What's in YOUR Mix?

Bass Ackward

Active Member
Ian, everything dies, why not make the most of your / that gun life if it is possible?

Congrats on the PB success. So that success was .003. Bill (pistolero) had similar good luck at .003. And he asked the question the other day on the 625 thread, how much is too much? I felt bad, nobody answered him. Maybe the answer I can offer is .004. And have information that is there to follow as to how I came to that. :) Or that flexibility for several options leaves @ .002. We won’t know unless we talk about .... failures. You know, smooth seas ..........................

If everything goes to .004 when I pull the trigger on the lightest of charges in the Special, the only option of maintaining my sizing IS to use the dreaded copper cup. I know many find this topic a faux pa, but I’ll do what ever it takes to pull it out. And sometimes pointing out our problems / short comings gets others to do the same. Beats all the stereotype statements posted all the time. I can apologize after it’s all over. You know, just like I did on the other board. ;)

And this single topic covers a lot of ground not normally covered.
 
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Ian

Notorious member
I think how that .003 or .004 is going to work, or not, depends a whole lot on alloy and pressure curve. Brad was crushing the lube grooves completely closed on water-quenched range scrap (IIRC) using a hot load of 296 in his .44. There was more than one issue, though: His bullet design didn't have anywhere for the metal to move, his pressure was slugging the bullet up in the forcing cone no telling how much and then extruding it through the barrel like so much spray cheese. In the process his cylinder is out of alignment so as the bullet was extruding, it was also changing direction, making his recovered bullets have a parallelogram-shaped silhouette. I don't think his cylinder throats were particularly over-sized. When he lathe-cut deeper grooves, the bullets looked much better because the lead had somewhere to go. I shot some of his bullets in MY .44 (the one previously mentioned) and didn't recover any bullets but it didn't lead and it grouped a little better than in his revolver. I used 2400 and the second load I tried was starting to stick cases, so it was plenty hot. Between the faster powder and better cylinder alignment, the problem with his bullet design and alloy seemed to be solved.

Now, 296 is going to peak the pressure while the bullet is traversing the forcing gone area, or right when the base is clearing the cylinder gap, which intuitively will rivet the base of anything short of heavy copper-jacketed bullets. I hate 296 and refuse to use it anymore, so I don't have that problem. I use 2400 in the .44 Mag and run midway between start and max. I don't need gas checks doing that. I don't get lead rings in the cylinder forcing cones and only minimal cupping of the bullet bases....and the targets speak for themselves. Again, .003". I don't know if that would work at .004" or not, but I say again look at bullet travel vs. peak pressure in QL regarding your .44 SPL and take a real hard look at where the WW231 is peaking, then compare to something like HS-6 or Unique which is slower-burning and see if by simply tweaking the pressure curve a bit you can start making the components you have work better. If the pressure peaks while the bullet base is still in the cylinder throat, but ALL THE WAY INTO the cylinder throat, then I bet your problems go away.
 
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fiver

Well-Known Member
I think there is something else over looked.
if your tearing up open spaces in the throat with soft alloy something besides abrasion is going on.
I bet the air being compressed as the lead flows out into that space has a lot to do with things happening.

look at a water pipe around a poorly placed joint or right behind a non champhered piece of straight run pipe.
you get cavitation and circular flow which will erode the pipe.
if you look real close you will see little pockmarked bubble shapes in the face of the metal, these lead to more turbulence and more erosion.
add in some gas cutting or the bullet resisting movement slightly and letting the gas roll up behind it and you accelerate tings even more.
 

Ian

Notorious member
Good point, Fiver. What about lube-jet cutting? If the lube groove is full when the bullet smacks the forcing cone and gets squirted through, the lube could be trapped in the groove and hydraulic pressure could squirt it out in the tiny imperfections between bullet and barrel.
 

fiver

Well-Known Member
high pressure liquids will easily shoot a hole through your skin I could for sure see them abrading down steel.
heck they use high pressure water for cutting metal, a flowing wax would just be thicker.
 

Bass Ackward

Active Member
Ohhh, heavy on the science. Kinda reminds me of somebody else? Dejavoo. Nobody has mentioned bore diameter yet. It’s easier to size a 357 than a 45 at the same hardness. So maybe .004 is for 44. What is it for 35 & 45?

Then there is bullet .... weight / length. Especially as the cone walks.
 
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Ian

Notorious member
I know I know, $)()@#&$% engineers. I was educated as a professional mechanic, too, worked both sides of that line and cussed both of them plenty. These days the mental...ummm..."exercise"...is still fun but it don't tell us all that much, just gives us some way to conceptualize what we THINK is going on. What did someone else say? "It's all an educated guess until the trigger is pulled". Spot on.

Now we were supposed to be arguing about alloy here, right? Notice I've avoided that because I don't think alloy makeup has a whole lot to do with your .44 SPL umbrella bases. From your first post, I don't think you do, either.
 

Bass Ackward

Active Member
Now we were supposed to be arguing about alloy here, right? Notice I've avoided that because I don't think alloy makeup has a whole lot to do with your .44 SPL umbrella bases. From your first post, I don't think you do, either.

Arguing? What’s productive about that? Alloy was the start of this conversation. Actually it was SIZING of alloys. This subject expands to others as we are now observing. I answered my own question there by saying alloy was NOT solvable, because it would have happened with the 25s in the 50s or 24s in the 80s. Sure has been a lot of .... brilliant / educated minds working on it for decades and STILL nobody can tell us what are acceptable lead dimensions. Or ideal mixes. And why. That was why I thought the exercise was worth while. It answered Bill’s question the best I could.

I thought some might benefit from paid testing of alloys and the value of tin beyond mold fill out. I know how to operate Quickload. I educated the other board on it. :) I have shot PB well. And .... not so well. I CHOSE these conditions specifically for a test of the false hollow basing and what “IS” realistic obturation? Maybe I was the only one in the dark on this subject. I had results that went WAY beyond what I was expecting at that pressure / hardness. And actual RESULTS drove my conversation. I laid out what I did & what were the results.

We all know the other board failed because “science & education” (false) were valued over actual experience. That & creme puff questions. Sometimes you gotta kick the horse to know what he can or WILL do. Or in the case of casters, what they REALLY think. People are still reluctant to provide opposing experiences openly. (Private conversations) Sad, cause I thought the environment here to be fair & open. I was actually invited here because I supposedly MADE people think. Hmmm.

Ian, thank you for being honest & saving me time. If there are no answers, no value here in discussing experiences other than actual shooting, then I should be at the bench or the range. Want a parting catch phrase? Thinking about it is the first step to trying it.

Good luck & good shooting. :)
 

Ian

Notorious member
I was kidding you about "arguing", don't get aggravated with me. You and I both labor to be understood, I know how it is. You were trying to stir up some good-natured controversy as I understood it an am happy to oblige with same....except I'm having a little trouble figuring out where you're going with this. I don't think anyone here is reluctant to provide experiences opposing or otherwise, the whole reason we're here is that we love postulating about this stuff, swapping experiences, and getting every angle we can on it.

As for alloy, here's my general and current opinion on it: 2% SB with just .5 to 1% tin will do almost everything well. Add powder coat to it and water quench it and I haven't found anything it WON'T do from .22 to .45 caliber. I see no need for copper in the alloy or any other fancy stuff when using PC or paper jackets. Reason for this being so is the 2/.5 alloy will draw well like Fiver described earlier and it can be toughened with a heat treat to do just about anything we could want provided we get the fit and pressure right. We all know about when we need to start using gas checks, that hasn't changed except with the coatings and jackets which give a little more with bare-base, bevel-base, or GC without the check. I can go on about WHY I think all this is so if you want to stir up some more discussion.

There are some age-old questions about bullet sizing, but as far as I can tell they've all been answered. Revolvers: Size for a scuff-fit in the cylinder throats, and to hell with any other measurement. Rifles? Scuff-fit the throat entrance with the body diameter. Other handguns do the same, or smaller in autoloaders with tight throats. If using a paint coating, just a little over groove diameter does the trick in autos and rifles, in revolvers same philosophy of scuff-fit to the throats applies. If your rifle isn't happy with 2% Sb alloy sized as previous, then there's something else going on like you're using the wrong powder or wrong pressure, or the wrong mould for your gun. There the line gets fuzzy because not too many people really know how to fit a bullet to a rifle so it will shoot straight AND fast, too many pet theories and lack of honest discussion elsewhere, so you got like four or five of us here who can do it at high velocity and of those, most of us don't even agree with each other fully on the HOW. I think Rick K. has established some pretty solid rules for .38 and .44 caliber revolver bullet sizing and alloys using gas checks, he's got the science AND the shooting part covered front to back on that subject. So, what were we talking about?
 
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fiver

Well-Known Member
I differ on the alloy thing and believe you need more stuff... sometimes.. LOL.
I don't think I have ever run into a situation where a soft alloy worked well,,, and then after load work up,,, an alloy with a bit more stuff in it wouldn't do as well if not a little bit better.
of course you can go too far and actually be counter productive.

I think a lot of people miss what the amount of stuff does in their alloy and how that relationship changes when other things are also in there..
the .5 tin mentioned above would IMO actually be better served at a lower amount like .2 or .3 then the tin would act as a grain refiner to the alloy much like arsenic does.
now the flip side.
it doesn't act as a precipitator when the alloy is water dropped.
but on the other hand the low tin amount doesn't inhibit water quenching either.
 

358156 hp

At large, whereabouts unknown.
Holy smoke! This thread has been quite a read, and tomorrow I will re-read it again. I believe I understand the groundwork of the thread, I just need to go back a few times to pick up on some fine points. I can't even come up with questions or points for clarification yet.

It's been quite a read so far, and I thank you for the mental exercise.

I think... :)
 

462

California's Central Coast Amid The Insanity
Me thinks this is the post-graduate stuff, and I'm only a high school sophomore.
 
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fiver

Well-Known Member
so far this is all stuff you should/would want to know as a hobbyist caster.
it makes predicting what those scraps of whatever we pick up at garage sales will shoot best in and with.
or to mix with what we have on hand and be able to predict what changes we might want to make.
for instance we have 20 lbs of lead brick a half roll of 50-50 solder and 10 lbs of ww alloy.
plenty of alloy to make about 12-1500 bullets for our 38, but what to do with them afterward?
I'm sure we could make a bunch of 148gr wad cutters and put them on top of 3grs of bulls-eye.
that works with about anything.
the alloy would also work well in our 45 acp, but then again so does pure lead if we treat things just so.

but what about trying full 44 mag or 357 mag loads?
gas check/no gas check?
430-432?
2400 or 231?
poof or boom?
how about being able to do both???

that's what a good portion of this thread is about.
how the hell do I get there with what I have on hand.
 

Ian

Notorious member
I was fixin' to hit "post reply" and this yellow bar pops up, yup, gotta read Fiver's post and edit all the stuff I just wrote so it's not a double.. I'll expound a little on the seeming complexity of all this and how I've come to look at it.

It all boils down to fit, pressure curve and alloy. Not complicated stuff if you think about it. Bass has been talking about the distinct differences in how two alloys of similar BHN react to pressure.....an essential relationship to understand. He posted pictures to show the difference in how the same force applied deforms the same bullet cast from two different alloys and commented that this only becomes an issue with the one alloy above a certain caliber....or we might say base surface area. This is why we tweak this or that to get a little more or less here or there with our dynamic fit or to prevent unwanted launch damage to certain specific parts of a bullet. This is why going to a 6/4 alloy of 16 bhn makes a certain rifle bullet shoot just as well 200 fps faster than the same one cast of wheelweights. The tin and extra antimony (to maintain balance) makes the alloy a little stronger in the throat yet still engrave with low pressure on the base. This is why Bass goes to 20:1 and the base stops cupping so much, the structure of the lead/tin alloy reacts differently under pressure. Ok, maybe it IS complex, but only in the examples. I can do better than the 6/4 alloy using air-cooled 50/50 and polyester powder coat. Why? The powder coat does the same thing as the extra tin and antimony....but better still allows the soft core to keep a seal all the way to the muzzle even as the pressure drops below 10k psi. Better obturation (seal) and still have good tough slick skin for a straight start without riveting the base due to excessively hard alloy that would otherwise be required to self-align the bullet perfectly as it moves into the throat. Have your cake and eat it too. Now you know why jacketed bullets shoot so well. We can do the same with cast bullets through alloy manipulation, timing the pressure curve, and having a suitable bullet design for the task, and like Fiver was saying, tweak what you have on hand for components to work better in a given situation. I really wish I could communicate this pressure/alloy/dynamic fit thing more simply and more clearly, but lenghty examples of component combinations and how they behave is really the only way I know how.

Alloy composition and bullet shape, particularly the fit relationship to the gun's particulars and displacement areas, affect the way bullet metal moves when fired just as much as the microscopic alloy structure itself. Steep sides to a lube groove do something special, as do square bottoms. Certain nose band forms or nose angles do different things for us (or against us) depending on the alloy characteristics, how the shapes interact with the gun's insides, and when/how powder pressure is applied. This is all a study in dynamics, opposing forces, and how to manipulate them. The end goal is to have a bullet come out the muzzle true, balanced, and square the bore center, how we get it to do that is by managing the forces which upset it all the way down to the molecular level. Alloy, pressure, and fit. That's all there is too it.

Oh, and lube. And burn consistency. And barrel harmonics. And C.O.R.E. But basically that's it.
 
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Rally

NC Minnesota
Ian,
I think that is the best description of what a PC is doing going down the bore I've ever seen in print! Thanks.... I think? I got an email from NOE about their 15% sale on their HTC line of moulds. The HTC 173 looks an awful lot like the early RD mould my .30-30 likes. I've been resisting PC, just don't need another bad habit. LOL
 

Ian

Notorious member
Rally, just my opinion from paper jacket experience but I'd feel I was doing you a disservice not to bring up the point of lead displacement. Part of what I was trying to convey above is how important lube groove shape and size can be, and the HTC series of moulds from NOE are "slicks" without even a crimp groove. I have had very good luck shooting PC'd rifle bullets that had normal grooves, both of the Loverin configuration, the "Loverider" configuration (Mountain Mold's term for it) and conventional single-groove bullets with a crimp groove and space above the gas check. If you are shooting a bullet any larger than groove dimension, I feel the need for displacement grooves, otherwise the whole bullet has to stretch when squeezed into the bore. A copper-jacketed bullet will extrude easily yet keep its form due to the copper casing, but a coated cast bullet will extrude to the path of least resistance, whatever that is, in a random manner without guidance if it is squeezed so that the whole bulk of the bullet deforms. Having significant lube grooves to break up and isolate the lead displacement to the very outer layer of the driving surfaces and leaving the core shape intact should keep the bullet from becoming a banana in the bore due to excessive extrusion. Look at how cheeze whiz or spray whipped cream curls and bends coming out of the nozzle. A solid bullet squeezing through the throat without a jacket will be doing pretty much the same thing on the unsupported front tip.
 

Brad

Benevolent Overlord and site owner
Staff member
Wondering if a test comparing recovered bullets using 357 mag and plain base would show anything. Compare HP38 and H100 with loads of similar pressure.

Would need to wait at least 3 months for me to do it, I ain’t got diggable berms til then.
 

JWFilips

Well-Known Member
Sorry, Guess i'm not understanding this thread: Title sounds like what is in Whats in you "alloy" mix
Guess I'm off here
 

Ian

Notorious member
It mostly has been about alloy and what certain common additives like antimony and/or tin do for you....or against you depending on certain parameters. One of those parameters Bass laid out ws caliber.