How to pour a spool....

[Jeremiah]

Pure lead, as used for muzzleloaders and black powder cartridge arms, has a Brinell hardness of about 5; wheel weights have a brinell hardness of about 8 or 9. Linotype has a brinell hardness of about 22, making it an excellent alloy of bullet casting.

Wheel weights, are composed roughly of 95.5% lead, 4% antimony, and 0.5 % tin. Tin is added to increase the “filling out” of the mould... Antimony is used to give some molecular level hardness to the lead. Too much antimony in the lead alloy and the metal can actually become brittle enough to break on dropping. To get the best results, both tin and antimony must be present.


Here's an article discussing how to make wheel weight lead alloy about has hard at the Linotype:
http://www.surplusrifle.com/shooting/alloyhardness/index.asp
Through heat-treating methods alone, they actually got the wheel weight lead harder (Brinell hardness of 30-45 depending on method) than the Linotype. Generally in metallurgy hardness = brittleness, so how all this will translate into longevity of the "cast locker" I don't know. I also wonder if adding a little tin (solder?) would help make the lead fill into the gears more tightly?

[nobearsyet]

When my computer will open the Surplus rifle page I'll have t ocheck that out.  Otherwise, I like the idea of making cheap wheel weights hard enough to not lead my 44 Mag, I am also wondering why linotype wouldn't be better, I can't see it being that much more brittle, I've used it for 35K psi cast rifle bullets and all was just fine

[outsydthbox]

     I have been reading this thread for a long time... very interesting. I think the brinell/  of the different alloys
raises another question that need to thought through. Which is... might it be possible to use an alloy that was hard enough, that IF/WHEN it fails, the loose pieces would actually DAMAGE  the gears faces? Another question is...what is the right balance between hard and soft to "absorb" the shock loads without fracturing or shattering?  Harder is not always better.
    A good example that comes to mind, is the Axles used for hard-core drag racing...they are actually "softer"
than the ones in your daily driver. The reason is so they FLEX, and absorb shock loads.
    Finding that "balance" between strength and durability. Someone on this thread made a good point...when the lead breaks...re-pour it, but maybe it's just soft enough to keep other things from breaking. Kinda like a fuse.   My 2 cents.


 

[ZUKIMON]

Someone on this thread made a good point...when the lead breaks...re-pour it, but maybe it's just soft enough to keep other things from breaking. Kinda like a fuse.   My 2 cents.

This is partially why I went this route. I figured that if I were getting on it too hard, the lead would eventually fail and I would have an indicator that I should do something different. It also felt good knowing that I could re-pour it should this ever happen and I would be totally able to replace each part in the diff with stock peices that are readily available.