Lead/Tin

[The Arctic Fox]

I just bought 250 lbs of lead bars off an old timer. In the pile was about 5 lbs of narrow strips of an alloy. The alloy is non magnetic, easily bendable, shinny silvery look and scratches easy. Could this be Tin?He used to reload back in the 70's. Now very retired.
As you can see I plan on making some round or conical bullets.

 

[rawhide]

sounds like tin to me. or it could be a mix of tin atomeny. or all three. not good for casting balls though it's to hard. now for moden bullets it would be good in your center fire guns.

 

[BrownBear]

In the pile was about 5 lbs of narrow strips of an alloy.

Are they roughly one pound each and rounded on the ends? If so, that sounds like 50/50 lead/tin bar solder you could buy at one time. I've got some around that I use for making Lyman's #2 Alloy. I'd have to go check mine to confirm, but my recollection is that it has a ridge around one side and is actually labeled somehow. That would be easy to ID, but without it the alloy is just a guess.

I sure wouldn't mix it into your pure stuff, in any case!

 

[R.M.]

Bend it. If it "Crackles" it's tin.
Are there and markings cast into the bars?

 

[Idaho Ron]

Tin is very handy. Tin can help fill out a mould. I know that I add a little lead shot to my pure to get it to flow better tin would work the same way. The amount needed to help homogenize the lead and help the fill out of the mould will not add much at all to the hardness. Most guys that use the old scratch method of hardness testing would never know if 1000 grains of tin was in 10 pounds of pure lead.
When I went to using a little shot in the pure my bullets actually got heavier. The reason was it filled out better. Don’t get in a hurry to get rid of it. Ron

 

[123.DieselBenz]

Tin will cause it to be a bit harder, but it also toughens up the alloy so your ball or boolit does not fragment . . . loosing mass

Here is a picture of what I shoot out of a 44 mag, different velocities call for different alloy . . . the four pieces on the far right is what is left of one boolit hitting water jugs (5 gal size) at about 1600 fps, the ones on the left are only doing about 1150 fps . . .

The solids are 272 gr, and the hp is 252gr:

Another angle:

These were aprox 68% wheel weight, 29% recovered range lead (Pure from jacketed), and 3% tin. (less wheel weight would make them softer, and not shatter as easily.)

 

[FPDoc]

If they are actually strips, and quite thin with perhaps 2 or 3 thicknesses in the pile, they are likely the strips used between lines when hand setting type in "the old days" and would be an alloy, not pure lead and the alloy would depend on the kind of type it was sent with.

 

[The Arctic Fox]

Okay here is a pic. Some of the bars have a slight blue colour at surface, most don't. Old owner is now about 80 and doesn't remember much about them.

 

[Josh Smith]

That's Linotype!

Very much sought after by people who hardcast smokeless. I've found it to be a bit too much for .45acp velocities, but 9mm it's about right without having to use a gas check.

With .45acp I use it to "sweeten the pot" a bit as it's tough for most people to get. (I know a printer and can get more than I can handle - need to go back with cash in hand).

You can cast balls from it. I wouldn't expect these to expand, and may be tough to load depending upon how thick you patch it. I use .490" and about .012" patch give or take. This combo works very well for me, makes for easy-enough loading, and gives me wiggle room for a .015" patch when I run across some material for that.

There are a group of experienced muzzleloading folks over on another forum who are experimenting with 60:1 to 40:1. Been doing that myself and it's very acceptable, especially with regards to accuracy.

IIRC, Linotype contains something like 85% lead, 10% tin and 5% antimony. May have the tin and antimony contents mixed around, but it's high and makes for awesome smokeless bullets.

If you don't want to cast this hard, trade it off for pure lead. Smokeless casters will thank you.

If it's not much you have, you might just keep it as a souvenir from a bygone era.

Josh

 

[FPDoc]

The thin strips are spacing material for type setting and are not pure lead.

 

[The Arctic Fox]

I had it tested last week. Strips are Linotype. around .034 dia on Lee Tester. Very Hard, mallable, non ferrous and the right shape. The lead ingots are .064 dia on tester and about right for wheel weight lead.
Thanks to all the assistance out there.
Now I can get back to casting after being out for many years. Just as I have got back to muzzle loading, again.

 

[BrownBear]

Depending where you are and local availability, some of the cast boolit crowd gets real "kinky" for linotype. It's scarce up here and I once traded 20 pounds of it for 100 pounds of pure lead. You might nose around a bit in your area if you don't have any real use for it.