Comments by "" (@neutronalchemist3241) on "Copper Alloy RANT: FURIOUS!" video.

He said that in the clip, talking of lead and arsenical bronze (aluminium and nickel bronze are pretty modern, lead and arsenical bronze have a long history).
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He's drinking dihydrogen monoxide! It can be lethal!
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There was a problem with brass. While pure copper and tin were obtained in ancient times, Pure zinc didn't (metallic zinc was isolated in India only around 1300 AD). That means that zinc were made adding rocks that contained zinc to copper in the crucible, but that way was really difficult to control the percentage of the components, and so the mechanical characteristics of the alloy.
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@perfectibility999 Yeah. Brass was more easily obtainable (zinc is more abundant than tin), but the mechanical properties of the bronze were easier to predict.
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@perfectibility999 Yes. Bronze is in general harder, but more brittle, while brass is softer and more malleable. That will make bronze a superior material to make blades but, once that role had been taken by iron and steel, bronze was not really superior to brass to make armors, blunt weapons, or even gun barrels.
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@perfectibility999 bronze was better for anything that needed to be casted. That's why it was used for guns. Before modern times you couldn't cast iron, only forge it, and you couldn't really forge something as big as a cannon. Also bronze and brass are far more resistant to corrosion, so things made of those materials had not to be continuously polished to not make them rust.
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