Bullet Alloy Metals for reloaders - question about popularity.

[ACKLEY ABE]

When will your site be up?

[ACKLEY ABE]

Black powder cartridge needs 20:1. Shipping charges may be prohibitive, any way to mitigate that??

Move to Calgary.

[Mikeyman]

I would like to the option to buy some tin bars.

[frenchman]

I use #2, 20:1 and 40:1

[Western Metal Inc]

We are still in the planning stages of adding alloys to the reloading section of our website.
https://www.westernmetal.ca/shooting...ing-components
This is something that Western Metals is very familiar with we just want to make sure we make the right choices. We have discussed having a pure tin bar available as well as offering lead with antimony.
We will likely have this set up in 2 months.

[MuthaFunk]

I would like to the option to buy some tin bars.

This is a good suggestion. Sometimes people can run into pure lead locally but finding proper metals to alloy with it is difficult. Many of the wheelweights that we get off cars are pure lead. Those who have a good supply of wheelweights have likely saved up a bunch of pure lead weights as they didn't want to mess with the alloy in the other weights, so alloy metals in the raw would likely be appealing for those folks. I would anyway.

Antimony, Tin or Pewter bars.

[Goose762]

Hey Western Metal,

Generally what we're looking for is whatever the highest percentage tin alloy is at the lowest possible cost. Most of use use ww for the bulk of our casting which is an inexpensive source of antimonial lead, and it makes the *ideal* casting alloy provided you can bump up the tin content a percent or two to improve mold fill out.

In this regard Lyman #2 and linotype is always in demand at the right price.

To be fairly blunt, casters are thrifty bastards, it's virtually a necessity to get into DIY bullet making.

We scrounge, we've done our homework, and there are plenty of other metal dealers selling alloys suitable for casting (rotometals, metalex, Canada Metals, etc.) that we could buy from but don't because usually shipping is a pain and pricing on small orders isn't favorable.

Anyone who's been at casting for a while usually had hoarded enough lead for their immediate needs so we're not biting at the bit to buy whatever we can at any price-we wait until it's right.


In short, be competitive.

-Mike

[Splatter]

COPPER !! Yes, I said copper ( Cu ). Not pure copper, but around 1% also Arsenic ( As ) we need around 0.5% for the ability to heat-treat bullets for increased hardness.
Those percentages are in the finished alloy.

So I'd suggest a "finished" bullet alloy similar to the Lyman #2 with the copper and arsenic.

Also an "alloying package" with ingots designed to make better bullets from wheel weights or even straight lead.

A sort of "babbit" of 50% Tin, 20% Lead, 20% Antimony, 8% Copper and 2% Arsenic. Would that work?

[redruns]

Giving it some more thought, I would most be interested in 50/50 bar solder and 70-30 Pb-Sb alloy.

[garand4]

Another guy looking for a high antimony/tin alloy with a little arsenic to alloy pure lead to a wheel weight type composition.