Rotometal's Foundry Alloy Pieces

Status
Not open for further replies.
If you want to Oven Heat Treat, water cool, bullets, RMR has the rignt amount of 2.5-3% antimony for harding over 2 weeks. Tin not needed. Just good bullet lube.

/https://www.rmrbullets.com/shop/rmr...llet-cores-approximately-12-brinnel-hardness/ $1.66/100 lbs + shipping.

Q: Is there anything I can do to make the bullets harder?

Cast bullets can be heat treated to increase their hardness providing your alloy has 2% or more antimony present. To heat treat your bullets: Cast your bullets in the normal manner, saving several scrap bullets. Size using RCBS 2 Lube. WASH OFF. Place several scrap bullets on a pan in your oven at 450 degrees and increase the temperature until the bullets start to melt or slump. Be sure to use an accurate oven thermometer and a pan that will not be used again for food. Once the bullets start to melt or slump, back off the temperature about 10 degrees and slide in your first batch of good bullets. Leave these in the oven for 1 hour. Remove the bullets from the oven and plunge them into cool water. Allow them to cool thoroughly. When you are ready to lubricate, install a Lyman sizing die .001" larger than the one used to initially size them, OR Tumble lube with Alox. This will prevent the sides of the bullets from work-softening from contact with the sizing die. Next apply gas checks if required and lubricate. BULLETS WILL TAKE 2 WEEKS TO FULLY HARDEN. These are now ready for loading.
 
243winxb said:
If you want to Oven Heat Treat, water cool, bullets, RMR has the rignt amount of 2.5-3% antimony for harding over 2 weeks. Tin not needed. Just good bullet lube.

/https://www.rmrbullets.com/shop/rmr...llet-cores-approximately-12-brinnel-hardness/ $1.66/100 lbs + shipping.

Q: Is there anything I can do to make the bullets harder?

Cast bullets can be heat treated to increase their hardness providing your alloy has 2% or more antimony present. To heat treat your bullets: Cast your bullets in the normal manner, saving several scrap bullets. Size using RCBS 2 Lube. WASH OFF. Place several scrap bullets on a pan in your oven at 450 degrees and increase the temperature until the bullets start to melt or slump. Be sure to use an accurate oven thermometer and a pan that will not be used again for food. Once the bullets start to melt or slump, back off the temperature about 10 degrees and slide in your first batch of good bullets. Leave these in the oven for 1 hour. Remove the bullets from the oven and plunge them into cool water. Allow them to cool thoroughly. When you are ready to lubricate, install a Lyman sizing die .001" larger than the one used to initially size them, OR Tumble lube with Alox. This will prevent the sides of the bullets from work-softening from contact with the sizing die. Next apply gas checks if required and lubricate. BULLETS WILL TAKE 2 WEEKS TO FULLY HARDEN. These are now ready for loading.
Click to expand...
The arsenic in wheel weights helps with hardness, but I've never been compelled to figure out how to get any in my mix.
 
In the description, they state traces of copper and ferrous material. I found shims (spacers) of copper and brass. And maybe aluminum. Nothing yet that attracts to a magnet
20220303_062857.jpg
There seems to be very few of these in the box.
 
AJC1 said:
The arsenic in wheel weights helps with hardness, but I've never been compelled to figure out how to get any in my mix.
Click to expand...

Arsenic is in most all lead, for the most part. Ammo factories use scrap lead alloys also. Lead has been polluted with many chemicals, just like our water.

Bullet leads analyzed from CCI, Federal, Remington, and Winchester have contained up to 0.42 percent arsenic, 6.8 percent antimony, 2.5 percent tin, 0.2 percent bismuth, 0.22 percent copper, 0.031 percent silver, and 0.011 percent cadmium
Click to expand...
From -
The Basis for Compositional Bullet Lead Comparisons
Charles A. Peters
Forensic Physical Scientist
Materials Analysis Unit
Federal Bureau of Investigation
Washington, DC
 
243winxb said:
"Traces" is like 0.22 percent copper. Not a chumk of it. :confused:
Click to expand...
To be fair, some of those silvery pieces may be the alloyed lead. I should see it bends. The smaller alloyed leads snap when I try to bend.
As long as there is no zinc, I'm good with it. :)
 
AJC1 said:
Because you dont have a homogeneous material, I would melt it all down together and make ingots that I could figure out ratios for.
Click to expand...
Looking closer at the contents, the foundry cast alloys have distinct notches on one of their smooth sides. The ?shims? have shear marks. It will be just a matter of paying attention. And the silvery metal, I assume is aluminum, as vise grips mar them, but they don't snap when bent.
20220303_211442.jpg
 
kcofohio said:
Looking closer at the contents, the foundry cast alloys have distinct notches on one of their smooth sides. The ?shims? have shear marks. It will be just a matter of paying attention. And the silvery metal, I assume is aluminum, as vise grips mar them, but they don't snap when bent.
View attachment 1063659
Click to expand...
Anything that is not good will float. I do appreciate that investigating the contents would be entertaining. My big question is how much unusable material by weight is in the box. That makes the good material even more expensive. I don't feel like it's priced for those types of losses!
 
AJC1 said:
Anything that is not good will float. I do appreciate that investigating the contents would be entertaining. My big question is how much unusable material by weight is in the box. That makes the good material even more expensive. I don't feel like it's priced for those types of losses!
Click to expand...
The spacers/shim material is very sparse in the box. I haven't gone through the whole box. But have stir around the contents with a steel ladle and have found very little that is not type
 
AJC1 said:
Because you dont have a homogeneous material, I would melt it all down together and make ingots that I could figure out ratios for.
Click to expand...
Well, I did as you suggested. Melt down all but about 10 lbs. Ingots weight vary between .49 and 1.4 lbs. 56.5 lbs. total in ingots. 20220318_131503.jpg
I downloaded someone's excel spreadsheet off castboolits dot com for mix ratios.

Here was the unusable portion.
 

Attachments

  • 20220314_062057.jpg
    20220314_062057.jpg
    111 KB · Views: 16
kcofohio said:
Well, I did as you suggested. Melt down all but about 10 lbs. Ingots weight vary between .49 and 1.4 lbs. 56.5 lbs. total in ingots. View attachment 1066741
I downloaded someone's excel spreadsheet off castboolits dot com for mix ratios.

Here was the unusable portion.
Click to expand...
I would hope the weight variation would be based on your cake size not material density. It started as one mix, then poured out? The main idea was making a singular homogeneous mix.
 
AJC1 said:
I would hope the weight variation would be based on your cake size not material density. It started as one mix, then poured out? The main idea was making a singular homogeneous mix.
Click to expand...
Weight difference was the goal. Per the spreadsheet, 4 lb of these to 25 lb of pure lead would be 95/3/2, pb/sb/sn. For a Bhn of 12.
Here's a side view, top .49 lb, 3rd down, 1.41 lb.
20220318_204821.jpg
I'll mix up a small batch to double check. :)
 
Status
Not open for further replies.

Similar threads

J
Rotometals' "Super Hard" ingots are very easy to use to make accurate BHN alloy
Replies
10
Views
532
41 Mag
4
Alllen Bundy
  • Locked
Weighting the P365/X/XL/SAS Grip Module
2
Replies
46
Views
5K
Alllen Bundy
Alllen Bundy
E
  • Locked
Loading the .32 ACP
Replies
7
Views
5K
roscal67
roscal67
N
  • Locked
Could this be Bear Grylls folder knife in Man Vs Wild ?
Replies
20
Views
3K
nathan
N
Back
Top