Traveling Fur Hunter
Inactive
What is the proportions in a hard cast bullet, and how do I make them? Can I melt tin and antimony in a regular lead melter?
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Hard Cast Bullet
- Thread starter Traveling Fur Hunter
- Start date
David Bachelder
New member
What do you consider hard?
95/5/5
Lead/Tin/Antimony is referred to as Lyman #2 and has a bhn ( brinell hardness number ) of about 15.
84/4/12
Lead/Tin/Antimony is referred to as Linotype and has a bhn of about 19.
Pure lead has a bhn of about 5
Range lead has a bhn around 10 (being, 98/1/1 or so)
Soft lead, bhn around 10 or so is most often used for hollowpoints, harder lead bhn 15 or above is often used for most everything else.
95/5/5
Lead/Tin/Antimony is referred to as Lyman #2 and has a bhn ( brinell hardness number ) of about 15.
84/4/12
Lead/Tin/Antimony is referred to as Linotype and has a bhn of about 19.
Pure lead has a bhn of about 5
Range lead has a bhn around 10 (being, 98/1/1 or so)
Soft lead, bhn around 10 or so is most often used for hollowpoints, harder lead bhn 15 or above is often used for most everything else.
You can get harder (and cheaper), bullets by heat-treating than you can by alloying. You will need lead, tin, antimony, and arsenic. All are available in standard, lead-based Wheel Weights.
If you mean, "pure Tin", and "pure antimony, "Prue" antimony would require too high of a temperature. There are antimony alloy metal dealers that can provide antimony in a pre-alloyed state, so that it can be melted in common bullet making pots. Tin, on the other hand, if you are lucky enough to have it, will very easily melt in a bullet pot, inasmuch as Tin has a lower melting temperature than the other metals.
myfriendis410
New member
It's kind of dangerous to try to alloy antimony into lead as the fumes are a problem, the fluxing is higher temp and you have to get the lead HOT. Hot enough for lead fumes to be a problem too. WW's are just about perfect if you add about 2% tin, which you can get as solder at the hardware store. As said above you can heat treat the cast bullets upwards of 22 Brinnell hardness due to the arsenic alloyed into wheelweights.
reloader28
New member
Just use straight wheel weights.
You can water drop the bullets and get 22 BHN.
I've oven heat treated and gotten 31 BHN.
You can water drop the bullets and get 22 BHN.
I've oven heat treated and gotten 31 BHN.
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Traveling Fur Hunter,
I've moved your thread to the casting forum so you can get more answers.
You'll need to describe what application you have so we can guess what degree of hardness you are looking for.
As they've explained, you don't normally alloy antimony with lead for yourself because of the temperatures and hazards involved. You find 2%-4.5% antimony in wheel weights, depending on the source. There is 3% antimony in hardened shot and up to 8% in magnum shot. The shot also has some arsenic in for hardening. There is 12% antimony in scrap printer's Linotype metal, plus 4% tin, if you are lucky enough to find some. Mixing that 50:50 with pure lead is where the Terracorp magnum bullet alloy came from. It has a BHN of about 16, which is popular with handgun cartridges, though is harder than necessary in them if your gun is in good shape for lead bullets. You an also buy finished antimony alloys.
I've moved your thread to the casting forum so you can get more answers.
You'll need to describe what application you have so we can guess what degree of hardness you are looking for.
As they've explained, you don't normally alloy antimony with lead for yourself because of the temperatures and hazards involved. You find 2%-4.5% antimony in wheel weights, depending on the source. There is 3% antimony in hardened shot and up to 8% in magnum shot. The shot also has some arsenic in for hardening. There is 12% antimony in scrap printer's Linotype metal, plus 4% tin, if you are lucky enough to find some. Mixing that 50:50 with pure lead is where the Terracorp magnum bullet alloy came from. It has a BHN of about 16, which is popular with handgun cartridges, though is harder than necessary in them if your gun is in good shape for lead bullets. You an also buy finished antimony alloys.
Perhaps you're just talking about cast lead bullets? Today the use of "hard cast" is manufacturer's sales blah-blah. Most new lead bullet shooters think harder is better and commercial casters give them what they think they want. So they cast bullets a bit harder and advertise as "Hard Cast".
Casting bullets isn't too difficult to learn, but it does take some time (it's a bit more involved than casting fishing sinkers). Check out Castboolits.com and read the stickies and posts and you'll get a very good idea of what bullet casting is all about.
http://castboolits.gunloads.com/forum.php
Casting bullets isn't too difficult to learn, but it does take some time (it's a bit more involved than casting fishing sinkers). Check out Castboolits.com and read the stickies and posts and you'll get a very good idea of what bullet casting is all about.
http://castboolits.gunloads.com/forum.php
For super hard bullets I have oven treated at 450 F for an hour and quenched in cold water. I did this for a non gas check .314 in a 32/20 revolver with .314 throats. I don't have a hardness tester, but these were hard bullets. Size before treating so you won't be fighting a super hard bullet when lubing later. I used wheel weight metal. If I ever get to shooting cast in my 223s again I will use this method rather than use the rest of my lyno.
Traveling Fur Hunter
Inactive
What exactly is a wheel weight and where do I get them?
They are the metal they clip onto your rims to balance tires, the are made of lead alloy, pure lead, steel, and zinc. You don't want to melt the zinc ones into your lead and lead alloy WWs. These guys can tell you all about it. http://www.lasc.us/
As has been mentioned it is MUCH easier to use alloy which is already high in antimony to make hard bullets. You still haven't said what you consider as a "HARD BULLET". Also as has been mentioned hardness is a relative thing, any lead bullet coming out of the barrel of a gun is harder than I want to try and catch.
All kidding aside the term "HARD CAST" as was pointed out has been thrown around looser than the Dem's and the left throw "assault rifle" around.
For handguns shooting lead bullets in the velocity range of 700 to 1000fps, bullets running in the 9-12BHN will work just fine. Bump the velocity up say from 1000-1400fps and you might need to increase the BHN up into the 13-15 or 18 range. Even that however will be decided on how well the fit in the barrel is and which lube is being used.
Then there are the what I call super hard bullets which have either been heat treated like mentioned above or are simply poured using super hard alloy in the 18bhn and up category. To be honest though unless your simply wanting to shoot something that is super tough, or your trying to load full tilt rifle loads, your going to be using some expensive alloy for no real good reason.
That all said, if you want to pick up some Super Hard alloy which already has MORE than enough antimony in it, look right here and order away,
Bullet-Casting-Alloys
But if you will explain what your wanting to do, and what your wanting to do it with, I would bet we can put you on the right track and possibly even save you some time and money in the process.
All kidding aside the term "HARD CAST" as was pointed out has been thrown around looser than the Dem's and the left throw "assault rifle" around.
For handguns shooting lead bullets in the velocity range of 700 to 1000fps, bullets running in the 9-12BHN will work just fine. Bump the velocity up say from 1000-1400fps and you might need to increase the BHN up into the 13-15 or 18 range. Even that however will be decided on how well the fit in the barrel is and which lube is being used.
Then there are the what I call super hard bullets which have either been heat treated like mentioned above or are simply poured using super hard alloy in the 18bhn and up category. To be honest though unless your simply wanting to shoot something that is super tough, or your trying to load full tilt rifle loads, your going to be using some expensive alloy for no real good reason.
That all said, if you want to pick up some Super Hard alloy which already has MORE than enough antimony in it, look right here and order away,
Bullet-Casting-Alloys
But if you will explain what your wanting to do, and what your wanting to do it with, I would bet we can put you on the right track and possibly even save you some time and money in the process.
Rangefinder
New member
We have a brand-new caster...
Have you bothered to read this thread yet? Start there.
http://thefiringline.com/forums/showthread.php?t=346199
Have you bothered to read this thread yet? Start there.
http://thefiringline.com/forums/showthread.php?t=346199
myfriendis410
New member
By far the best way to cast hard bullets is to use wheelweights. The arsenic present in the alloy of lead tin and antimony acts as a grain refiner when heat treated and after allowing to rest for some time after, stabilizes itself at some value between around 18 and 22 Brinell hardness. This is an extremely hard alloy and is probably not necessary in most pistol bullets. If you are loading for a rifle, it may indeed be a good idea to use a hard alloy. Tin in the mix is present to allow the alloy to "wet" to the mold, creating a more crisp finished bullet. There is some hardening effect but beyond about 2% there is little or no gain.
I have heard of people alloying hard shot into their mix to add arsenic but this seems needlessly expensive.
I cast an alloy of wheelweights with about 2% tin for my heavy bullet Sharps load, and for everything else I usually use range lead with a bit of tin. That alloy is fine for the .45 acp and mild loads in my .41 magnum. For intermediate loads in the Sharps I have run a 50/50 mix of ww and range lead with tin.
I have heard of people alloying hard shot into their mix to add arsenic but this seems needlessly expensive.
I cast an alloy of wheelweights with about 2% tin for my heavy bullet Sharps load, and for everything else I usually use range lead with a bit of tin. That alloy is fine for the .45 acp and mild loads in my .41 magnum. For intermediate loads in the Sharps I have run a 50/50 mix of ww and range lead with tin.