Eureka! Linotype

kjohn

kjohn

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Scored around 70-100 lbs. of lino yesterday. My old neighbor used to run a local newspaper and had only ever used the old style printing process. He passed on a couple of years ago, and the lady that bought his house gave me a bunch of lino the old fellow had stashed at his house. I also have six or eight big bars of lino we bought years ago from an old style printer guy in Regina.

Time to cast some nice rifle bullets! :)
 
I found pure lino too brittle by itself to make good bullets but I do use it to "sweeten" the pot.
 
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jethunter said:
I found pure lino too brittle by itself to make good bullets but I do use it to "sweeten" the pot.
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Good point. It has been a long time since I made bullets with Linotype, and I don't recall what we did. I will remember your tip.

Marci cho! :)
 
Lino is always a good find. Even if the situation do not ask for it I still like to throw one or two lbs of lino in my 40 lbs melting pot. Just for a better taste. I think I like watching the lino stripes melting and letting on the surface just the hologram of the stripes. I add them one by one so I can get my fix for a longer time.
 
I've been adding 1.25oz to every 2lbs of what I would consider nearly pure lead to all my castings. 4% Seems to work well for me.

Bought 10lbs of it a while back from a company in Stoney Creek, should last my needs quite a while.
 
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Great fortune! Wish I had a thoughtful neighbor. All they ever deliver is some dog crap on my lawn.

I've been casting range scrap and Linotype/#8 at about 6:1 which IIRC works out to about 75 cents per pound for the alloy. Purchased the linotype from a metal supplier. Very happy with the hardness for pistol. Just trying .223 this summer. So far so good.

Pure Linotype will work OK for rifle, but you might be able to stretch that supply out by mixing in some other lead.
 
Linotype is normally 4-5% tin, 10-12% antimony. I find it too hard by itself.

For pure lead, mixing linotype at 1/2 or 1/3 will be good for rifle bullets.

With COWW alloy, you could use 1/4 or 1/5 linotype to ww.
 
yomomma said:
Remember folks, the ideal is to have a tin to antimony ratio of 1:1. Ideally in the 4-5% range.
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/\ This pretty much is the famous Lyman Alloy No. 2, the standard bullet casting alloy that Lee specifies for use with its molds to drop the advertise diameter and weight.

For daily shooting, Lyman No. 2 can be expensive, if you can even find it or are able to find sufficient amounts of tin and antimony to mix with COWW or pure lead.

I have a small stash of lino and have been using it sparingly to sweeten pure lead, or to mix with lead of questionable alloy.

Pure COWW doesn't cast well-enough for me and I mix lino in 1:6 ratio (linotype to COWW) to come up with a very nice alloy that casts very close to Lee spec diameter and weight. For example, my .45 (ACP) Round Nose bullets drop at .452 so I don't have to resize anymore. As well, 1:6 alloy gives beautiful, well filled out, shiny and smooth bullets.

Since I dont have the equipment (who does?) to determine alloy percentages, I just test batches by molding a few bullets to check diameter and weight, and see how well the mold fills out, ie, sharp shoulders and in the case of Tumble Lube style bullets, the mini grooves fill out to correct diameter.
 
Mike Venturino has been extolling his use of "pure" Linotype cast bullets in his 45-70 match rifles. He feels he gets the best accuracy from them. To my knowledge he's never used them for hunting. Likely because of his "heart" issues he no longer hunts.

I agree that Lino isn't good by itself for hunting bullets but may be the cat's meow for target shooting. I have a couple of hundred pounds on hand so will give it a try when the fire season is over and our range is reopened.

Pewter plates and other articles are very similar to Lino. Cheap as well. I finally quit hitting the junk shops for the old cups, picture frames, plates. They work out to about two bits a pound when melted down and I haven't noticed any difference between using them directly as a substitute in the mix for Lino. The Pewter emblem on the bottom, triangle, tell you what it is when you're looking. The other tell tale is the squeeze test. If it bends easily when squeezed it's likely Pewter. If it doesn't it's something else.
 
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