet alloys and get it to behave as a a hardening additive in bullet alloys, but it doesn't distribute as a soluble in alloy like Lead with just Tin.
This characteristic of Antimony is what makes it most practical to get Antimony into bullet metals by adding an already Antimony rich metal to Lead or the bullet alloy. Sure some casters will buy pure Antimony and dissolve it into Lead/Tin and are successful at it. This also leaves them with the problem of determining the % of Antimony that actually did dissolve into their alloy and assay is not cheap.
Linotype alloy is commonly used as it is Antimony rich and alloys readily with Lead. Linotype and Pure Lead at 1:1 by weight will yield a BHN15 alloy similar to the traditional “Hardball Pistol” alloy.
Virgin Linotype is alloyed at very high temperature close to the fusion temperature of Antimony and the Antimony is dispersed into virgin Linotype much better than any one of us here could hope to do with our bullet casting, melting pots. But once it is in there, it is easy for bullet casters to make use of it.
Virgin Linotype has 12% Antimony with 4% Tin and 84% Lead. Getting that much Antimony into Lead/Tin is way beyond hobby skill level. It is much more practical to buy Antimony rich scrap or certified alloy. I buy certified alloys from RotoMetals and avoid worrying about the accuracy of home made alloys:
I actually use only 2 metals for all my bullets, either Lyman #2 alloy for hunting bullets or pure Lead for muzzle loading projectiles and very low pressure subsonic center-fire bullets.
Gary
I too, use only Lyman #2 and or pure lead. I like to keep it simple.
If someone else had of done to me what I did to myself . . . I'd have killed him. Humility is an asset. Heh - heh.
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