What Alloy should I make

Bret4207

At the casting bench in the sky. RIP Bret.
I'm just concerned that the extra lead in the melt will dilute the mix too much to the soft side, it's a waste having tin and antinomy in good qualities then soften it by adding too much lead.
Which I why I mentioned holding back on adding the flashing. Good pure lead is getting harder to get these days, at least cheap stuff. I'd hang onto it myself.
 

PAT303

New Member
So after 5 days air cooled the 50/50 (range scrap/WW) mix is 12 BHN and the lead flashing/Range scrap/WW mix is 10BHN. I cast some 160grn bullets with the 3 part mix and it's a really nice casting alloy, I might do another casting session next week and drop quench them to see how well they respond to heat treating.
 

Bret4207

At the casting bench in the sky. RIP Bret.
The Bhn will continue to change for some time and then change again later. It's just a relative number. How it performs and if it's workable for your purposes is much, much more important than any number.
 

fiver

Well-Known Member
you now have pretty much 2 versions of the same thing, only one has some soft lead in it.
 

Joshua

Taco Aficionado/Salish Sea Pirate/Part-Time Dragon
I would save save some of that tin for next time. My 20:1 alloy works fine for me with a Lyman 311291 170gr GC over 16gr of 2400.

My 20:1 alloy also does great with a Lee 100gr PB over 3.2gr of Bullseye.
 

fiver

Well-Known Member
20-1 will approximate ww alloy in the BHN department, if I were gonna just throw them down range at 50 yds' I'd be tempted to go 30-1, but would probably settle in at 25-1.

for a real long time, and maybe still even now the factories used 40-1 as a standard alloy for stuff like the 44-40 and 38 special.
 
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PAT303

New Member
Been casting with the 50/50 alloy, it's been a bugger as far as the bullets snap in half if dropped too early but they look really nice with good fill out once I dropped the temp a bit, I have about 400 NOE .315299's really for shooting next Saturday hopefully.
 

fiver

Well-Known Member
once I get a mold up to temp I drop my alloy temp about 20-25 degrees and then focus on my casting speed.
it's generally around a 7 count waiting for things to cool after pouring, and then the cycle of dumping closing and filling again is where I work the mold temp based on what I see the bullets doing.
occasionally I employ a damp rag every 3-4 pours to help keep the mold at an even keel without losing too much speed.
 

PAT303

New Member
Well air cooled 50/50 range scrap/WW worked, I shot my Maltby No.4 because the bloke who wants to buy it was at the club and at 100mtrs 5 offhand 5 sitting 5 prone we came first and second out of 20 shooters. The alloy is very nice to cast and loaded over 20grns of 2207 (4198) it was very pleasant to shoot. In the coming weeks I'm going to try the 20-1 alloy suggested on here also.
 

JWFilips

Well-Known Member
On my pistol range we have a lot of commercial cast bullet shooters! So when I mine the berms I go though the trouble of sorting out the jacketed from the Commercial cast. Things like Shotgun slugs and HB wad cutters are culled also into a soft lead bucket.
I then smelt the Commercial cast into ingots, then the Jacketed and the soft lead into ingots! Lacking Clip on wheel weights any more I usually mix my alloys based on The Commercial cast bullet ingots and Jacketed / Soft ingots!
I get a nice alloy for wad cutters of BHN10 from 8 Lbs of Jacketed / soft ingots and 3 lbs of Commercial cast ingots!
However now that the commercial companies are selling PC coated bullets ....I'm not sure the are going their normal BHN 18 alloy so This is messing things up!
 

fiver

Well-Known Member
give them the old hammer test JW.
mash or dent is probably close nuff for the crowd you hang out with.
 

GRMPS

Active Member
On my pistol range we have a lot of commercial cast bullet shooters! So when I mine the berms I go though the trouble of sorting out the jacketed from the Commercial cast. Things like Shotgun slugs and HB wad cutters are culled also into a soft lead bucket.
I then smelt the Commercial cast into ingots, then the Jacketed and the soft lead into ingots! Lacking Clip on wheel weights any more I usually mix my alloys based on The Commercial cast bullet ingots and Jacketed / Soft ingots!
I get a nice alloy for wad cutters of BHN10 from 8 Lbs of Jacketed / soft ingots and 3 lbs of Commercial cast ingots!
However now that the commercial companies are selling PC coated bullets ....I'm not sure the are going their normal BHN 18 alloy so This is messing things up!
I doubt the commercial caster will ever sell PC coated bullets, --- too labor-intensive for consistent results on a large scale BUT they have been selling HiTek coated bullets for over 25 years.
I wouldn't worry too much about them softening up the alloy, Hard alloy casts better, (the main reason) hard alloy doesn't get damaged as easily as soft in the packing/shipping process, their customers are used to loading for the 18 bhn bullets.
 

GRMPS

Active Member
https://missouribullet.com/results.php?category=23
Hi-Tek Bullet Coating
Hi-Tek 2-Extreme Coating

THIS IS THE NEW POWDERED 2-EXTREME HEAT-CURED SUPERCOAT AND DOES NOT REQUIRE HAZMAT SHIPPING

ACME Bullet Company introduces our "Lipstick" bullets. These are our cast bullets that are coated with HiTek coating. All bullets are cast with 92-6-2 alloy then coated with HiTek coating that molecularly bonds to the bullet. This process completely encapsulates the bullet.

There is a difference between HiTek coating (which is a polymer stain) that gets into the pores of the lead and PD powder coating (normally polyester (TGIC) that adheres to the surface
 

Mowgli Terry

Active Member
Newfer: I am using range scrap. My main problem is with ingots, The is hardness varies with the portion of commercial cast bullets to spent jacketed bullets cores. Mixing everything together may have some benefits. Leave the unalloyed lead for another day. Put range scrap together and COWW in another batch. Last range scrap here measured unscientifically came out to 15 BH. That's about right for my revolvers. Either the range scrap or the COWW may be a shootable alloy already.

Added: Figure out the hardness of your range scrap before adding Super Hard. I'm finishing up on a batch right now that came out seriously hard after working up batch on formula alone. Fixed by SWAG'ing the lead that needed to be added. That's my learning experience this past month. I do not regularly PC my bullets.
 
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