I have always used wheel weights for my bullets. If I want to make them stiffer then what the wheel weights do, I add tin. Seeing how I never done that, how do I? Do I just brake off peaces of a tin can and toss it in? To me that sounds funny and funny usly dosent work when it comes to me.

Sorry but 'tin cans' have not been made out of tin for the past hundred years or so.
Tin is primarily used like a wetting agent in water. The tin helps give better fill out.
Get some linotype, drop a pound of linotype into 18 or so pounds of wheel weights and you're good to go.

Jim

JK; I don't use tin to add hardness to my bullets, it's expensive, but I do add a small percentage if I am having trouble with fill out. If you are wanting harder bullets drop them directly from the mold into a bucket of cold tap water, then size the same day, they will age up to about a 20 BHN, about the same hardness as linotype. Usually very little tin,1-2% will give good fill out, if I have to add I use 1/2 pound to a 20# pot. You can find tin at the recyclers, last I got was 3.00 per pound, or solder drippings from radiator shops is another source, you can buy it from Midway also.

I use wheelweights and 50/50 solder/ The bar stock solder is available at roofing supply houses. Just use a good flux and stir.

If you want to harden a cast bullet alloy, you need to add antimony. It's best gotten in Linotype as arky stated. You can water quench your bullets, this will harden them quite a bit. Unless you are shooting at vel. much above 1200fps, straight ww work fine. if you are having leading problems, then look closer at your lube & how you are sizing them. Oversize bullets normally lead less than undersize. They shoul dbe at least 0.001" larger than bore dia.

To be pendantic (vice of mine)...

Tin cans were steel cans with a coating of tin to prevent rust. Scratches were a problem. Punctured the "tin." Thus the old boy scout direction to burn the can in the fire after emptying to burn thru the tin so they would rust down and be reabsorbed by earth... Getting the tin for your purposes would be extremely costly and ill advised...

The common, less now, "cheat" was tooth paste and other cosmetic tubes. Law forbid the use of lead so they were pure tin. Like heavy "tin foil." Today more paper/plastic tubes and the tin foil is aluminum... Oh well. Still see them some times. Melt good at high enough temps and it doesn't take much tin. Alloys usually melt at lower temps and to get mix, higher heat...

Linotype, from printers, is less common but sometimes you find it. Plumbers solder is available in various mixes. 50-50. 60-40. Not cheap but, again, doesn't take much. Lyman books have formulas to make #2 and #3 alloys and others. Haven't checked the web site. HAPPY NEW YEAR. Happy trails.

Old joints from lead pipework will contain tin in the solder part. Or use linotype. Really unless you are exceeding 1500fps wheelewights where you "flux" with a candle and stir the mixture well are pretty much as good. Its the antimony that gives the hardness as stated by others. Don't use plumbers' flux...every iron thing it your casting shack will rust!

Wheelweights typically still have some antimony in them, although not as much as in years past because a lot of them have been re-melted and re-used, and the antimony can sometimes be cooked out of the alloy. By and large, however, there is enough to accomplish the hardening you seek.

If your wheelweight bullets cast well and fill out, shoot them as cast. Dropping them into water will make them so hard they may not obturate in the barrel on firing well enough to completely seal the bore, and you may get gas cutting, which causes leading like a pig. That is the problem with most commercial cast bullets: they are too hard. They are cast that way so they don't dent in shipment. The resulting bullet is gorgeous, but it is so hard that if it doesn't fit the bore exactly right you get leading...

I recommend 19# of wheel weights and one bar of 50/50 solder from a plumbing supply house, as has been mentioned earlier. The resulting alloy will be soft enough to upset upon firing so leading is minimal, and the tin content is high enough to ensure the mould fills properly.

I would also remind everyone that Elmer specified 16:1 lead/tin alloy, with no antimony at all...