New Guy.

[USSR]

Stumbled upon this site while looking for something that my work's internet filtering software doesn't block me from accessing. Somehow I fail to see the connection between a reloading website and the "Weapons/Bombs" warning that comes up with most of the other sites. Anyway's, been reloading/casting for about 40 years, and teach metallic cartridge reloading in my spare time. Have shot in shotgun, handgun, and rifle competition (1,000 yard F Class) over the years, although my current preoccupation is with shooting my many revolvers, since I have a range set up right outside my house. Am a big proponent of Mihec's Slovenian works of art, and my latest acquisition casts a .38 caliber 148gr HBWC that delivers outstanding accuracy in my pre-Model 14 Smith and Wesson. Look forward to posting on this site.

Don

 

[Brad]

Welcome aboard.
Look forward to hearing more about your interests and current endeavors.

What sort of alloy are you running with that HBWC?

Brad

 

[Rick]

Welcome.

I gotta say that is a very curious username you have. Is it initials for something?

 

[USSR]

Hi Brad,

Contrary to what I have read on this site, I like to run alloys that have a lot of Sn and a little Sb. I have quite a bit of solder, so cost isn't an issue, and it fills out the mould quite nice. I am currently running 96.5 Pb/3.0 Sn/0.5 Sb in an effort to nearly duplicate the BHN of swaged HBWC's. Seems to work quite well.

Don

 

[USSR]

Hi Rick,

Actually, it is initials with quite a story behind it. Shortly after the fall of the Soviet Union, I went to Russia a couple of times. I became interested in their Soviet Orders and medals and started importing them (they had to be smuggled out of Russia and sent from another country, but this ended when Putin took over) and selling them online under the business name of Unique Soviet Souvenirs and Relics. I later on traveled extensively to Eastern Ukraine and Crimea (beautiful Crimea, lost to the Russians). I guess you can say I am a Slavophile, but am certainly no fan of Putin and the Russian government.

Don

 

[KHornet]

You should be interesting to follow USSR!

Paul

 

[fiver]

if your trying to duplicate the alloy they use for the swaged target bullets your doing it backwards.
Hornady uses 5% antimony and 0% tin in their swaged bullets.
swaging and casting make the alloy behave completely differently, shooting those alloys make them behave again in a different fashion.

welcome to the site.

 

[USSR]

That's okay, softer is better.

 

[Ian]

The reason I don't go oversquare on Sn has nothing to do with being "soft", and everything to do with the chemical properties of the alloy and a little experience. Sn in excess of Sb makes a nodular alloy which can behave very strangely under pressure.

I gotta click your "edit" button just to see what it does! Like a racoon...

 

[USSR]

Ha! Copied my signature off my profile on the CMP Forum, and never noticed I got the "Edit" box. Regarding the "Sn in excess of Sb behaving strangely", yes it does - It performs superbly. Been casting it that way for more years than I can remember. Sometimes the theoretical things you read about don't play out in real life.

 

[Ian]

Sometimes the theoretical things you read about don't play out in real life.

Ain't that the truth!

However, some of these things do play out if your "real life" involves the necessary conditions. I discovered the "theoretical" mechanism in the process of diagnosing some issues related to an overtinned alloy I was testing at one time. Lots of people don't believe things they've never seen or tested, and lots of people never put alloy through what I put alloy through. Your revolvers will never be able to tell the difference, but your rifles will if you push them hard enough.

 

[USSR]

Ian,

All my casting involves .38 or .45 caliber handgun bullets. I have one .30 caliber mould (a NOE 2 cavity 247gr with 1 cavity for HP's) that I had high hope of coming up with a low power deer load, but it failed miserably. I cast it with an alloy consisting of COWW's, a little pure and some lead shot (for the arsenic), and heat treated it. My target velocity was 1500fps which I achieved with 20gr of 4227. The target ended up looking like I shot it with a buckshot load. This was a couple years ago, and I'm having so much fun now with my cast hollowpoint and hollowbase revolver loads, that I really don't want to spend the time revisiting it since I shoot rifle so infrequently.

 

[RBHarter]

I think I just went through this same discussion .......
<<<<<< 75/25 WW/1/20 with copper of unknown value but probably at saturation of the tin in the 1-20, 200 gr about a 1400 fps impact speed 30 cal . .590-.610 195-197 gr retained . I just couldn't get the last 100fps I needed to be 100% legal . They were only about .3 long .

 

[fiver]

the best I have been able to saturate an alloy with tin to hold copper in solution is about 3-1 tin to copper.
I had to cut that alloy down severely to make it fully useful.
.3 is a good number for copper and .5 is workable.
but copper is more likely to bond with antimony in the alloy even though tin will get it into solution better.
the better solution is to make the tin/copper total the same as or less than the antimony total, then give it time to completely settle down [at least a full month] before using it or making measurements of the end product.