Foundry type

[waco]

So I just bought 11 pounds of foundry type in type form. The seller claims to have had it tested. Does this sound about right to you guys?
If so, might be a good alloy to mix with other things to attempt the HV challenge Ian purposed. Thoughts???
The copper caught my attention. I've heard it is a good thing to have when trying to toughen up an alloy. Am I correct?
Walter

 

[Rick]

Foundry Type = 15% tin, 23% antimony, 62% lead .

Not to say it wouldn't be a good alloy for your purpose but I've not heard of foundry type with copper. But then I've not heard of everything.

 

[freebullet]

I really don't know either. It will most certainly be interesting. That should be great to make alloy with no matter what.

 

[waco]

Thanks for the input Rick. It will be useful regardless.

 

[waco]

That's what I thought too Freebullet.

 

[waco]

He said he had the alloy XRF'D
What does that mean?

 

[Brad]

An XRF uses X-Ray fluorescence to give an idea of metal composition. They are frequently used by scrap yards to give a quick determination of what is being brought in.
They are a handy device for quick sampling and are good enough for their needs.

 

[Brad]

The copper will make the bullets "tougher". Aim for around .2% or so copper.
Go back to CB and read up on what Badgeredd wrote about them. He uses a lot of copper added alloys and found they need to have a proper mix of tin/antimony/copper to prevent some odd results. I think one of the issues was bullets that grew in size a bit on aging. Not a huge deal in most cases but it can cause a great fitting bullet to no longer chamber in some cases.

 

[waco]

Thanks for the info. I'll check it out.

 

[Ian]

Looks like you got a whole lot of "sweetener" to add to a basic WW-ish or range scrap mix. If those results are real, you're looking at 20 or 30:1 additive ratio. Read up on what Brad mentioned and focus mainly on copper content for addition to a lead alloy mix. The rest of the elements are in a pretty decent proportion already, which will simplify things.

 

[Brad]

I use monotype at a 10:1 ratio with range scrap as a sweetener. Works very well for me. I use this for 44 mag bullets. They are quite accurate and expand well.

Use it wisely, an overly hard bullet isn't required. I prefer a lower Sb alloy heat treated to get where I want to be over using higher Sb alloys and air cooling. Another advantage of this is being able to adjust hardness to a window where best results occur. Rick has well demonstrated that harder sent always more accurate.

 

[JonB]

A few years back, I bought a couple MFRB boxes of monotype, at least that's how it was advertised. What I got was alot of ink coated tiny/thin single letter blocks, may of them had a copper edge. When I smelted them all into ingots, the copper slivers floated to the top and were skimmed off.

That 6% copper reading seems incorrect to this redneck metallurgist. does any of your blocks have this copper edge ?
If the seller scanned a block with a copper edge...I wonder if it'd read some of the copper?

I'm just thinking out loud here.

 

[Rick]

Yeah Jon, sounds quite odd to me also. One thing for sure, with 6% Cu Foundry type it's not. Your thinking out loud about how all that Cu showed up sounds far more likely than Foundry type with all that copper.

 

[waco]

Well I have not even paid for, let alone received the alloy yet. I will be sure to let you guys know when I get it!
Even if its not much more than Lino, I'll just add it to the 400+lbs I already have. Lino that is....

 

[alamogunr]

A few years back, I bought a couple MFRB boxes of monotype, at least that's how it was advertised. What I got was alot of ink coated tiny/thin single letter blocks, may of them had a copper edge. When I smelted them all into ingots, the copper slivers floated to the top and were skimmed off.

That 6% copper reading seems incorrect to this redneck metallurgist. does any of your blocks have this copper edge ?
If the seller scanned a block with a copper edge...I wonder if it'd read some of the copper?

I'm just thinking out loud here.

I too, bought a couple of MFRB of monotype from someone in Texas(I think). He mentioned that most had a small amount of linotype mixed in. The "monotype" that I got did not have any ink or the copper edge, so we may have obtained it from different sources. I haven't used any yet but am considering trying for a harder alloy than COWW. I've sent samples of my COWW and some other unknowns to a member on Cast Boolits for analysis. If my various WW's from different time periods come back close enough, I'm going to ignore the differences and put together equal amounts of each and alloy with some of the harder alloys, such as the monotype, to get to maybe as much as 18bh. I don't cast a lot of rifle bullets, but also don't gas check many of them if experience does not indicate that it is needed.

 

[9.3X62AL]

I have blended foundry type 1:6 with unalloyed lead to come up with very-close-to-Taracorp alloy (92/6/2)

 

[alamogunr]

Thanks! I'll keep that in mind. Being a "fair weather" caster and alloy-er, I won't be doing much for another month or so.

 

[Brad]

I use 50# range scrap to 5 # monotype. Air cooled it is good in most handgun loads. Heat treated to 400F for an hour and quenched it is good in about any rifle load or mag handguns.