big boar wrote: Mr Harris, a bit off topic but you mentioned WW + 2% tin. WW are getting scarce around here, if I use pure Pb and about 4% tin, can I heat treat to get the hardness to about 15BHN? Sorry if this is off topic but you're here right now and you mentioned a load for that alloy. Many thanks Brian.
IMHO you don't need alloy as hard as 15 BHN for target loads in most militaries. Keep the velocities below about 1700 f.p.s. and 12-13 BHN works fine. Tin is the most expensive element in the alloy, but as little as 1/2% is adequate to make wheelweights or common backstop scrap cast OK. More than 2% tin is a waste of money. If blending bullet metal from commercial alloys a 50-50 mix of linotype and pure lead casts wonderfully and yields about 13 BHN which I think is almost perfect. If you blend commercial 92Pb-6Sb-2SN “Hardball” alloy 50-50 with pure lead you get a similarly nice casting, soft alloy, great for hunting, which will be about 12 BHN.
I approximate this alloy by salvaging backstop lead from an indoor police range where they shoot mostly 9mm and .40 cal. handguns, with a smattering of 12-ga. slugs, buckshot and .30 M1 carbine. My plumbers pot holds a 50 pound heat of this metal. After skimming off the dirt and jacket metal I flux, then skim again, add one pound of 60-40 solder to the melt and flux again immediately before pouring my ingots. This gives an alloy approximately 96-3-1 which casts nice well filled out buillets at 12 BHN. A good general purpose alloy for most use.
In the .30-'06 try 10 grs. of 7625, or 12 grs./ of PB, 15 grs. of #2400, 20 grs. of 4227, 22 grs. of 4198, 24 grs. of RL-7 or 26 grs. of 4895, RL-15 or Varget. All good loads
73 de KE4SKY In Home Mix We Trust From the Home of Ed's Red in "Almost Heaven" West Virginia