Alloy Question

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Last Post 16 January 2026
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Aaron posted this 06 January 2026

I am reading Forty Years with the .45-70 (Revised) by Paul Matthews and hope someone here can clarify an alloy question. On page 38, the last paragraph, he states "Bullet was 330gr Gould hollow point cast 8-1-1 lead, tin and antimony." I can only assume he means 80%, 10% and 10% respectively although a 10% tin alloy is exceptionally high when more antimony would harden the alloy much better.

Can anyone take a stab at this quoted alloy "8-1-1" and suggest what the heck he is referring to? I am also sure tin was less expensive in 1989 but even with that....10% tin seems highly unlikely.

Comments? Clarification?

BTW, the book is exceptional. He pretty much covers everything. Powders, velocity, bullet performance, the works.

With rifle in hand, I confidently go forth into the darkness.

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RicinYakima posted this 07 January 2026

When I read that, I think typo. 98% lead, 1% tin and 1% antimony.

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Aaron posted this 07 January 2026

Could be but the “8-1-1” is repeated at least twice more in different chapters so it may not be a single typo. In the original context, he was seeking a harder alloy for the Gould bullet and using 98-1-1 is such a small increase as to be pointless? A simple binary alloy would have served better I think. He wrote this ages ago speaking about his experimentation in the ‘50s. I haven’t seen any other period references like that in my readings either. The gun scribes referred to binary alloys a lot to harden bullets and to three alloy elements with percentages of hardening elements in the 5% ranges or greater. I’ll keep digging.

With rifle in hand, I confidently go forth into the darkness.

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TRKakaCatWhisperer posted this 07 January 2026

Good question. I have a huge batch (several hundred pounds) of 88.14 - 7.89 - 1.9. why? because I just threw in a bit of tin (it was two-bits a pound for me at the time) and had no way of measuring it. Casts nicely and has the hardness of about #2 alloy. I can see how it happened that he had 8-1-1.

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Larry Gibson posted this 07 January 2026

That was obviously a misprint as stated by RicinYakima. Should be 98-1-1.

LMG

Concealment is not cover.........

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Aaron posted this 07 January 2026

I brought this up today at lunch with a professor at UNI. He runs the pharmacology lab. He said this is a common expression in lab work to relay "parts" of a solution such that 8 parts of A, 1 part of B, and 1 part of C. It's a shorthand for percentage expressed in base 10 not 100. So if you will, 80% A, 10% B, and 10% C expressed as a solution or mixture of 8.1.1 of elements A,B, and C.

This would be 8 lbs of Lead, 1 pound of Tin, and 1 pound of Antimony for 10 pounds of alloy total.

Larry....the "misprint" occurs 4x in the book so I doubt it's a misprint. It seems that it's an old way of expressing parts in a tertiary or binary alloy and an expression still in use in the pharmco labs.

With rifle in hand, I confidently go forth into the darkness.

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TRKakaCatWhisperer posted this 07 January 2026

If it is not a misprint the ratios are way out of the ordinary range of proportions.

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Mike H posted this 07 January 2026

When I started casting years ago,1-1-18 was a reccomended hard alloy,That was one part tin,one part antimony and eighteen parts lead.If the alloy is as Aaron suggested,it would be an expensive mix.

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Aaron posted this 07 January 2026

Very expensive today and a weird alloy. And so is 98.1.1 as well. Kind of pointless. I guess tin was cheaper then in the 50's. I recall buying 50/50 bar solder at the hardware store for alloy use and it wasn't all that expensive back in the 70's and 80's. Today tin is off the chart expensive. Tin is now $30/pound at RotoMetal.

With rifle in hand, I confidently go forth into the darkness.

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Aaron posted this 07 January 2026

If it is not a misprint the ratios are way out of the ordinary range of proportions.

They sure are.

With rifle in hand, I confidently go forth into the darkness.

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Wilderness posted this 07 January 2026

"Credit for the use of tin and antimony together to alloy bullet metals appears to be due to Dr. W.H.Hudson and the old Ideal Manufacturing Co. The hard alloy usually recommended is 1 part tin, 1 part antimony, 10 parts lead."

Col. E.H.Harrison, NRA "Cast Bullets", page 16.

Paul Matthews probably did mean what was printed, even if he did mix up 8:1:1 with 10:1:1 - or perhaps Harrison mixed it up. Evidently the same equivocation was applied over the years to #2 alloy - 18:1:1 and 20:1:1. Harrison alludes to the equivocation on #2 in a footnote.

You are only as good as your library.

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Aaron posted this 07 January 2026

Good library!!

With rifle in hand, I confidently go forth into the darkness.

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offhand35 posted this 13 January 2026

8-1-1 (LEAD-TIN-ANTIMONY) calculates up to BHN 21 with Linotype being BHN 22 (84L-4T-12Ant) on my Alloy Calculation Spreadsheet. Looks to me like it was a good way to a harder alloy that may not be as brittle as LINO, and a way to conserve Antimony.

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Larry Gibson posted this 14 January 2026

Aaron

You are correct. It is not a misprint. I was thinking of Mathews short dissertation on alloy for the 45-70 in his other book on loading 45-70 black powder cartridges. My Bad, my apologies.

Interestingly though, in "Forty Years with the .45-70 (Revised)" Mathews was loading the Gould HP bullet to higher velocity in a Ruger #1 if I recall correctly (?). Didn't he want the HP of the bullet to shatter off inside the deer so as to expend all the energy possible inside the deer? If so that is very much the same as what Wilderness is doing with his cast 30/8mm bullets for use on hogs down under. Appears the 8-1-1 alloy worked well for that purpose. Also note in the letters in the back of the book the use of 85-10-5 (lead-tin-antimony).

Interesting, may have to revisit both books.

LMG

Concealment is not cover.........

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Aaron posted this 14 January 2026

No worries Larry....never thought of a misprint until you mentioned it. Made me go and check! He did shoot that Gould bullet in both the Ruger #1 and the Ruger #3 (which he dearly loved), to very high velocity with very hard alloy. He addresses the frangibility of it in a deer and I can attest to that! I shot a Lyman 44 Mag HP bullet of Lyman #2 and it looked like a Glaser Safety Slug upon impact.

That Gould bullet really performs as a 16:1 or 20:1 alloy at 1600fps. Paul Matthews liked to really make them move out with his Ruger rifles.

Wilderness is really working his 30-30 hard cast HP bullets. I think the pigs make a rather unique medium in that case. I have seen pigs take 6 rounds of 44 Mag and sit there puffing blood out of 12 holes for several minutes. They just don't know they have been kilt.

Those letters in the back of his book are a gold mine. I remember when we could converse with factory reps like that and get good data. If we were being idiots, they would say so in flowery language of course, but they did call an idiot an idiot. Now of course we are buffered from them by multiple layers of indifference and interference. Oh well.

Last year I had a great email exchange with Shooters World. Their ballistician got in on the exchange and provided some great commentary and data. That is so rare now days.

With rifle in hand, I confidently go forth into the darkness.

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Wilderness posted this 14 January 2026

Aaron & Larry

I don't have the Matthews books, but I am interested in the discussion as it relates to the performance of the Gould HP bullet.

I steered a friend on to the Gould bullet for his Marlin .45-70. It definitely killed pigs with soft alloy at about 1500 fps. I seem to remember recoil having something to do with why we stopped at 1500.

Higher velocity and harder alloy will be a whole new situation, since the HP mechanism changes with speed. Forget about mushrooms. Now it's about shrapnel and the residual slug that keeps on penetrating after the nose is gone. Hard alloy slows down the nose break, putting it where it can do some damage, and resists the grinding down of the residual slug as it traverses the animal.

The harder alloy cited would definitely feed into this narrative.

You are only as good as your library.

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Aaron posted this 15 January 2026

In the day, the Gould bullet, pushed by black powder, cast in 16:1 alloy, and leaving the muzzle at 1600fps was a game killing bullet on deer, elk, bear, and other similar game routinely hunted by American sportsmen prior to the advent of smokeless propellants and 30 caliber jacketed bullets. In my hunting heyday with J.D. Jones and the HHI group, I shot boar with my 454 Casull. I used drop quenched WW bullets of 340gr at 1500fps. They went completely through pigs front to back or side to side. I would bet that the Gould Express bullet in 20:1 at 1600fps would have performed superior to a hard bullet from a handgun. Shots on boar while handgun hunting were about 50-75 yards depending on optics. I think that shots made back in the day (late 19th century and early 20th) were not at the longer ranges allowed by faster bullets with flatter trajectories and smaller calibers. That Gould Express bullet at design alloy BHN and period velocity is a true killer. Speeding it up is, to me, counterproductive, in that there are better bullets to use in that next velocity/range theatre.

The 30-30 needs the harder bullet for the range (higher pressure) and the penetration needed to anchor a pig. I contend that pigs are harder to kill. They get killed but it may take several minutes for them to know they have been killed. God help anyone in the immediate area while they realize they are dead and stop thrashing and biting. I am rambling on but am trying to say the Gould Express bullet in a 45-70 or 45-90 at 1600fps is a winner if shooting at less than 100 yards.

With rifle in hand, I confidently go forth into the darkness.

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Aaron posted this 15 January 2026

Wilderness

Get yourself a copy of that book. As Larry pointed out, the correspondence letters at the back of it are gems. There are several between himself and Elmer as well as a bundle between period authorities and manufacturers.

With rifle in hand, I confidently go forth into the darkness.

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Wilderness posted this 15 January 2026

Aaron - agreed re better bullets for the hard HP HV job.

If I was into .45-70 HV I think I'd be looking for a gas check design, and maybe a bit heavier to make sure of the residual penetrator.

In response to one of my posts, EVR_Forge relates using an older Lee 400 gn HP bullet and experiencing the same bullet performance I describe - nose breaks up and sheds leaving the base free to penetrate forever. I think his bullets might have been softer and slower, but the described behaviour is familiar.

You are only as good as your library.

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Aaron posted this 15 January 2026

Yup. Were I to hunt pigs again, I would use a bazooka!

With rifle in hand, I confidently go forth into the darkness.

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Doughty posted this 15 January 2026

I think this concept meshes in with the Nosler Partition idea. A hard tough base that can be combined with a very frangible nose. Back in the early 2000s I played with this idea using a method I first heard about from Veral Smith (LBT). A WW, full bearing length base welded to a soft lead/tin nose that was then oven tempered and water quenched. In.30 cal. (311041) I could get full, chest to butt, penetration of a mule deer buck, with a chest cavity turned to goo. I found it was more than I needed because I'm primarily a meat hunter and little worry about recovering my game. For some, making the bullets were difficult, for others very easy. On the castboolit site there is a thread started by BruceB, I believe, that gives a VERY detailed description of making this type of bullet his way.

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