antimony?

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  • Last Post 06 January 2021
sergeant69 posted this 30 December 2020

just got in a LOT of roof flashing (soft lead). for casting purposes, what will i need to mix in to get a proper bullet of around 12 BHN,  OTHER THAN WHEEL WEIGHTS, which i have used since the 70s but are getting hard to find in these parts. dam shame i don't shoot BP! thanks

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RicinYakima posted this 30 December 2020

Go to "Roto-Metals" and look at their blending alloys. You only need about 2% to get you to #12 with scrap lead. HTH

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sergeant69 posted this 31 December 2020

email sent. thanks

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sergeant69 posted this 01 January 2021

since the early 70s i have been happily casting just WW with a little scrap lead thrown in. so i'm dumb as a rock about all the % of add ons. someone on another site suggested all i need now is some tin to add the the scrap lead. i'm not gonna do that till i know whats what. still waiting to hear from Roto Metals how much antimony/tin to add to 100 lbs of lead to get into the 12-18 BHN range. any help here appreciated too. thanks

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RicinYakima posted this 01 January 2021

If you go to the top of the page, click on "CBA Info", go down to down loads, you will find a program for "alloy calculator".

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sergeant69 posted this 01 January 2021

ok, so according to the chart (thank you), if i want to go with a BNH of 12, i would use, by weight, to get 40 lbs, 36.5 lbs of lead and 3.5 lbs tin?

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RicinYakima posted this 01 January 2021

That is the way I read it.

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sergeant69 posted this 01 January 2021

cheaper to find WW somewhere to mix in

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Brodie posted this 02 January 2021

 It may be cheaper but is probably a whole lot more frustrating trying to find lead WW's to add to your mix, unless you already have a supply at hand.  Thanks to some environmental student who had no idea about how to do a study, lead ww's are almost a thing of the past.  If you can find some Sarge. I salute you,  But since the 90's lead wws have been replaced with zinc and iron ww's because that fore-mentioned idiot student doing his research for a Masters degree forgot that we burned leaded gasoline for 70 to a 100 years and the lead content of the soil along our highways was due to that and not the odd ww that he found in his dazed wanderings.  As a result they no longer make ww's out of lead and antimony.  Good Luck

B.E.Brickey

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sergeant69 posted this 02 January 2021

i got the word out at several tire shops and at the local scrap yard. scrap yard guy guy said i can have em all but they're not sorted. as in, he'll sell em all to me he gets in, unsorted.

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sergeant69 posted this 03 January 2021

how horrible would it be to shoot a scrap lead bullet fully lubed up to 850 fps or so, say in a 45 colt? i've heard w/in 5 rds the bbl would be leaded all to hell and accuracy shot to hell also. but never tried it

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Brodie posted this 05 January 2021

I have a Charter Arms 44 Bulldog five shot pistol.  It is one of the real old ones where when they swagged the barrel in they inadvertently narrowed the throat of the barrel.  This creates the worst possible conditions I can imagine for leading to occur. 

When I started shooting the bulldog I would get about one to two rounds out of ten that would tumble.  It still shot quite well, although anything near a warm load was rather recoil positive.  One day I decided to turn the gun into a real self defense stopper, and cast a bunch of 44 bullets in pure lead, they came out weighing about (memory) 275 gr.  I loaded these in front of 7.5 gr. Unique.  I was pleasantly surprised at the lack of recoil when I shot them.  They were very pleasant to shoot and grouped nicely.  I had no trouble staying in the high 90's for ten shots slow fire at 25yds, as an added benefit bullets no longer tumbled.  They did lead the barrel though.  In fact that barrel is still leaded.  It made to difference as far as accuracy was concerned, so I just never bothered to clean it out. 

If I ever do clean it down to steel again I will fire lap the throat of that barrel so I can use other bullets and have decent accuracy with them as well.  By the way it took a lot more than fife rounds to lead the barrel up.  A normal shooting session with the pistol was at least fifty rounds, with the accuracy never varying appreciably from first cylinder to the last.

B.E.Brickey

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BigMan54 posted this 05 January 2021

Back in the days of my youth. About 600yrs ago, I was casting My very first bullets. I had mastered casting round ball with a 1cav mold for My Dad's Ancient Colt Navy. So I got "upgraded" to a "real" bullet; #356212 1cav. Still a cast iron pot & ladle over the old Coleman stove. Dad favored Linotype for Semi-Auto Pistols, in particular the Luger P-08. Said they feed better.

Well to shorten this story, I was so used to "feeding" my pot with pure lead, that's what went into it to cast those 9mm bullets. But they were very pretty bullets.  But most jammed going up the feed ramp of the old Luger, and did lead up the bbl, in only 40odd shots.  I had to dump all 300+ bullets back into the little pot when I was "set back" to casting Round Ball.

Does anyone remember how long it takes to cast 350+ bullets out of a 1cav mold ?

With a dipper sitting on a old milking stool ? on the garage floor ?

 

 

  

Long time Caster/Reloader, Getting back into it after almost 10yrs. Life Member NRA 40+yrs, Life S.A.S.S. #375. Does this mean a description of me as a fumble-fingered knuckle-draggin' baboon. I also drool in my sleep. I firmly believe that true happiness is a warm gun. Did I mention how much I HATE auto-correct on this blasted tablet.

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Eutectic posted this 06 January 2021

I did that years ago. The goal was to fill up a big Maxwell House coffee can with 38 wadcutters from a Lyman single cavity mold. I at down to cast after school and quit at dinner. I think it took two weeks, about 20 hours, It was summer I was casting using a gas fired camp stove and it was hot work. I think it took two weeks, about 20 hours, I was proud, it weighed a TON.

I pressed my sister into service as Quality Control Officer. I showed her a perfect bullet and had her sort them. The can came back 2/3 full and a smaller can of rejects. I thought it was great until she said the smaller can were the good ones!

I did shorter runs and experimented. I needed more tin, at least 1% and 2% was better using 60/40 bar solder. Adding a little linotype worked better, the antimony helped. The linotype had tin so I did not need as much bar solder. Lead was free from a friend but the bar solder and linotype cost money and were used sparingly. Purchasing a thermometer and adjusting the casting speed finally got the rejects down to ~10%.

How many 148 grain wadcutters in a big coffee can?? I never did count them.

Steve

 

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