Can you use Wheel Weight lead to simulate 1:20 tin:lead ?

**Maillemaker** · 08-30-2017

Just buy some lead / tin solder.

It seems hard to find out what is in a lot of "solder" sold at the big box stores. Forney 1/8" solder is $10.67 a pound and is 60/40 lead/tin, but isn't carried at my local Home Depot. Pure tin solder is basically the same cost as just buying pure tin from Rotometals.

I agree using known metals is the most consistent way to go, which is why I only use pure lead from commercial sources for the rest of my ammo.

I was just trying to see if I could use my ample supply of wheel weights to harden up some Sharps ammo bullets to see if I could get better accuracy out of it.

Steve

**Maillemaker** · 08-30-2017

Found this:

https://www.midwayusa.com/product/10...average-weight

Approximate Brinell Hardness: 10

So I suppose I should get a hardness checker and then I can make my own.

Steve

**jonk** · 08-31-2017

It depends on what your goal is.

If you want something that makes the alloy harder and flows better than pure lead, you surely can use wheelweights. If you want something of known repeatibility, not really. You have to work it up every batch. And you have to have patience and some intelligence about it.

So, melt the ww, and watch the temp so it doesn't get over the melting point of zinc. Skim off the crap. Make a pile of ingots.

I use the ww as they sit for smoothbore and smokeless reloads.

If you want to approximate 20:1, you need a hardness tester. Start at 30:1 and test. Add more WW to the mix as needed until you hit your desired hardness. There are any number of websites that offer what brinnell or cabin tree rating that would be, and how to use various testers.

Now, even if you do so, be aware that the animony and stuff in the mix will make sprues tear easily, and hardening time will increase. If you are ok with that, you absolutely can make a functional equivalent to 20:1 using WW, but you just hav to work it up for the batch of WW you have on hand. Some are darned near pure lead, some are REALLY hard.

If you DO get some contaminated with zinc, the main issue is with fill out. UP to 5% zinc you can probably still get good fill out if you don't mind hot lead that leads to frosted bullets. But the resulting mix will need a LOT of pure to get to that 20:1 equal. Past that 5% point, you get wrinkles. BAD.

For FREE, WW are worth using. Otherwise I wouldn't pay for them. I get mine free, so that's fine. Maybe for a pizza for the guys at the garage that give them to me.

You might also get some antimony splash/wash in the barrel. It looks like leading but wipes right out. With WW I mean.

**Maillemaker** · 08-31-2017

Well, while not free, I have a lot of WW lead on hand that I have rendered from WWs I get from my local tire company. They charge me $20 per 5-gallon bucket, though the bucket is often full of trash like cigarette butts and valve stems and the like, too. Anyway.

21 pounds of lead only makes about 300 510-grain bullets. So while I'm all about repeatability and consistency I'm laothe to spend $20 on a pound of tin to make 300 bullets.

If harder bullets make for a more accurate Sharps, then I think what I will do this weekend is take all of my WW lead and re-melt it in my giant furnace and re-ladle it out into ingots, so as to homogenize all the WW lead I have on hand into a single, consistent alloy.

Then I will experiment with some small batches of custom alloy, starting with 1:3 WW:lead and see how that goes.

I have some bullets made of 1:20 alloy so I can do a scratch test for comparison.

Steve

**R. McAuley 3014V** · 09-02-2017

Steve,

While you can use WW's as well as lead-tin solder for alloying bullets, bear in mind also that besides the obvious reduction in weight of your cast bullets, the resolidification of the cast alloy will also be different, such that not only will your bullets weigh less than they would have had they been pure lead, they will also shrink in size. About the only thing I use WW lead for is casting my round balls for smoothbore, because the same .678 ball that weighed 470 grains in pure lead, weighs just 450 grains cast from WW's and 410 grains cast from 60/40 solder. That means that I could, if I wished, reduce the powder charge needed to get them to the target. So keep it in mind, that while yes using WW's may be cheaper than the cost of pure lead, you also have to consider their shrinkage and weight loss too.

**Maillemaker** · 09-03-2017

Yes, I am aware that lead alloys weigh less than pure lead and the shrinkage is different. I'm investigating 1:20 tin:lead alloy for my Sharps because I'm given to understand the harder alloy shoots more accurately in the Sharps (and some other breechloaders).

I found someone selling tin for $12 a pound so I bought 3 pounds to experiment with.

Steve