Softening clip-on wheelweight alloy

[Snakeoil]

I hauled what lead I had out to the lake for an alloy mixing and ingot casting session. I found a bunch of ingot I had made years ago and forgot they were under the bench. But when I put them in the bucket, they kinda clinked instead of thudded when I dropped them in. I used my pencils to test hardness and they appear to be wheelweight alloy. That would have been the only odd and/or hard alloy I ever had because back in my BPCR days, I bought virgin alloy from a supplier in NJ.

So, I use 20:1 and 30:1 in all my shooting these days. Is it possible to bring an alloy with antimony in it down in hardness to emulate a 30:1 or 20:1 alloy. I don't want to start throwing virgin lead at it only to find that I'm wasting my time and my lead. I did a search here and found nothing. I did a similar search on the web with similar results. I have the alloy calculator spreadsheet shared here and it really does not tell me what I can do, if anything to soften up the wheelweight alloy.

If I can't fix this stuff, I'll just give it or trade it with somebody at the club.

 

[RicinYakima]

The chart I have says you will have to get below 1% antimony to get to 30/1 and just 1.5% antimony to get to 20/1. FWIW

 

[Rick]

How much of it do you have? How old is this WW alloy? Pre-90's many WW were 4-5% Sb, over time the Sb percentage was reduced. Maybe 2% for more recent weights.

 

[fiver]

yep.
the new stuff is about the same BHN as 20-1, with a little Tin thrown in the mix.

anything old,, like Rick says is a whole nuther world.

 

[JonB]

I'd try to trade it, if I were you.
Someone will likely want that alloy more than pure or near pure lead.
In my circles, I can easily scrounge pure/near pure lead, but rarely come across COWW alloy.

 

[Snakeoil]

I'd try to trade it, if I were you.
Someone will likely want that alloy more than pure or near pure lead.
In my circles, I can easily scrounge pure/near pure lead, but rarely come across COWW alloy.

Wish it was cheap to ship. I'd be horse trading with you. But now that I think about it. The USPS flat rate boxes have a 70lb limit I believe for the medium box with is $17.10 to ship. But I know I can horse trade it with guys at the club.

I have no idea how old it is. But suspect it is from the 90's.

 

[JonB]

Yep, it's doesn't pay to ship, not only the fees, but more so the hassle of properly packing it.
The one time I did a swap that went USPS, was me shipping my commercial bagged shot, swapping for blended and scanned alloy (94-3-3), I don't recall the swap rate, but it wasn't 1 to 1 ..probably 3 to 1
Another time, I drove about 50 miles to meet a fella from southern MN for a swap, 2 to 1. His COWW alloy for my soft lead. He was a muzzle loader shooter and couldn't find soft lead anywhere. There was several hundred pounds exchanged that day, weighed on a bathroom scale, in a gas station parking lot.