Adding Tin to Lead Mix?

C

Cactus

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This may be stupid but here goes...

I was thinking tonight while unwrapping my take out food dinner and throwing away the tin foil if this same tin foil can be added to the melting pot with the lead to increase the bullets hardness?

Would this work and is there still tin in tin foil?

Cactus
 
The easiest way to add tin to your mix is not always the cheapest

any hardware store ---> lead free solder

You can measure out it by the inch to the foot to get the perfect mix

or find some one (company) that sells it in ingots min order = $$$$$
 
How hard are you trying to get your boolits? What are you shooting? What is your staring hardness or source of lead?

You can probably mix alloys to get what you're looking for without resorting to 50/50 solder or something else that expensive, depending on your application of course.
 
Cactus said:
... is there still tin in tin foil?

Cactus
Click to expand...

There is no tin in tin foil, tin cans or tin roofs, and there hasn't been for a long, long time. Even most of the old codgers who deride soft metal parts as "cheap tin" have probably never laid eyes on anything in their whole lives that was made out of actual tin. Tin is actually quite rare on this planet (there is more gold on Earth than tin) and it has been too expensive to be used as a structural element for probably at least a century.
 
I use 95/5 solder(lead free) and mix(smelt) with pure lead, it makes much nicer bullets, for much harder bullets I add Linotype all in predetermined amounts. I don't like too hard a bullet with too much Lino or antimony for hunting as bullets can be too brittle and fracture on hard big bones.
 
Plumbing supply stores will also have Lead free or bar solder,for my hunting bullets I use a 30 to 1 pure Lead and Tin mix with my gas check rifle and handgun bullets.

For a 20 lb. pot
If you don't have tin or find it to expensive and you want an alloy with an air cooled BHN of around 9 use 7 lbs. of clip on Wheel weight with a BHN of 12 and 13 lbs. of pure lead. Or 19 lbs. of pure lead and 1 lb. stick of 50/50 bar solder will give you the same results.


1 to 40 tin lead 8
1 to 30 tin lead 9
1 to 20 tin lead 10
1 to 10 tin lead 11

Alloy Calculator,use with Windows Excel or free OpenOffice.org Calc spreadsheet program.
http://www.castbulletassoc.org/downloads/Alloy05.xls
 
There are millions of tons of Tin in the world much more than known Gold, and we won't be running out anytime soon. Solder can be an expensive way to buy it if going new retail, but sometimes you can run into old or "scrap" bars of it for much less. Although not cheap, it's probably a better deal to buy it at Alchemy Castings than Home Depot.
 
Ben, do you date back to when tooth paste tubes were made of tin?
We used to put those in the bullet mix, but the empty tubes were so light in weight that it really didn't amount to a hill of beans.
 
You can also use pewter. I regularly stop at yard sales if I see beer steins or kitchen stuff on a table from the road.

I also go to thrift stores once in a while and look for those beer mugs with the glass bottoms on them, they should say PEWTER some where on them. I bought a set of 6 of them once and all six of them had broken glass bottoms on them for 4 bucks. The lady behind the counter thought I was crazy for buying cracked mugs but for nearly 3 lbs of tin for 4 bucks I am laughing.
 
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