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Double Rifles, Single Shots & Combinations >> Paradox and Bore Guns
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mart
.300 member


Reged: 20/01/04
Posts: 107
Loc: Alaska
Alloy hardness for a 12 bore Paradox?
      #285360 - 17/07/16 04:37 AM

One of my friends just picked up a hammerless H&H 12 bore Paradox. With it is the sizer, crimping tool, and bullet mold. He is not a bullet caster so the job fell to me to help him out. Any thoughts on what the correct bullet hardness should be? I see references to "hardened" but no specifics. Seyfried's article in Handloader suggests a 20/1 alloy and I'll likely go with that unless other wisdom prevails. I have plenty of pure lead, wheel weights and linotype as well as several pounds of tin. Thanks in advance.

Mart

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mart
.300 member


Reged: 20/01/04
Posts: 107
Loc: Alaska
Re: Alloy hardness for a 12 bore Paradox? [Re: mart]
      #285361 - 17/07/16 04:50 AM

I may have found my answer. I found a post a few pages down with a link to a Julia auction of a mold, sizer and fixer which included a sheet of instruction from H&H. It recommended an alloy of 15/1, lead/tin. Any thoughts?

Mart

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DarylS
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Re: Alloy hardness for a 12 bore Paradox? [Re: mart]
      #285362 - 17/07/16 06:14 AM

Sounds good, however, depending on the penetration NEEDED, a 10:1 through to perhaps even 40:1 lead/tin would likely work well. Slightly softer alloys will not penetrate as well, but will obturate in the bore better with black powder loads and thus may shoot the best of all - for those, perhaps 30:1 to 40:1, or a 50:50 WW/Pure Lead mix that shot best in one of my BP rifles I should not have traded off.

Back in the day, mercury was used as a hardening agent and later on, tin was used. Just when the switch-over to tin as a hardening agent, I do not know.

How well mercury hardened the lead, I do not know either - however Forsyth mentioned this in his 1863 book.

--------------------
Daryl


"a gun without hammers is like a Spaniel without ears" King George V

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MikeRowe
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Reged: 23/11/11
Posts: 478
Loc: Arkansas, USA
Re: Alloy hardness for a 12 bore Paradox? [Re: DarylS]
      #285367 - 17/07/16 08:23 AM

1 in 15 mix is the only one I have ever seen on original Holland and Holland loading cards in the cases (and there have been quite a few).

I think the correct alloy is most important in relation to how the bullet behaves in the choke section of the barrel.

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mart
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Reged: 20/01/04
Posts: 107
Loc: Alaska
Re: Alloy hardness for a 12 bore Paradox? [Re: MikeRowe]
      #285371 - 17/07/16 10:00 AM

Here's 140 of them I cast this afternoon. I went with the 15/1 alloy.

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DarylS
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Re: Alloy hardness for a 12 bore Paradox? [Re: mart]
      #285375 - 17/07/16 10:21 AM


They look fantastic!

--------------------
Daryl


"a gun without hammers is like a Spaniel without ears" King George V

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mart
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Reged: 20/01/04
Posts: 107
Loc: Alaska
Re: Alloy hardness for a 12 bore Paradox? [Re: DarylS]
      #285377 - 17/07/16 10:31 AM

Thanks Daryl. I'll cast up a couple more batches and send my friend a couple hundred for his gun. I wish we lived closer, he's in Florida and I'm in Alaska and we work together on the north slope. We don't get to shoot together very often.

Edited by mart (17/07/16 04:02 PM)

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Jim_C
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Reged: 09/08/14
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Re: Alloy hardness for a 12 bore Paradox? [Re: mart]
      #285381 - 17/07/16 11:38 AM

Years ago (many years ago) when I corresponded with Elmer Keith, I asked for suggestions on the best alloy for slugs in a shotgun or Paradox. He replied that I should mix 7 pounds of plumbers lead with a pound of 50/50 bar solder. I always wondered where he got that recipe.

As for adding mercury, it is tricky to do. It fumes at the melting point of lead, so you really should do this in a fume hood. I did some limited testing based on old patent and research papers, and was able to confirm that an alloy of:

96.5% lead, with the remainder being trace elements
1.0% mercury
.8% calcium
.8% tin
.9% trace elements (primarily aluminum, copper, silver)

would consistently result in an alloy with a Brinell Hardness of 24. (Pure lead is 5.0 HB, wheelweights are often heat-treated to around 20 HB, Linotype is 22HB, many Babbitt alloys will go harder depending on composition.)

Then I lost access to the fume hood, and went back to the typemetals and Babbitts I'd been using without the worry about mercury poisoning!

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DarylS
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Reged: 10/08/05
Posts: 26488
Loc: Beautiful British Columbia, Ca...
Re: Alloy hardness for a 12 bore Paradox? [Re: Jim_C]
      #285396 - 17/07/16 03:02 PM

Quote:

Years ago (many years ago) when I corresponded with Elmer Keith, I asked for suggestions on the best alloy for slugs in a shotgun or Paradox. He replied that I should mix 7 pounds of plumbers lead with a pound of 50/50 bar solder. I always wondered where he got that recipe.



The Mix Elmer quoted would make almost a 15:1 tin to lead mix - perfect for magnum pistol bullets or low velocity shotshell bullets. An alloy of 10:1 tin (4.5lbs. lead with 1 pound of 50/50solder) to lead will yield the hardest of tin/lead mixes, I read some where, and works with rifle bullets up to about 1,900fps to 2,000fps with a good lube.

Of course we know today, that all alloys have pressure ceilings - how that relates to the tin/lead mixes, I do not know as I do not have a brinel hardnes measuring device.

I do know that the old hardened standard WW cast bullets can "take" up to magnum speeds - certainly to 3,000fps+ in the .300's. "Jacketed performance with Cast Bullets" by Veral Smith is well worth the few $$ for the book.

The stick on WW need not apply for this job as they are nearly pure lead.

--------------------
Daryl


"a gun without hammers is like a Spaniel without ears" King George V

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CommandCar
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Reged: 18/09/10
Posts: 292
Loc: East Coast, USA
Re: Alloy hardness for a 12 bore Paradox? [Re: mart]
      #285589 - 24/07/16 02:46 AM

I started with 20-1. I believe Ross used this to go easy on his original paradox. I was having accuracy issues with my ca. 1926 nitro fosbery choked Evans. Going to 15-1 cured the accuracy issues for me. Nitro paradox operate at slightly higher velocity, which may have been the reason i needed the slightly harder alloy.

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