High Copper Alloys- Lets discuss this further

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Keep in mind that after boolits are made via water dropping et al and sitting for a day or two to settle down a little, put them back into the oven for several hours at 200 degrees. For every hour or so, you will artificially add a week or so of room temp stabilizing. Long boolits should be sized only after fully cured (expanded). ... felix

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Originally Posted by madsenshooter

The babbitt I use has a composition of 74.5% Pb, 10% Sn, 14.75% Sb, .25%Cu, .5%As. It casts at a BHN of 23. It can be a little brittle, probably due to the high Sb levels, but heat treating takes care of some of the brittleness. 357 maximum made mention of 50,000psi loads. This babbitt won't go there. I know when I've reached it's yield point. I get bits of alloy blowing back on the case neck.

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I am going to be so bold as to ask a few questions:

1. Have you annealed your brass?
2. Have you tried making your brass from a longer cartridge so that you actually fill the neck with brass in both length and thickness.

Whenever I have had that issue at top end loads them 2 tricks fix it with any of the 50/50+ whatever babbit alloys. My35Whelen brass had this issue, making my brass from 270Win and then annealling made it go away. I form my top end X51, x53, X57 mm loads from military 30/06 or commercial 06 depending on how much thickness I need to gain. It has never failed to help with the lead plated neck/mouth issue the few times I have run into it.


Just tossing the above out there, as you may be right about your alloy not taking the pressure, but my gut tells me otherwise.

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Originally Posted by badgeredd

It seems to me we are talking apples and oranges here. You are using sulfur in your experiment while we are using the tin to help absorb the copper into our alloy. I suspect the sulfur and tin may not be compatible for your purposes. My understanding is sulfur acts as a grain refiner. Keep us posted on getting copper to work into your alloy without the tin. Myself, I'll continue on the path we are on as I am seeing real results in the finished boolits and the velocities we have been able to drive the same boolits. I haven't any intentions of changing our course at this time to include sulfur. Perhaps the smelting book defines the use of sulfur in smelting that would not be applicable to our alloying experiments. I'd guess that since tin, lead, silver and in lesser amounts copper occur together in ore, the sulfur is used as part of the refining operation. For my purposes I don't see sulfur as being relevant.

Edd

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Sulfur, like arsenic, IS a grain refiner and breaks up the dentrite lattice so that large shear planes do not form as easily through the alloy under pressure. One of casting's best-kept secrets, and one I rediscovered inadvertently after doing a lot of work with some zink-ed alloy I salvaged using the sulfur extraction method.

I'm interested in how the grain refiners affect water-quenched copper-bearing boolit alloy.

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Originally Posted by felix

Keep in mind that after boolits are made via water dropping et al and sitting for a day or two to settle down a little, put them back into the oven for several hours at 200 degrees. For every hour or so, you will artificially add a week or so of room temp stabilizing. Long boolits should be sized only after fully cured (expanded). ... felix

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Another gem. I just learned this one myself a couple of days ago from an ex-member. Thanks for the tip!

Gear

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It might popper but without tin, will it fill out properly?
Every post so far has given me a hint more on this stuff.
I appreciate those who have participated.

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Originally Posted by popper

..............I am interested in the results, accuracy improvement, etc., so I will gladly quit posting here and wait for substantive performance posts............

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Ok, sounds reasonable to me that you want "substantive performance posts." Have you read 357maximum's thread in the Hunting with CBs subforum about the two deer he took with the 7mm Thor boolit in his 7mm TCU? He is running Edd's alloy in those loads out of a contender. I also have shot his 21 inch barreled 7mm TCU Contender Carbine with those same loads. I'll let him quote the velocity numbers and group sizes to you. But I can assure you that it works! I know for a fact that he has a few other rifles/loads that have benefitted greatly from Edd's copper enriched alloys. Again, I'll let Michael quote the specific numbers for his rifles.

As for my own work with Edd's alloys I have seen drastic improvement in two rifles that I thought would never shoot high velocity with cast. One is a 1927 Russian Mosin Nagant and the other is a M39 Finnish Mosin. Both rifles went totally wild off the paper with standard 50% wheelweight / 50% pure lead water dropped alloy or water dropped wheelweights when trying to match the velocities (2,600 fps) attained with 180 grain jacketed bullets. Following Edd's instructions to mix a small amount of his railroad babbit with pure lead and clip on wheel weights water dropped I was able to get both of these rifles shooting 4" @ 100 yards with issue iron sights and the same 2,600 fps loads. I realize that 4" at 100 yards will not win any benchrest competitions; but, consider that with all other alloys tried the same boolit/powder combinations were producing wild shots that flew off into space without even touching the target frame at 100 yards. That tells me that Edd is on track with his alloys and knows what he is doing.

I have a Smith & Wesson Model 625-6 Mountain Gun in .45 ACP. I was having a problem with skidding as the front band of my 45-270-Ohaus Group Buy boolit entered the rifling which was leading and degrading accuracy quickly. I had tried 50/50 coww/pb water dropped (BHN 22) with no improvement. I decided to try one of Edd's alloys water dropped (BHN also 22) in this gun using the same boolit. Results were exactly like I had hoped for and more. When I fired the 1st group it was stacking them at 25 yards. The bore showed no signs of leading; and what's more over the course of the 1st 50 rounds I noticed that the alloy was cleaning out the grooves of gunk I had previously missed. The result was sharper and better defined lands.

Another area where Edd's copper enriched alloys show improvement is in my pistol caliber lever action carbines. This summer we where shooting my Marlin 1894ss .44 Magnum at 282 yards hitting a 12" high by 8" wide bell on demand. The load was a BRP 434640-GC propelled by 24 grains of Alliant 300MP. The alloy was Edd's orignal 50% COWW / 50% PB + 1 lb. of his babbit in a 40 lb pot. This gun has always displayed very good accuracy at 100 yards; I just never thought of it as a 300 yard gun before. Also, my Win/USRAC M-94 in .357 Magnum with Williams Foolproof receiver sight is much improved by the same alloy in the Mihec 360640-PB over 14.5 grains of 2400. Tin cans at 100 yards are now so easy it's boring and 2" groups are the norm from a carbine that I was lucky to get 4" or 5" at 100 yard from in the past.

The examples I have given above are what I would call substantial improvement over previous performance by these guns. I have seen nothing yet that would lead me to believe Edd is nothing less than right on track here.

yes edd is on the right track.
there is, at some point, most likely gonna be another step.

I would like to give this lead a try, could I get a percentage breakdown of components? I am going to be shooting a 416 Rigby out to 400 yds or so with a 450 gr cast pill, and think tuis lead alloy may be what I am looking for.

If it was posted earlier I am sorry but I didnt quite completely follow. There is a lot of good usable info here and takes me a few reads to soak it all in!

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Originally Posted by badgeredd

. Most of our changes have been because of an idea that was born from real world results of other ideas. Clear as mud?

Edd

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While not quite clear as mud, Edd, what has happened here
is you guys that are playing with this, have brought some of
us up to speed with the concept, ideas, and starting points
to begin our tinkering process. I could see from the onset of
this thread that was no set rule yet. I was looking for
enough info to get started on my own path with this and
several contributors to this thread have gotten me to
that point.

I've copied and pasted many of the posts here and Edds PMs into
word document for a consolidation of ideas for reference.
Thank you all for contributing

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Originally Posted by badgeredd

We have been working with the babbit addition to our boolit alloy for a couple years plus so if we're a little unclear, I'd not be surprised. Like I said earlier, we have been toying with this stuff and experimenting along the way. Some of the developements are fairly recent...some are not.
Since there are 4 of us working on these ideas, one can expect that each of us has worked on it in varying degrees for various purposes. My goal has been to get a lead alloy one can shoot fast and accurately without any jacket, paper or copper. Mike's goal has been the same with the addition of performance on game. We've tried different alloys, both water dropped and air cooled. Mike's use of the copper enriched alloys on game has been the proof of the pudding, so to speak. The copper content is not all that high, less than 1/2% but it really seems to be making a noticeable difference.

I used an alloy this last summer of 10 pounds COWW, 4 3/8 pounds pure lead, 9 ounces #3 Rorometals Supertough babbit, which should be near 3.5% tin, 3.15% antimony, 0.3% copper, 0.17% arsenic, with the rest lead. I was using this alloy in a 416 wildcat with approximately 48,000 psi peak pressure. This is what I call, a balanced alloy, meaning the Sb and Cu total % nearly equal the Sn. My measured velocities were a bit over 2300 fps with a 347 grain boolit and was getting 1-1.25" groups at 100 yards. The long range results were on metal swingers and such at 300 yards seemed consistent. I was able to hit the swinger consistently at 300 yards, but we weren't in a situation where we could put rounds on paper. I have no reason to believe the accuracy changes any at longer ranges. This really wasn't a velocity test, but was a test of peak pressure performance. My next tests will be with faster, smaller boolits with higher operating pressures...likely 7mm-08 and 30-06.

I cannot emphasize enough, we are experimenting and are constantly modifying our ideas as we go. Most of our changes have been because of an idea that was born from real world results of other ideas. Clear as mud?

Edd

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Thanks Edd!

I am eventually looking for on game performance but have a tough time thinking that a 416 hole needs any help. I will pull the numbers together and see what I come up with.

Thanks again
Joshua

I have an acetylene torch. Plus a little bit of attitude.

If I were to hold copper wire over a pot of molten lead or molten 50/50 solder. Could the torch melt it into the pot? Or would I just drop copper BB’s into the melt? My thought is to angle the torch up and away from the lead so not to vaporize lead.

I’ve a five gallon bucket about full of ingots I made from scrap mystery solder. Works well and best I can figure by weight is close to 50/50 or 60/40 with 40% tin.

I’ve used and have some lead free solder. Has something like .5% or .05% copper. Stuff works miracles in alloy for little and big bullets. All I can figure is it’s the trace of copper.

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Originally Posted by GabbyM

I have an acetylene torch. Plus a little bit of attitude.

If I were to hold copper wire over a pot of molten lead or molten 50/50 solder. Could the torch melt it into the pot? Or would I just drop copper BB’s into the melt? My thought is to angle the torch up and away from the lead so not to vaporize lead.

I’ve a five gallon bucket about full of ingots I made from scrap mystery solder. Works well and best I can figure by weight is close to 50/50 or 60/40 with 40% tin.

I’ve used and have some lead free solder. Has something like .5% or .05% copper. Stuff works miracles in alloy for little and big bullets. All I can figure is it’s the trace of copper.

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You nailed the "dropping copper bb's into the pot" anology dead on, the copper must contact the lead alloy to work and you must get the alloy hot enough to offgas or close to it with a lead alloy. That is WHY the tin alloy is used to make a "SWEETENER" for the final mix. When I was adding copper directly to the semi finished mix I had to use glowing bright alloy and put direct heat from a rosebud tip on the torch to make anything happen.......adding the pretinned wire to high tin mixes with paste flux is 5000% easier and proably alot safer too. I am not saying there is no other way but the pretinned wire added to high tin alloy is damn near foolproof....I stopped looking for other methods after that lightbulb went on.



As far as final mix percentages go....them experiments are still evolving and I am sure there is a ton to learn yet. I have even been working/devising another test method to work on these alloys that should yield a glimpse of how tough and how mallable a finished alloy will be without actual impact testing....it is kind of like BHN with a few twists.....the method/devise is still not complete and I am still not happy with my contraptions. I will share when/if the methodology pans out or I win a Rube Goldberg award....whichever comes first. :lol:

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Originally Posted by badgeredd

GabbyM,

Adding copper has been done as you describe, but we have moved to adding it to the high tin babbit with nearly 0% lead. The main reasons are one, it is safer and two, it is easier to tin the copper and super heat the tin to add the copper. We have gotten better results adding the copper to the babbit too.

Edd

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Edd, any babbitt marked as Genuine doesn't have lead in it. Sn, Sb, Cu. But the Sn content varies. I've been buying some stuff on ebay that's at least equal to Rotometal's #1 at 90-92% Sn. The lady must have a boxcar of it stashed away, and has no idea of its value. She's been selling an ingot every week for about 6 years. It's Marine Engine made by United American Medals. I got several over the years, when the price is right. I think I got a 4# bar for $9.99 once, and she sold me a second one at the same price!

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Originally Posted by 357maximum

You nailed the "dropping copper bb's into the pot" anology dead on, the copper must contact the lead alloy to work and you must get the alloy hot enough to offgas or close to it with a lead alloy. That is WHY the tin alloy is used to make a "SWEETENER" for the final mix. When I was adding copper directly to the semi finished mix I had to use glowing bright alloy and put direct heat from a rosebud tip on the torch to make anything happen.......adding the pretinned wire to high tin mixes with paste flux is 5000% easier and proably alot safer too. I am not saying there is no other way but the pretinned wire added to high tin alloy is damn near foolproof....I stopped looking for other methods after that lightbulb went on.



As far as final mix percentages go....them experiments are still evolving and I am sure there is a ton to learn yet. I have even been working/devising another test method to work on these alloys that should yield a glimpse of how tough and how mallable a finished alloy will be without actual impact testing....it is kind of like BHN with a few twists.....the method/devise is still not complete and I am still not happy with my contraptions. I will share when/if the methodology pans out or I win a Rube Goldberg award....whichever comes first. :lol:

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That’s what I was afraid of with the torch. Believe I’ll just buy some #3 Babbitt after Christmas.

substantive performance post for Popper:

35Whelen in a gorgeous Nazi marked GEW98 Mauser full blown sporter with a 24 inch 1/14 twist , 225Grain BRP 360-220 boolit @ 2700fps with 3/4 to 1 inch accuracy @ 100yards using H414, H4350, or Hybrid100V. I actually backed this one back down to 2450 fps for deer hunting as it killed deer a bit deader than a venison loving meat eater liked. Six+ members of castboolits have seen this rifle shoot and/or have shot it.

7TCU in a dead stock rhynite stocked TC Contender 21inch carbine, 135Grain flatnose version of the 287377 (7mmTHOR) @ 2512 fps with 1 to 1.125 inch accuracy at 100 yards using 26 grains H3222. Several memebers have also shot this one even though one of those members could not hit the barn from inside it with this gun. :lol: I have turned in several 1/2 to 3/4 inch groups with this combo when I was having a real good day.

I also had a 24 inch barrelled 1891 argentine sporter that would do 2400+ with this alloy too, but I cut the barrel off a bit too short and destroyed the harmonics/muzzle pressure dynamics....now it will only do about 2250fps with appreciable accuracy. I am currently looking for a long original barrel to fix my oopsie on this critter.

I am currently playing with an old D.O.T 1943- 98mauser sporter that has a recrowned original barrel that wears an old Lyman steel reciever sight. I am not sure of the speed as I have not chrono'ed it yet,(I never chrono until the paper targets say I am there)but it has to be up there as I have the old lee group buy C-326-175FN sitting on top of 46 to 47 grains of Hodgdon Hybrid100V and it is doing about 1.75 inches@100 and I know a scope would tighten the group as I am not the worlds greatest peepsight shooter.

shall I continue?