ID Cast Bullet Material

[Russt]

I have a friend that gave me a 5 gallon bucket of some kind of alloy. I don't know if it's straight type metal or linotype. Can anyone ID it? How would I mix it with ww and old lead piping? I've been using straight ww's for about a year and lubing with Lee Liquid Alox, no problems with leading. I shoot mostly pistol and a few rifle cowboy action loads using Trailboss. I'm hoping these are will cast hard enough for some good loads for the 45/70. I've been using 50-53 grains of 3031 with a 300 grain JHP. I want to try a cast 405 at about 1800 fps. I'm told there is less meat damage than with the 300 jhp.

Sorry if the pics don't turn out. I'm not very puter literate.

 

[Sunray]

Probably linotype. However, you can't tell anything about any metal just by looking at it.

 

[Walkalong]

Yep, Linotype. Good stuff.

 

[highlander 5]

That's linotype all right. You can use it as is or mix it 50/50 with wheel weights and it will make a very nice bullet. 50/50 mix is equivalent to Lyman #2 alloy.
Lino is 22 BHN and will not expand very well but if used as a hunting bullet will break bone quite easily

 

[zxcvbob]

Have you ever tried paper-patched soft lead bullets? Just curious.

Bob

 

[Russt]

Tell me more about the paper patch? Does it take the place of lube? Is it a special paper or just note book paper? Can I use soft lead and get expansion and penetration?

 

[chipperi]

Oh baby I work in printing and haven't seen that stuff in years. It's Linotype Great for casting.

 

[Bula]

I have a freind who works in printing and he'll give me scrap when it's available. It looks exactly like what you have. He orders it as Ludlow Type metal. 5% tin, 11.5% Antimony and 83.5% lead. I'd expect it to be about 25 BHN. I use mine very sparingly. A little goes a long way. I like a 1:15 or a 1:20 (ww:type metal) ratio. I get real purty bullets. Great fill out, and plenty hard (but not too hard) for even my heaviest handloads. Make sure you melt them down into ingots 1st. Mine was supprisingly dirty until skimming and fluxing a few times. When I process wheel weights, I assume about a 12-15% loss due to clips/crap so for every 100 lbs of unprocessed WW, I'll add about 6 or 7 lbs of type metal to sweeten my melt. Leaves me with about 90-93 lbs of real nice smelted stuff to work with. Good luck.