cast bullets with pewter

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Billythreefeathers

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was at a garage sale last summer and bought about 25lbs of pewter plates, cups, and bowls,, Ok so pewter is about 95% tin and 5% lead/copper/other stuff.

How much pewter should I add to WW to get a hard bullet?

Can I just make a bunch of pewter bullets?
 
I just use wheel weights straight, but you can add 2% tin. So 2lbs of pewter to 100lbs of wheel weights.

Casting pure tin won't work, at least when I melted 4lbs in a pot, it was like caramel. Also your bullets would be extremely light and wasteful.
 
w-w have on average 96% lead 3% antimony and trace (.5% ?) of tin.
Lyman #2 alloy has 90%lead 5%tin and 5%antimony.
Comertial "hardball" alloy has 92% lead 2% tin and 6% antimony.
For w-w alone adding 2% tin should be enough for any revolver bullets.
For harder rifle bullets with some linotype added I say 2% added tin should be minimum and 5% maximum.
 
Billythreefeathers said:
was at a garage sale last summer and bought about 25lbs of pewter plates, cups, and bowls,, Ok so pewter is about 95% tin and 5% lead/copper/other stuff.

How much pewter should I add to WW to get a hard bullet?

Can I just make a bunch of pewter bullets?
Click to expand...

Adding any amount of tin will not make the alloy noticeably harder - tin is added to help the alloy flow and fill better, and 2% is about an optimum amount.
 
I've found that 2-2.5% tin added to wheelweights aids in bullet fillout particularly when casting long rifle bullets with lots of lube grooves. Cast bullets that are completely filled out with very sharp "squared off" lube grooves and bases are a beautiful thing!

20 to 1 (lead to tin) is a standard alloy for casting black powder cartridge bullets for rifles. I'm going to try this alloy in a couple 38 S&W's ( Webly and 38/200 Smith) this winter. Should be softer than straight WW but harder and cast better than pure lead.
 
"...How much pewter should I add..." None. Pewter doesn't harden anything. Doesn't make good bullets either. And what you have may not be real pewter. Real pewter is a known poison due to the lead content. Hasn't been used for dinner ware for eons.
 
To the best of my knowledge modern pewter contains no lead , I was just in a gift shop the other day to try and order a pewter beer tankard for my son for Xmas. They did have some for sale but I couldn't order one with our family crest. Lots available with Scottish Coat of Arms (and they weren't cheap either) BUT they were definately pewter and hall marked as so!
 
Tin Makes bullets Harder it also allows better fill out of a mold
if you are casting and adding more heat does not make a mould fill out better = add tin & lower heat = better fill out

add 2% to a max of 9 % (anything over 4-5% tin is a waist of tin)

adding up to 11% antimony will make hard Lead ---(86% lead, 3% tin,11%antimony = Linotype =22 bhn)

Lyman #2 = 90% lead, 5% tin, 5%antimony = 15 bhn = alot more usable composition
 
OK,, so what I think I'll do is melt down 50lbs of WW and add 2lbs of what I think is pewter

these plates and cups melted down at about the same temp as lead so I'm assuming they are some mixture of pewter (85–99% tin, with the remainder copper, antimony, bismuth) and seem to be about the same weight as the lead ingots I have previously poured. Pictures and range report to follow.
 
Any pewter that I have worked with has a density ( weight per volume) about 1/2 of lead. ie the ingot marked 1 lb on my Lee mould cast a pewter ingot weighing 8-9 oz. Most modern pewter is hall marked pewter or tin/zinn with a percentage sometimes indicated. (usually in 90's). What may be mistaken for pewter quite often is cast aluminum. Pewter is relatively soft and can be scratched easily. Melt temp of tin is lower than lead/ww. Melt temp of aluminum is much higher. These temps will be easily available by search on the net.
Most pewter items are easily bent and make a distinctive "crackling" sound when bent. This is referred to as tin crying.
 
the WW will have some tin & antimony already

if melting ww watch out for Zinc

I would make small ingots of the pewter (mark them so you know what they are later) and use them as you need to
 
I am always on the lookout for pewter.I use it sparingly, as many others have noted, it helps flow and mould fill out.Does nearly nothing for hardness.It is the antimony present in clip on wheel weight that allows cast product to be heated and quenched to get significantly harder and-this part is key-retain that hardness over time, I don't think heat treating lead without antimony even works, IIRC.

I use a small mini muffin tin and make " coins" of my pewter, then weigh and mark them with a Sharpie.Then when it comes time to calculate a new batch of alloy just add pre weighed pewter coins.I find myself saving it to sweeten alloys like 30-1 or 20-1 lead/tin.Clip on WW have always filled out great with and without tin added, so I stopped using it for straight WW boolits.I do also use it for sweetening range scrap alloys.From what I read 2 percent is optimum.

Check out Cast Boolits-many lifetimes worth of knowledge and friendly folks always glad to help and answer questions.
 
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Although not really what you're after I recall reading an article about hi-velocity handgun loadings using pewter bullets. Using a typical 160 gr bullet mold, the resulting pewter bullet that weighed less than 100 grs could be pushed in excess of 2000 fps from a .357.
 
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