Your ideal casting alloy

[tonyjones]

I've been thinking about looking into commercial lead smelters in or around Houston; that's if there are any. I'm curious as to what alloys might be available and at what cost. Commercially alloyed material has been offered for sale here for less than $2/lb. delivered. If I am lucky and find a usable alloy I might also get lucky on the price as well.

What would your ideal alloy be? I'm thinking something along the lines of 2% Sb, 1.5% Sn, .15% to .25% As and the balance Pb. What if the alloy also contained small amounts (less than .5%) of Cu and Ni? I would use this alloy air cooled or water dropped for pistol/revolver applications (GC & PB) from 700 to 1,500 fps and rifle loads from 1,000 to 2,500 fps. In the future I may play around with oven heat treating as well as see how far I can push rifle velocities.

What are your thoughts on the matter?

Regards,

Tony

[fecmech]

Tony--IMO that alloy would be very acceptable for.357 and .44mag handgun loads with plain base bullets up to the max. I have used similar alloys in the above mentioned calibers in lever rifles to 1600 fps. You would probably have to heat treat or water drop for max accuracy from the handguns. If you are happy with 3-4" 50 yd handgun groups then you won't need to do either. As to the other part of your question in regards to the higher velocities in rifles I have little to no experience there.

[cbrick]

The alloy you describe is very close to WW alloy and is 90-95% or more of my shooting, both magnum handgun and rife to 2,000 fps.

See what Roto Metals will blend this for and if nothing else you will have a base line cost to go by. Plus, if Roto Metals is in the ballpark on cost they ship free with orders over $100.00. Since you are planning to go to a commercial smelter I assume you plan on buying at least that much.

Rick

[Defcon-One]

I use 2% Tin, 3% Antimony, .20% Arsenic, 94.8% Lead. Love it, casts great. Shoots fine in all my handguns. Not into rifle casting yet, but I suspect that this would work if gas checks were used. I might want to up the anti to Lyman #2, (5, 5, 90) for that.

Everyone has their own favorite. Find out what works for you first, then order a bunch. Volume speaks when price matters. Or make your own alloy like I do. It is fun, saves money and is relatively easy.

[onondaga]

I find Lyman #2 traditional mix 90:5:5 very universal and versatile. I use it to pressures of 40,000 PSI with gas checked boolits and it expands 2X diameter on game within 1000 + ft lbs striking force range . The only time I use a different alloy is over 2600 fps gas checked varmint loads and they are Linotype straight.

My most unusually successful load with #2 is .500 S&W rifle, a 250 gr unchecked bevel base boolit at 1885 fps with WC852. groups <1"@50 yd. for me and smacks over deer real hard anywhere to 120 yds.

I don't shoot any gallery or slow plinkers that would like a softer alloy.

Gary

[USSR]

I cast hollowpoints, so 96% Pb and 4% Sn (25:1) works for me. Get good mushrooming with 95% Pb, 4% Sn, and 1% Sb also.

Don

[pdawg_shooter]

WWs for everything for me, but then I paper patch all my rifle bullets.

[fredj338]

I agree, a ww alloy or something close works across a wide range. Water drop for a harder alloy, add pure lead for lower pressure rounds. I would not pay $2/# for alloy though, at that point, I can buy cast plinkers for nearly the same price.

[BackWoods Billy]

I use 2% Tin, 3% Antimony, .20% Arsenic, 94.8% Lead. Love it, casts great. Shoots fine in all my handguns. Not into rifle casting yet, but I suspect that this would work if gas checks were used. I might want to up the anti to Lyman #2, (5, 5, 90) for that.

Everyone has their own favorite. Find out what works for you first, then order a bunch. Volume speaks when price matters. Or make your own alloy like I do. It is fun, saves money and is relatively easy.

What kind of Arsenic do you use? I would like to find some..

[dale2242]

All my boolits are cast of my home made #2 alloy....dale

[Matt_G]

Give this a read.
http://www.lasc.us/Fryxell_Book_Chap...Metallurgy.htm

As Glen says in that chapter; when tin and antimony are present in a lead alloy in equal parts, it behaves more like a pseudo binary alloy of SbSn and Pb than it does a tertiary alloy of Sb, Sn and Pb.

Based on that, I believe that an alloy of 95.8% Pb, 2% Sb, 2% Sn and 0.20% As would be just about perfect for most cast boolit applications. Air cooled would work for most things. Since this is a bit less antimony than what is in WW's now, I'm guessing it would be about 10 or 11 BHN air cooled. If harder was needed, you could water drop or oven heat treat as desired.
About the only thing it wouldn't work for is low velocity hollow points. That alloy would be too hard to get any decent expansion at low velocities. ( < 900 fps)

[grumpy one]

What is best depends on what you are going to do with the alloy, and the amount of emphasis you place on cost. Good bullets, with a lot of heat treatment potential, can be made from straight WW, especially if you mix in about 10% of stick-on WWs (to increase the tin content of the alloy slightly). Of course adding more tin, with an upper limit of making tin and antimony percentages equal, further improves castability and toughness. Going beyond WW-plus-tin is only useful if you are going to expect special performance features from your bullets - in particular, impact performance. The toughest possible alloy of lead, tin and antimony is approximately 94% lead, 3% tin, and 3% antimony. Toughness is almost as good, though, down to 95/2.5/2.5, or up to 92/4/4. Lyman No. 2, at 90/5/5 is a very good alloy, but is slightly outside the optimum range for toughness. Using more than the optimum amount of tin and antimony does not bring any benefits to castability or toughness, and reduces heat-treatability. So, there is a super-alloy (94/3/3) but most people seldom need it. Furthermore, even as-cast it is too hard for some purposes (14 BHN). It can be heat treated to about 23 BHN - if you need it harder than that, you have to use less tin.

[357shooter]

BHN 8 or softer works well in my 357's. 98% lead and 2% solder shoots accurately without leading. However I rarely shoot at even 1,400-1,500 FPS.

[tonyjones]

Thanks for all of your comments so far. I have read the Fryxell book and will certainly reread it. Based upon threads I've read here I'd begun to form the opinion that something approaching
50%/50% to 60%/40% clip-on WW/Pb with a little tin added would be close to ideal. Several sources have warned against having more Sn than Sb in the mix. I'm beginning to see the advantages of having equal amounts of Sb/Sn between 1.5 and 3% in the mix. Also, I'm still curious to learn what a small amount of Cu and Ni would contribute.

Maybe a sound approach would be to acquire a supply of 2.5% Sb/2.5% Sn/0.25% As with the balance Pb and dilute when desirable with pure (or nearly so) Pb.

Best regards,

Tony

[geargnasher]

Tony, the only problem with "ideal" is it all depends.

I'd say you could go several basic ways here, but based upon your current and projected needs, I'd stick with something about 95-3-2 lead-antimony-tin, hopefully with a tiny bit of arsenic in it. It will run about 12 bhn or so air-cooled and will serve most any of your pistol and mild rifle needs. It will heat treat to 22-24 bhn and still be malleable enough for high-velocity hunting. You can cut it with pure lead and use it for .38 Special.45 ACP-type loads air-cooled, or you can heat-treat it and have a truly outstanding 16-18 bhn rifle hunting boolit that will mushroom nicely without shattering, yet handle the high pressure launch well.

Basically it's modern clip-on wheel weights with 1-2% tin added.

Gear

[Matt_G]

Maybe a sound approach would be to acquire a supply of 2.5% Sb/2.5% Sn/0.25% As with the balance Pb and dilute when desirable with pure (or nearly so) Pb.

IMHO, I think that would be a great way to go.

[btroj]

I don't have an ideal alloy. Different shooting needs dictate different alloys to me. I also tend to have a variety of scrap sources so much of my lead comes from who knows what. This leads to a mix with potentially unknown amounts of various metals. This doesn't bother me at all. I don't think the difference between 2.5 or 3 % Sb is going to matter one bit to my guns.
I want hard enough for the task at hand, not brittle for hunting. If it casts poor.t I might add a little tin. Otherwise, I use what I have and move on.

Brad

[That'll Do]

So far, my ideal allow has been wheel weights, with just a little tin added. I only cast for handguns, and my fastest loads would be for a 357 magnum, around 1300fps. Wheel weights have served me just fine, although I have about 120 pounds of Lyman #2 that I want to experiment with, but I haven't had the time.

[zomby woof]

I've found that 50/50 indoor range scrap/WW water plus 2% tin, quenched works great for rifle up to 1900fps

[Defcon-One]

What kind of Arsenic do you use? I would like to find some..

Billy:

Clip-On Wheel Weights contain on average 0.20% Arsenic, that is my only source right now though I understand that chilled shot has about 0.63% Arsenic and magnum shot has about 1.25% Arsenic. I've never tried either, but it is good to know.

Hope that helps!