Mystery metal? Help!

[Shuz]

In a bunch of muffin tin ingots of unknown composition, that a friend gave me, that came from a "friend of a friend" who used to cast boolits, was a couple of blocks of real shiny silver looking metal that felt lighter than lead. It was about 2.5 pounds worth. Well, I put this stuff in a large ladle and floated the ladle on top of a lead alloy until the stuff was molten enuf to cast some sample boolits. The sample mould is an old Lee 44-200RNFP that I always use for casting hardness testing samples when I make up boolit alloys. Here's the surprise........the boolits weighed only 150.5g, instead of the normal 210 to 212g with ww+1% tin alloy, but were still .432 in diameter, but the hardness tested Saeco 10! What could this be?

[fryboy]

not sure what the saeco 10 hardness translates too but both tin and antimony are lighter than lead ( along with various alloys with either ) sadly there are also several other metals that are lighter than lead that also can be ummm smelted by us casters ( bismuth and various "spin" casting alloys come to mind )
oddly enough much of the pewter i test ( with a lee tester ) shows it to be soft ,all of that combined with the "shiny looking" leads me to think either a high tin solder or a pewter alloy

[JonB_in_Glencoe]

a few years ago, I bought some leadfree solder and was told it was pure tin.
I cast it into boolits for convenience to adding small amounts to casting alloys.

From a Lee 50cal 250gr REAL mold, they weigh 172gr.

That's about the same ratio as what you cast.

Shiney is mostly about mold temperature and is only a small indicator of what's in a given alloy (as long as you have an idea of what the mold temperature was when cast).

[bangerjim]

You did not tell us what thep the alloy melted at. That would help in ID.

For comparison - my pure Sn ingots cast in a 1# cavity weigh around 12.5 oz and melt very easy.
A 52% Bi alloy (similar to Woods metal minus the Cd) weighs abour 14 oz and melts 145F.

Did your "stuff" melt fast or about like lead?

banger

[dh2]

do you have a scrape yard that you could take some to and have it scanned ?

[Shuz]

I appreciate all the answers to my quest about the mystery alloy.
First, let me say that the stuff melted about as fast as the lead alloy I usually use, maybe a little faster. I do have a thermometer that I use when I cast, but I did not test the temperature of the stuff in the ladle. I had the 2.5 lbs in a roughly 2.5 lb capacity ladle, and I had to be careful some of it did not migrate in to the lead melt that the ladle was floating on. After I got it in a rather liquid, pourable state, I quickly poured it into the cavities of my Lee mould which was not really up to temperature as it prolly should have been. That may be an explanation for the hardness reading of Saeco 10, which extrapolates to Bhn 22. The mould may have been acting like a quench caster because of it's not being up to temperature. However the fact remains, whatever this stuff is, it is about 70% of the weight of a whhel weight alloy boolit cast from the same mould. Since i only have 2.5 pounds of this stuff, it's really not cost effective to spend any money trying to get it spectroanalyzed etc. By the way, the boolits cast from this stuff are rather frosty in appearance and appear more white than silver. I'll just kinda consider it as tin and add to range scrap that runs the gamut of alloys on my range! Thanks again!--Shuz

[bangerjim]

Sounds a lot like Sn alloy of some kind. Your hardneess agrees with some of the alloys I have.

Just treat it as a sweetner for fill-out. Most use 2% Sn for good fillout.

2.5# will do up a lot of Pb!

banger

[TiteWadShooter]

Be careful that its not melted zinc wheel weights!

[John Boy]

... the hardness tested Saeco 10! What could this be?

Well, a lot of folks sitting around the bar have made a SWAG, but no poster looked up Saeco Hardness
Saeco 10 = Bhn 22 Linotype

[fryboy]

Well, a lot of folks sitting around the bar have made a SWAG, but no poster looked up Saeco Hardness
Saeco 10 = Bhn 22 Linotype

he posted it on post # 6 ( but he also supposed a possibility of why it may of been skewed results )

a specific gravity test is about the only thing i didnt see suggested but ...for the amount of metal ... [shrugz]

i've tested many forms of known pewter,lino,mono, and tin with a lee tester , the results with the pewter and tin were all over the board ,the mono and lino not so much so

[bangerjim]

Well, a lot of folks sitting around the bar have made a SWAG, but no poster looked up Saeco Hardness
Saeco 10 = Bhn 22 Linotype

I have 4 different alloys that are NOT linotype that exhibit a hardness of 22. One has no Sn in it at all. Another is 54% Bi. I could call it lino, but I would be a mile off on my mix. I had an xray gun analysis done on it so I would know for sure.

Hardness does not tell us anything about the % composition, which we really need to know when ACCURATELY mixing alloys.

He will only be guessing when adding it as a sweetner. He will be lucky if it is lino. Without an xray analysis, density (SG) is the only way to get a decent read on it. But he has so little of it, it is not worth messing with.

banger

[Grump]

Well, he done casted up some slugs with the stuff, so it should be easy enough to get a specific gravity number for them.

[Dusty Bannister]

Quoted
However the fact remains, whatever this stuff is, it is about 70% of the weight of a whhel weight alloy boolit cast from the same mould.

No way this will be Linotype. You are getting into the zinc alloy weight differential. I believe that would be about 60% of lead alloy weights. Only one way to determine what it really is, and that may not be cost effective. Or mix a little with a good alloy, cast and shoot it and see how it does. Then either use it or make sinkers. It still will be useable for something..

[FLHTC]

Could be bearing Babbitt. That stuff is real hard

[Geppetto]

Send me a piece and i'll test it. PM incoming.

[Shuz]

Folks,
I'm gonna send a sample to Geppetto. Hopefully this might help someone in a similar situation with an unknown metal.

[AggieEE]

From what the OP was discribing as the "color" of the bullet reminds me of my first run in with some lead free solder. It was basically a Sn/Sb alloy and I went crazy trying to get a good shiny solder joint with it. When it cooled it looked almost like snow.

[KuunLB]

lead free solder.. oh the fun we had with that stuff back in the day when i did electronic repair. AggieEE the crazy you felt trying to get it right is an understatement. Shuz or geppetto please post your findings, inquiring minds would like to know

[Geppetto]

Well I tested the samples today for Shuz. He sent me two different samples, and I'll let him confirm exactly where they were removed from, but one of the samples (shaved from the block) was about 95% tin and 5% copper and the second (from the ladle) was about 55% tin and 45% lead. So tin alloys, could be babbitts or solders, or possibly some combination thereof that got poured into blocks of some sort.

Either way should be good stock to sweeten up some casting alloy.

Just for fun, here are the spectrums from the tests:

[Shuz]

Geppetto--First let me express my appreciation to your for performing the tests!
You got it right, the shaved stuff, cut from the remaining block, was the only one that stayed out of the ladle and was not melted with the other blocks. I'll treat it as pure tin. 95% is pure enuf for this guy. Felix once said that a little copper was useful for higher velocity rifle boolits;I just don't recall how much was "a little"!! The splash from the ladle was from the blocks that were melted together and poured into roughly 1 lb ingots and the splash is what hit the floor,missing the ingot mould.I'll treat those ingots as 50/50 solder.
Thanks again!--Shuz