| Posted: Sat Sep 26th, 2009 09:13 PM |
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leadhead
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Anybody use pewter (either leaded or unleaded) to get tin and antimony rather than getting each separately? Was looking around rotometals and it seemed like a good idea or am i missing something? Just trying to find sources if I can't scrounge them up elsewhere. Last edited on Sat Sep 26th, 2009 09:14 PM by leadhead
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| Posted: Sat Sep 26th, 2009 10:14 PM |
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Harvey57
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I have scrounged from ranges as part of the clean up. A rake with a 1/4 screen attached works OK. When the back stop slides down too far, toss a screen with frame over your wheel barrel. Sift out the lead, heat it and skim it.
The Antimony Man sells Tin/Antimony bars to harden your alloy and ease casting. I swap cold drinks/beer for WWs. Then I add tin solder to the mix. Most places toss the WWs.
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| Posted: Sun Sep 27th, 2009 01:50 AM |
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fornra
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I plan to use pewter in place of store bought tin. This evening I melted over 200 lbs of wheel weights into ingots. Tomorrow I will melt my pewter stash into ingots if I can find something to pour it into so that I can cut it into usable peices.
I just have one question reguarding pewter, how do you know for sure if an item in actually pewter or zinc or some other metal?
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| Posted: Sun Sep 27th, 2009 04:52 AM |
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fryboy
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zinc is alot harder !
as for the original post ..quite a few years ago a feller wrote up pure pewter boolits in ( i believe) an 80's guns and ammo yearly they had amazing sucess and devastating perfomance but .... i believe it was cost prohibitive -even back then ..umm guns and ammo magnum handguns copy write 1980 to be exact pages 76 & 77 penned by massad ayoob he said he got a bit of a charge when the chrony flashed 2596 out of a stock 357 lolz thaz humpin ! they were gonna do some more testing but i dont recollect hearing anymore about it ,pewter still isnt cheap compared to lead but ..neither is tin
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| Posted: Sun Sep 27th, 2009 06:18 AM |
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Harvey57
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I always have trouble with Zinc in the mix. It will galvanise your steel pot and it's pour spot. I must, while the pot is hot, shove a brad nail into my spouts. After which, things go back to normal. Let the casting commence.
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| Posted: Sun Sep 27th, 2009 07:55 AM |
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leadhead
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Thanks for the responses, but maybe I wasn't entirely clear with my question. I dont want to cast pewter bullets but was wondering since I can get both tin and antimony in the pewter for about the same price per/lb as tin is this a good way to get both of those into my melt in the proper amounts or should I use tin and antimony separately.
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| Posted: Sun Sep 27th, 2009 08:26 AM |
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Harvey57
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Pewter is a minimum of 91.5% Tin and 8% antimony. Magnum alloys (the hard stuff) are 92% or 91% Lead, 6% Antimony and 2% or 3% Tin. Cowboy action or softer alloys are typically 20-1 and 30-1 (Lead-Tin). Use your Pewter as if it were Tin in softer alloy (30-1) or make harder alloy 50-1 (WW-Pewter ). It will flow into your molds easily. Bullets will be shiny. With a lot of tin in the bullets, hotter loads may leave Tin in the barrel (Tining). I hope this will help. Last edited on Sun Sep 27th, 2009 08:30 AM by Harvey57
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| Posted: Sun Sep 27th, 2009 12:47 PM |
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fryboy
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if u have a hardness tester it'd be a piece of cake ..if not it's pretty much guess work ,as u note pewter comes in at least 2 flavors ...leaded and unleaded,it also,like lead, comes in various alloys all called the same thing ,it melts fine in a pot full of lead and while i have dropped small scrap pieces in the melt,if ( and i believe rotometals gives the alloy content )u start with virgin materials u can make any alloy u wish , u can buy the alloy u want cheaper than mixing it
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| Posted: Sun Sep 27th, 2009 11:13 PM |
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miestro_jerry
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I work with Pewter regularly, there is no set recipe for pewter, but I find most of the modern stuff having copper in it. It is O.K. to use if it is a modern pewter, older pewter can have lead in it, some of the new Chinese pewter has "what ever metals" in it. There are various trade formulas for pewter, 91% tin and the rest a combination of antimony and copper.
You could always cast some bullets out of pewter and shoot them, they are very hard and have various impact effects, such as shattering, being AP in nature, tumbing and few more that I can remember at this moment.
Jerry
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| Posted: Sun Sep 27th, 2009 11:16 PM |
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leadhead
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Thanks guys thats the info I was looking for.
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| Posted: Mon Sep 28th, 2009 01:10 AM |
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fornra
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If you go to flea markets and antique malls you can sometimes find pewter for as little as $1 per #. Just try and find tin for that price!
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| Posted: Mon Sep 28th, 2009 01:16 AM |
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miestro_jerry
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I do the flea market and antique mall round regularly. Some of the pewter out there has zinc and other non-pewter stuff in it. We have to beware when trying to melt that stuff down.
Jerry
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| Posted: Sat Oct 10th, 2009 01:02 AM |
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dtknowles
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leadhead wrote: Anybody use pewter (either leaded or unleaded) to get tin and antimony rather than getting each separately? Was looking around rotometals and it seemed like a good idea or am i missing something? Just trying to find sources if I can't scrounge them up elsewhere.
If you can get a real tin/antimony alloy without any bad stuff for a good price you are all set. Pure antimony is a poor choice because you can't get your pot hot enough to melt it so it will take a long time to desolve. Babbit is another good choice. I like to water drop harden my boolits so I prefer scrap shot for the arsnic content. Wish I could get more wheelweights without zinc.
Tim
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