Shiloh Rifle Forums

Hi There,
i am shooting with a Shiloh 1874 long range, .45.70 with 56.2gr Swiss Blackpowder No2 (European naming, don^t worry) and a RCBS 530 gr. bullet with quite good results on 100m (due to the range situation here in Switzerland). after some testing I am casting my bullets with 96% lead and 4% pure tin.
It ist quite expensive to get pure tin, but very simlpe and cheap to get old kitchen-ware made of tin from a scrap trade. The guy there measured the purity of the plates with an interesting hand held tool, showing all ingridients on a screen, and it showed about 90-95% purity for tin, but between 3-10% additional substances in the alloy with different percentages.
it that a problem ? or should i just use pure tin?
Thanks
Ulrich

By Tinware do you mean PUTER? Vic.

Pewter is a fine and suitable substitute for pure tin

The other alloying metals provide a nice toughness and ductility just as the do for the "kitchenware"

It is advisable to mix your alloys using Brinell hardness measurement when using pewter

Several measuring devices are available for this

Hope this helps

Dave

Hey guys,
now its getting difficult. I can^t find any translation for PUTER. According to LEO.org PEWTER is "Zinngeschirr"....Zinn is "tin", and "Geschirr" is kitchenware (plates and cups). And that is what I asked for. So i will go for it.
4% Pewter-tin in lead, with an overall purity of ca. 95%, makes 0.2% overall impurity in my bullet-alloy ...that does not sound dangerous for my barrel.
Thanks
Ulrich

You have such a fine rifle, do not be cheap and cut corners. Buy high quality pure tin and let your rifle shoot its best. Your bullets will be far more consistent from batch to batch and the targets will show the difference.

Ammo of the same quality as your rifle is not that expensive to make.

BFD, you say not expensive to make, no, not in the
US maybe but certainly here in the UK and maybe other European countries, it certainly isn't cheap. I have visited the states a lot and love it there, and it is very obvious that stuff is way cheaper for you guys. We pay twice what you do for Swiss powder as an example, I wonder what it costs in Switzerland
I do agree though that corners must not be cut, just not worth it.
I have just received my new Shiloh Hartford/Quigley rifle and on top of the base price it cost at least $1800 to get it hear
Very often it is still cheaper to buy supplies from the US than buy here even though the shipping and duty is high.
Cheers,
Chris

Ulrich
There is merrit in what BFD said, but sometimes not breaking the bank is desirable. The only thing you will find in your pewter that we don’t intentionally alloy here is bismuth. But the number one property for pewter is it must me malleable, a good property for a bullet. You might want to melt several pewter pieces together so you can make a consistent alloy from batch to batch. If you can get an ounce of pure tin, make up a batch of bullets from it and see how they compare accuracy wise with your “kitchenware” bullets. Most likely you won’t be able to measure the difference on the target. None of the various pewter alloys I could find had anything in them that would harm your barrel. Just don’t use your kitchenware to make sauerbraten.

I have been lucky enough to have picked up and accumulated a goodly amount of LEAD clip on wheel weights(coww) over the last
64 plus yrs of casting bullets.
lately I have to sort out only maybe +- 10% of Zinc and Iron WWs from the buckets.
Also, have accumulated a fair amount of Linotype.
So, I continue to use 9+1 coww/lino alloy for most of my bullets.
Seems to work about like 16+1 lead/tin for me.
But, I do use 19+1 for some 25 cal Schuetzen bullets as objective comparative testing has shown the 19+1 works better
for my breech seating shooting.
beltfed/arnie

A typical European casting alloy contains 94% tin, 1% copper, and 5% antimony. A European pewter sheet would contain 92% tin, 2% copper, and 6% antimony. Asian pewter, produced mostly in Malaysia, Singapore, and Thailand, contains a higher percentage of tin, usually 97.5% tin, 1% copper, and 1.5% antimony. This makes the alloy slightly softer.
They all can be melted down and the amount of tin adjusted for the bullet alloy ratio, 1:20 - 1:30