New alloy

[Brad]

Decided yesterday that is as home from the range early enough to make good use of the nice weather and mix a couple pots of alloy.

First up was a batch of copper alloy. I used 50 pounds range scrap, 4.5 pounds of formula 0 babbitt from Rotometals, a pound of grade 3 babbitt from Rotometals, and a single 3/4 pound bar of 30/70 body solder I have on hand. Works out to having roughly 3 percent each tin and antimony and .15 percent copper. Will be interesting to see how this stuff handles some speed and pressure.

Next I did 2 pots of 50 pounds range scrap and 5 pounds monotype. The monotype tends to give a thick, foamy dross that needs heat and lots of fluxing to mix in. I had to get it to around 750 degrees for a good mixing. This will yield roughly a 3/1 alloy.

Both of these should heat treat nicely.

 

[Rick]

That's a lot of pre-made alloy! 150 pounds of pre-made alloy. Now that it's alloyed to what it is now it is what it is. What if it's not what you want/need in the future? I always mix new alloys for testing in small batches of about 10 pounds and if it's not what I thought and I don't much use it I don't have all that alloy tied up in something else.

All of my base alloy stays that way until it goes into the pot for casting. I don't add tin or anything until it's in the casting pot. I learned many years ago that nothing stays the same, the guns change over time, the preferred alloy for those guns changes over time. If all of my metals were tied up in one alloy then what?

 

[Ian]

You should be set for a while.

One of the issues I keep having is with relative unknowns, like wheel weights and various soft scrap. One batch of stick-on WW ingots test around 6 bhn, but seem to have a lot of tin in them and when mixed 50/50 with my standard clip-on ingots (large, uniform batch) adds about a thousandth to the diameter of the bullets compared to scrap roofing lead that I have. Hardness comes out about the same with either. What I end up doing is alloy in the 20lb casting pot, cast a few big and small bullets, water drop and air cool a few, and plot the hardness over a month or so period of time. If the final alloy ages like it "should", for what I'm trying to achieve, it's usually close enough and I can alloy bigger batches using the same "ingredients". With a basic alloy of clip-on WW and pure lead with about half to one percent additional tin as a foundation, heat treating to various degrees will make it suitable for almost all of my shooting needs. I prefer that to trying to make various air-cooled alloy blends do the same things, and generally the 50/50 shoots better.

 

[Brad]

If it isn't what I want then I use it for 9mm bullets or something like that. I have enough stuff to make many more batches like these if it works out well. I do need to get the years range scrap collecting started, good thing Vic is home from spring break next week. She is a good scrap gatherer.
The copper added stuff with let me really explore it in the new rifle. By controlling HT temps I should be able to easily find a BHn that works well witha. Couple of powders.
The 3-1 alloy will work for about anything. I can always cut if 50/50 with lead and get back close to where it came from.

 

[Ian]

45 ACP: The ultimate in alloy disposal tools. I got rid of a whole bunch of contaminated junk that wouldn't clean up by softening it enough with all the softish, mystery metal I had laying around and deposited it at a range whose berms I'll never mine, 230 grains at a time.

 

[Brad]

Yep, handgun plinking ammo is a great way to use up "whatthehellisthisstuff" alloy.

 

[Brad]

Just cast a few hundred using the Cu added alloy. Air cooled right after casting it runs 14 BHn. Time will tell how much it hardens with time air cooled.
I will heat treat a few and see what they can get up to.

 

[Rick]

14 right after casting? I suggest you get them checked and sized soon. Sizing hard bullets is not only tough on the lubrisizer it's also tough on the guy doing the sizing. I made that mistake. Once!

 

[Brad]

These will all be sized using a Lee push thru type sizes. The loading press handles this far better than the Star.
I should go sort, check, and size the, now. Can't later, some of us still work.

 

[358156hp]

I know that bullets actually make an audible "creak" if I size them in my Star when they're too hard. Water dropped lino is especially entertaining this way. If I hear a bullet creak any more, I'll remelt the entire batch. I'm guessing I have some sort of lube issue because of this. I'm using LBT Soft Blue, and it's not a slippery lube in my book. Now you know my fascination with bullet lube. I can stick rifle bullets in my Star die with soft blue if I'm not careful. Imagine my surprise when I learned that some guys size their bullets without lubing them and let them age, then run them through again to lube when they're ready to load them. Some use case sizing lube on the bullets, and some I've seen appear to use dish soap.

 

[Rick]

Dunno about dish soap, I use Unique to size bullets without lube in the Star when they are destined to be heat treated. Works great and if your having trouble with the LBT lube you could try this also. I've never heard that about LBT before, seems odd. LBT is my main lube but I bought a bunch of it before he had three lubes and what I have is what was his soft at the time. Never tried what he calls soft now.

 

[358156hp]

It really bothered me when I started sticking long bullets in the dies. Hence my drastic response to it.

 

[Brad]

I really like the Lee type sizers for heavy sizing operations. The reloading press handles the stress better and I avoid wear and tear on the sizer. The Star in particular doesn't handle heavy sizing or hard bullets real well.

 

[freebullet]

As a guy who has not bought a star yet, I appreciate the info.

I use lee and buckshot push through dies exclusively right now. They get a shot of lanolin/olive oil case lube. Not much of an issue unless I'm going more than .004 down, or using near pure. The near pure will smear in the die if not lubed.

What alloy calculator are you using?

 

[Rick]

The only bullets that have ever given my Stars any trouble were oven heat treated. Tried that once and learned my lesson well enough it will never happen again. For bullets that I size without lubing I use Hornady Unique case lube, just a small amount on the finger tips as you pick up the bullet to put it into the die is all it takes.

 

[358156hp]

Waterdropped 200 gr SWC in ,358 are truly an adventure. Brad is right, there's not much of a mechanical advantage to the Star, compared to a reloading press.

 

[Rick]

Those bullets aren't hard just because they got wet. If you size them before they age harden you'll have no trouble with the Star.

 

[Brad]

Whose bullets got wet? Mine are air cooled. Same as the ones I cast this morning. I'm gonna heat treat anyway so why make sizing harder than I need to?
Now once they are heat treated, that is when these are gonna get damn near impossible to size.

 

[Rick]

Whose bullets got wet?

Read post #16.

 

[Brad]

Ah, him. A 200 swc in 358 sure has a bunch of bearing surface.