Home Forums Reloading Bullet Casting Have I got this alloy right?

I've got an RCBS 140gr 38 wadcutter mould that casts 150gr with wheel weight. I'd really like for it to cast 140gr boolits so I figured Lyman #2 alloy might be the ticket. I've got a fair amount of stick on wheel weights so I figured I could mix up the alloy.
20lbs of alloy should yield 1000 boolits and that's what the pot holds. Lyman #2 is supposed to be 5% tin 5% antimony and 90% lead so I should need 4lbs of tin 4lbs of antimony and 12lbs of lead right?

At Rotometals that about $80.00 worth of metal?

SRM, If your lead, tin and antimony are pure, you need 18 pounds of pure lead, 1 pound antimony and 1 pound of tin. In a 20 pound quantity, each pound is worth 5%. This should simplify your calculations. As you stated above, your alloy would be very hard and with more tin than needed to improve fillout. Good luck!

Old70

Never was very good at ratios or math in general for that matter.

Thanks!

Afraid I'm not seeing the logic of what you want to do. You are taking a bullet that is designed to be soft and shot at low velocities, and making it super hard simply to make it weigh less? What I do is simply buy another mold to get what I want.

Don

I don't want it super hard, but I do want it lighter. What was the purpose of Lyman#2?

Lyman #2 made sense back when tin was cheap, and it made for easy casting and was a good "standard" alloy to compare one mold to another.

Now though, it's a good way to waste extra tin. Why do you care that much about matching the mold's advertised weight? It's not going to make it shoot better.

I was just looking for a lighter wadcutter for plinking. I've got a mould for a 120 truncated cone that casts a bit small. I can "beagle" it up to proper size.

If you're looking for a light plinker bullet consider the lee 105 gr swc in a six shooter.

Lyman #2 was designed to be used for Magnum loads, not to make bullets lighter.

Don

Well, ya'll just saved me some money. Thanks!

Heck, for wadcutter target loads I would cut those WW's with a little pure lead, which would make them softer and weigh a tiny bit more. Take a look at the bullets in factory wadcutter ammo- they are darn near pure lead, only slightly harder.

If your bullets fit your throats and you keep velocity low, that's all that matters. They'll shoot. Don't stress too much over alloys for this kind of shooting!

(And they're bullets, not "boolits". )

gnoahhh, Not if your're a participant on the CastBoolitForum!!!😁 memtb

I'm with gnoahhh on that one, and have been a member of castboolits for a long time. The "boolit" name always seemed like a silly affectation to me; tried to get used to it and couldn't. They're all bullets, nothing magic about being cast from lead.

yes they are all "bullets" but i always took the "boolits" as a way to keep nube's from getting confused as what was being discussed cast or jacketed.Though i only recall seeing the "Boolits" in the last few years. of course growing up they all were "Slugs" just my observation.

RCBS used to proof their moulds with 1-10 alloy, that is 1 part tin to 10 parts of pure lead. It would seem to me that this would make the bullets heavier, not lighter. If weight is your only criteria, try casting with pure lino, it should get the weight down an appreciable degree. You could also cast with pewter to lower the weight as well, but that might take you a little to far to the light side.

Yes, Yondering. "Boolit" was/is a silly affectation. It's one thing for people to speak with regional accents, but to spell phonetically, as such, on an international venue demeans one I feel. (And yes I frequent the Cast Boolits site, and I gnash my teeth every time I log on there. A friend refers to that site as that place "where they don't know how to spell." )

Pewter is mostly tin:
Pewter is a malleable metal alloy, traditionally 85–99% tin, with the remainder consisting of copper, antimony, bismuth and sometimes, less commonly today, lead. Silver is also sometimes used. Copper and antimony act as hardeners while lead is common in the lower grades of pewter, which have a bluish tint. It has a low melting point, around 170–230 °C (338–446 °F), depending on the exact mixture of metals.[1] The word pewter is probably a variation of the word spelter, a term for zinc alloys (originally a colloquial name for zinc).[2]

Putting up with the term "Boolit" on the CastBoolitForum website is a small price to pay for all the knowledge one can gleam from frequenting that site. If not for them, I wouldn't have some of the finest molds made.

Don

I'm a castboolits member too. I just grin at the "boolits" usage - it's pretty much a grammatical/terminology difference there - not just semantics. I consider it speaking in the vernacular on that website, but try not to use it anywhere else, as I look like an idjit.

And as for Lyman #2...I make it and use it for my .357 Maximum and .30-40 Krag hunting cast bullets. It's fantastic in that application, but not necessarily cheap to make.