I may have access to some Pewter, Pewter is made up from:
90 to 98% Tin
0.5 to 8% Antimony
0.25 to 2.5% Copper

Most of it has Copper on the lower side of the percentage allowed for Copper.

Will the Copper cause any problems in using this to harden lead for bullets?

Any idea about what this would be worth per pound?


Michael Grace

Copper is not something you want much in bullets. Mold fill-out suffers at concentrations greater than about 0.5% total. If you treat your pewter as pure tin and add it to lead up to 5% (or even 10%, although wasteful), you won't add enough Cu to the total to make a difference. I've used babbitt alloy with 0.3% Cu and it casts beautifully. Tin only adds so much hardness, and there is not enough antimony in it to make a difference, so unless you plan on heat-treating, you'll need more Sb (commonly linotype) to get the hardness up. Your pewter added at a rate of 2-3% to clean wheelweight alloy would make a really nice bullet with a BHN of ~13. You could water-drop them or better yet, oven-treat them if you need more hardness. What it's worth is up to you, but since it is basically just a tin source, I'd offer $1/lb, but it may be worth $3 or more if you have no other tin source. A few pounds would go a long way at 2%.