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Could you clarify just a little more? According to the postings the alloy is approximately is 6.5% Sn, 1.9% Sb, .5% Cu . Are you mixing up something different? Adding superhard for more Sb?Quote:
Originally Posted by badgeredd
Just asking since to get .5% Cu a lot of Sn is added to do this.
The alloy I use for 2300fps loads in my 6x45 has only .25% Cu. I know it will got faster without leading but I think I had a bullet fit problem that NOE helped me solve. I couldn't get the accuracy I wanted at the velocity I wanted. I've not gotten back to testing, and haven't done any Cu enriching to see if I can get more, but the casting is starting. This is all Townsend Whelen's fault for spilling the beans on Ideal #1 alloy!
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Since I am not the charts and graphs type I will say this.
If you take Edd's railroad babbit and put pre-tinned copper grounding wire into it til it takes no more (about 7%) then add 3/4 to 1 lb ofthat "spice alloy" to 20lbs of pure lead and 20lbs of coww you can do amazing things with it. The only thing that is abnormal about casting with it is that one must run their temps up a bit over normal 50/50 mix. There is no excessive drossing, there is no wierd things going on....it just plain works.
I guess I am the type that takes real world experience over wikipedia rugurgita everytime as I know that "I READ IT IN A BOOK" only takes one so far.
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This is getting interesting now :)Quote:
Originally Posted by 375RUGER
Today, I took 2 pounds of clean 98% tin and melted it my 10 pound pot. Got the temp to 575 degrees, and
started adding acid fluxed copper wire (10 gauge multi-strand) till it wouldn't take any more.
No idea how much by weight as I concluded I wanted to reach the saturation point.
I took about 6-1/2, 8 inch long pieces of wire before it wouldn't take anymore. By the chart above,
I should have a little over 2 pounds of tin enriched with 2.7% copper. In a 20 pound batch
of 50/50, of WW & pure, how much do I want to add? 1-2 % doesn't seem like it would
introduce enough Cu to make it right, but not being a chemist I dont know.
1% would be like 3.2 ounces, 2%-6.4 ounces. Seem reasonable enough?
I gotta thank the guys that are doing this for helping out here, I find this very interesting.
And my goal with this is high velocity hunting boolits, not berm busters.
I shoot 140 grain condoms at 2950fps, in my 280 Remington, I can shoot 5/8" groups at 300 yards,
If I can get anywhere close to this and have performance on deer & antelope I will be very pleased!
I'm just now catching up here and I have a question.....or two. If i'm following correctly in an alloy of say 92-4-4 you would end up with a copper content of just under .28%. I think I understand this produces a "tougher" bullet which can be driven at higher velocity than possible without the copper. Does this alloy retain the hardness and malleability properties of the original 92-4-4 without the copper? or are these properties altered as well?
I'm going to find the original thread referenced and possibly some of my questions will be answered there.
Thanks for your help,
Rick
I am not sure about malleability, but the Cu alloy is definitely harder. You can tell the difference between #2 and the Cu alloy easily. I figure that I am running .5 to .75% Cu. I need to make up a fresh batch. I had rotometals make me some, IIRC, 90-3.5-3.5-3 alloy, so I could blend what I wanted to try. I had read about the #1 alloy and got interested in the Cu alloys.
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Like Edd......I believe that the added toughness is what is making the magic happen without distrupting the mallability if the alloy too much. Upon ignition it simply slumps less and as it starts it journey with 40 to 50K+ on it's butt the boolit is less likely to do any appreciable skidding. Assuming everything else is done properly/consistently.........I believe that the slump and skidding are what lead alot of people to believe that greased cast boolits have to be babied with thresholds and such. So far this alloy acts like j-words in the non-magnum cases I have launched it from when I do everything else as well as I should.
I believe that "HARDER" is merely a small byproduct of "TOUGHER" and the hardness gained is not the hero....the toughness is.
The only "quirky" thing I have noticed with these alloys when waterdropped is that they keep growing in diameter a bit longer than standard wd'ed 50/50. Say I sized some waterdropped 50/50+0.025% copper/tin enhanced alloy and immediately sized to .287......they will measure .2873 or so immediately after sizing due to springback. Three months later they will measure .2875........6months later they will measure .2878 or so. This is not really an issue unless you seated the boolit to engrave real good at three months of age................as three months later it may be a bit tougher to extract a loaded round. This has actually happened to me in one instance. I am still charting the growth spurts of several boolits made of this alloy to gain a better grasp of when/if they stop growing.
Mike, how soon after casting are you lubing and sizing?
This makes me happy, growing boolits.Quote:
Originally Posted by 357maximum
This what I'm referring to when I mentioned Whelen, and Ideal #1: Suggestions to military riflemen, on page 197, refers to it only as Ideal bullet metal, but gives a composition of 80%Pb, 10%Sn, 7%Sb, 3%Cu.
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.
It wouldn't take much to alter the babbitt so that one winds up in the neighborhood of what Edd and Max are using. A bit more pure Pb, a bit more, but not much, copper, get the Sn level back up. I've done that in the past, rather unscientifically. Wound up with a big 45 boolit you could hammer down to coin thickness without it breaking, and it took awhile with a big hammer to do that. In 35 caliber, expansion was similar to jacketed bullets. HP on the left, FP solid on the right, shot into wet newsprint at 100yd, velocity around 2100-2200fps.
You guys got me aching to get back on my 6x45 with the new NOE boolit I have. If you all can get 2500fps, I ought to be able to with a lighter bullet than Max is using, but then I have that 1/8 5R Obermeyer to deal with.
Popper, some time ago I found research that had been done in the area of battery plates. From what I read the Cu forms a lattice network with the other elements. Cu at the center. Keeps battery plates from vibrating into pieces.
I size and seat checks as soon as the boolits are dry to the touch. I lube in slightly oversized dies so that can be done at anytime.Quote:
Originally Posted by MT Gianni
I was basing my numbers on the .5% you mentioned in post 21. Before I didn't see how much of "the alloy"357maximum was adding, but now that I know I see the Sn is below 4%.
and I also see that we are looking for .1%-.2% Cu if I'm understanding everyone correctly
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What percentage alloy are you using to cast boolits? If it was stated earlier in the thread I appologise.
You added 4' of wire that is approximatly 1.2 oz (WAG). According to bumpo's calc, that's a bit over 3% Cu. So those numbers above are real close not knowing the exact weight of the Cu.Quote:
Originally Posted by Jim Flinchbaugh
I'd be interested to know if you got the melt to 750* how much more wire it would take.
From Bumpo's calc this is what you'd get adding 3/4# to 20# of 50/50.
Tin % Antimony % Arsenic % Copper % Lead %
3.75% 1.45% 0.12% 0.11% 94.6%
From what I'm reading here that's enough copper to do you some good. The other's more experienced will have to chime in here.
Last night I managed to get about 1/3 oz to dissolve into 6oz of my silver bearing solder, about 5%. I don't know what the temp was since I couldn't get the thermometer into that little puddle. I guess I need to get a good amount of Sn to do this right.
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