Hello everyone, I have been given about 50kg of COWW and 50kg of 92-6-2 hardball range pickups plus have 50+kg's of lead flashing, I mostly do 100-300m military shooting with my .303's, the loads are mostly in the 1800-2000fps range with HiTek or PC, I normally don't heat treat, what do you all suggest as a good general mix with what I have. Thanks.
What Alloy should I make
- Thread starter PAT303
- Start date
Mitty38
Well-Known Member
Any tin or pewter? Some fellows may want to know that.
Have you checked bore size, pound casted or measured any of your throats in any way?
I am going to refrain from an answer, because there are a lot of variables here to consider. And I am fairly green. I could probably lead you to the right path but the more experienced fellows can get you when you want to go quicker.
Also what powder(s) do you have? Alloys act differently with different powders.
There are a lot of fellows here that have been thru the mill With 30 ish calibers, over 1800 fps. Way more then me.
Ok I said I would not give an answer, but, my two cents. Mix it all together and add 4 kg of pewter, or tin. Or 8 kg of 50/50 solder.
That will put it some where in the workable zone. Then figure out how to make it work for your rifles.
Having 155 kg of one consistent alloy, will get you a pretty far.
Have you checked bore size, pound casted or measured any of your throats in any way?
I am going to refrain from an answer, because there are a lot of variables here to consider. And I am fairly green. I could probably lead you to the right path but the more experienced fellows can get you when you want to go quicker.
Also what powder(s) do you have? Alloys act differently with different powders.
There are a lot of fellows here that have been thru the mill With 30 ish calibers, over 1800 fps. Way more then me.
Ok I said I would not give an answer, but, my two cents. Mix it all together and add 4 kg of pewter, or tin. Or 8 kg of 50/50 solder.
That will put it some where in the workable zone. Then figure out how to make it work for your rifles.
Having 155 kg of one consistent alloy, will get you a pretty far.
Last edited:
CWLONGSHOT
Well-Known Member
100% agreed.
Dusty Bannister
Well-Known Member
Since you are already having success with whatever alloy you are presently using, why compromise the future by blending all into one alloy and then have nothing on hand to adjust to specific needs. It might be a bit more reasonable to blend part of your stash at a specific ratio and see if that serves your needs and have a goal for future purchases to replicate that blend.
Dusty Bannister
Well-Known Member
Since the OP is dealing in Kg, he may not have easy access to the various materials we have here in the US.
Dimner
Named Man
I'm in a similar boat. I have 400lbs of unprocessed indoor range lead. About 150lbs of CWW, 75 lbs of Lino, 75 lbs of pure sheet lead, a couple dozen lbs of pewter and smaller batches of other random hardish lead alloys.
My plan is to mix as much of it as I can together so I can have a large batch (for my purposes, possibly a lifetime batch) of 2.5%Sb, 1.5%Sn, 96Pb. A large consistent batch will allow me to make or shoot anything in the future. I probably won't have to tweak anything unless I get into some nerdy super science project.
Then when I'm all done with the very large batch, I'll send it off somewhere for testing so I know as best as possible what I am dealing with and how close I am to what I expected.
My plan is to mix as much of it as I can together so I can have a large batch (for my purposes, possibly a lifetime batch) of 2.5%Sb, 1.5%Sn, 96Pb. A large consistent batch will allow me to make or shoot anything in the future. I probably won't have to tweak anything unless I get into some nerdy super science project.
Then when I'm all done with the very large batch, I'll send it off somewhere for testing so I know as best as possible what I am dealing with and how close I am to what I expected.
Rockydoc
Well-Known Member
Who has a cauldron which will hold 650lbs of alloy in which to "mix it altogether"?
I have never seen one.
Dimner
Named Man
So I have pondered that question as well when working on my stash. My current supply is in a gangly assortment of sheets, muffin ingots, bar ingots, cake pan ingots, and 5 gal buckets of indoor range splatters. Alloys in the various forms I described in my previous post.
So I'm going through each set of alloys, melting and pouring them into a standard set of ingots. A bar ingot 2.5lbs each. All of these ingots are marked with the alloy type and batch #.
Then when done, I'll use the individual alloy ingots to make batches of my preferred alloy. Melt, mix, flux, and pour into ingots. 60-75lbs batches at a time. Each batch again marked with a batch number.
Here's the extra part since I don't have a giant cauldron:
Now I will take the ingots of my preferred alloy mixing batches equally to produce the final product. I'll have 8-10 batches of my final alloy. Ingots are 2.5lbs each. So mixing those batches together will be pretty easy. The end result being as well blended as I can muster.
For me, the extra effort is worth it since it's my plan to have this stash last me for the remainder of my casting days.
Ian
Notorious member
Felix Robbins and his son Corky built the Mother Of All Smelters which held something like 150 gallons (they made a batch of bullet lube in it after a massive wheelweight rendering session. It went up for sale a few years ago but I don't know wbo bought it.
Uniforming is done in small batches by grouping ingots pulled from many piles together and remelting/pouring.
Melt it down in batches with each batch being kept as a pile of ingots. Each pot should be roughly the same amount of each lead source.
Take the same number of ingots from each pile and remedy them. The resulting ingots will be awful damn close to identical.
Take the same number of ingots from each pile and remedy them. The resulting ingots will be awful damn close to identical.
Mitty38
Well-Known Member
That's how I did my base alloy. Little batches of lee 1 and 1/2 lb ingots. Put in boxes.
Had several boxes to start of different stuff.
So when I blended, one lb from box # 1, one pound from box # 2....and added some tin.
Did that again, then mixed the batches 50-50 .
Then another 50/50 mix just to make sure.
Come to think of it I did my rifle alloy basically the same.
Last edited:
I learned the lesson of not blending everything ya have into one alloy many years ago. When things change and they will, a new caliber or whatever and you want to blend a new alloy or just use some of that soft that you "had" you can't, everything went into the one alloy and that's what ya got. Experimenting is great but all your eggs in one basket isn't.
