Pennies?

[chris in va]

Curious about the legal aspect of melting down pennies to try out a zinc boolit. 97.5% zinc, the rest is copper coating which should just get scooped out.

[warf73]

Not sure how much a penny a weights but to I'm guessing you could buy the zinc cheaper? As for legal aspect I wouldn't worry about it.

[lwknight]

The Federal Reserve Bank says that its illegal to destroy money. But guess what , they don't make law and are not even any part of the government. There is no such laws in the books.

[Three44s]

Now, we have been discussing the bane of casters ..... zinc wheel weights .......

............. get any ideas??

Three 44s

[BOOM BOOM]

hi,
you could get Zn tire wts. for free.:Fire::Fire:

[chris in va]

Hmm, just read that zinc melt will eat aluminum like candy. I have a 45acp mold I'm not using anymore, might be worth trying just for the heck of it.

Bottom line though, we're all gonna have to find a different material to cast with soon.

[waksupi]

The Federal Reserve Bank says that its illegal to destroy money. But guess what , they don't make law and are not even any part of the government. There is no such laws in the books.

Let me know how that works out for you.... :sad:

A friend tells me if you melt down $1,000,000 in nickles, you can get $1,200,000 in scrap price.

[outdoorfan]

[QUOTE=lwknight;1151091]The Federal Reserve Bank says that its illegal to destroy money. QUOTE]


That's what they do all the time through inflation.

(Sorry, just had to add that) :mrgreen:

[deltaenterprizes]

It is only illegal if you get caught!

[Freightman]

The scrap price of zinc is higher than what the penny is worth in exchange. There has been discussion of scraping the penny and have only nickles dimes and quarters.

[bowenrd]

The Federal Reserve Bank says that its illegal to destroy money. But guess what , they don't make law and are not even any part of the government. There is no such laws in the books.

Money can be used for anything NOT illegal. If you want to light your cigar with a hundred dollar bill there is no law against it. The Fed Reserve is not a law maker or the police. They can tell you anything but that doesn't make it so.

[Tom W.]

It is only illegal if you get caught!




It isn't illegal if you DO get caught. The only illegal aspect of it is if you try to defraud anyone with it....

[gray wolf]

What the heck you gonna do ? cast in front of the federal reserve ?
Who will ever know but you ?
Well the world knows now Eh.

JUST do it---------do it twice

[blackthorn]

Save your pennies to buy WW and sort out the Zinc I suspect you will be $ ahead in the end.

[hoosierlogger]

I have been saving my solid copper pennies in a jug. I dont know what I am going to do with them, but I am still saving them.

[deltaenterprizes]

It isn't illegal if you DO get caught. The only illegal aspect of it is if you try to defraud anyone with it....

That reminds me of an episode of " Death Valley Days" where a Mexican was making American silver dollars in Mexico from pure silver he had mined and was spending them in the US. He was arrested and charged with counterfeiting but at the trial the judge ruled that since his has more silver than the US coins there was no crime!

[thx997303]

Sounds like an unintelligent sort right there delta.

[nanuk]

I have been saving my solid copper pennies in a jug. I dont know what I am going to do with them, but I am still saving them.



same here

with the price of copper going up....

[waksupi]

That reminds me of an episode of " Death Valley Days" where a Mexican was making American silver dollars in Mexico from pure silver he had mined and was spending them in the US. He was arrested and charged with counterfeiting but at the trial the judge ruled that since his has more silver than the US coins there was no crime!


I'd love to see the old Death Valley Days shows again!

[Skipper488]

I'd be in real trouble if they really worried about it, I smashed hundreds of pennies on the train tracks behind the house when I was a kid. Come to think of it all the touristy places have hand cranked machines to smash pennies into memorabilia, I've got three from the Navy Pier in Chicago now.

[2wheelDuke]

I'd be in real trouble if they really worried about it, I smashed hundreds of pennies on the train tracks behind the house when I was a kid. Come to think of it all the touristy places have hand cranked machines to smash pennies into memorabilia, I've got three from the Navy Pier in Chicago now.

The trick shooters that shoot coins out of the air may have to watch out then too :veryconfu

Maybe they could use KO slugs from electrical boxes instead.

[dakotashooter2]

A penny cost 1.5 cents to make......... I agree.. it would be a lot easier to get zinc wheel weights. The problem with Zinc seems to be to get consistent fillout without voids. That makes me wonder if it wouldn't work best with some sort of injection process or by swagging.

[ghh3rd]

I have been saving my solid copper pennies in a jug. I dont know what I am going to do with them, but I am still saving them.
They make nice targets for the 50 yard range :)

[deltaenterprizes]

The copper pennies will be collectable like the silver coins are now.

[XWrench3]

i am no lawyer, nor the police, or involved with the gov't in any way. but what you do in your home, with your money, while no one is watching, seems like it should be your business. i have drilled several pennies to use as washers in a pinch. i don't think they are ideal, but it was way better than driving 40 miles on a sunday afternoon for a few washers. by the same token, i wouldn't go buy a couple of buckets of wheel weights just to get enough zinc to melt down for a few trial bullets. pennies are cheap, just do it!

[hoosierlogger]

i have drilled several pennies to use as washers in a pinch. i don't think they are ideal, but it was way better than driving 40 miles on a sunday afternoon for a few washers.


Ive dont it too. They are cheaper than at the hardware store too.

[dart55]

:grin:Rememeber what people said about Samuel Colt and his pistols:grin:

God made man and Sam Colt made em equal :Fire:

If we cast with pennies they are all stamped with "In God We Trust"!! We've gone FULL CIRCLE!!:wink:

Dan

[badbob454]

Hmm, just read that zinc melt will eat aluminum like candy. I have a 45acp mold I'm not using anymore, might be worth trying just for the heck of it.

Bottom line though, we're all gonna have to find a different material to cast with soon.

how does it melt aluminum? isnt the heat different by hundreds of degrees , i would like to see the article if you know where it is thanks badbobgerman... p.s. in kalifornia,:drinks: zinc is becoming plentifull in ww's

[firefly1957]

Zinc will stick to aluminum so it can tear up a mold it would be best to use a steel mold to cast zinc bullets. Zinc is harder and lighter than lead and bullets have been made of it in the past.

I have not heard of anyone happy with zinc bullets yet, are there any desenting voices out there?

[yobohadi]

Has anyone here successfully used a penny for a gas check? I was thinking of either using a press to form a penny thick gas check and maybe get a custom mold made with the gas check base as a smaller diameter than normal. 1 cent gas checks sound better than the 3 - 4 cent ones for 44 cal.

[hoosierlogger]

Has anyone here successfully used a penny for a gas check?

I think that would probably fall into the overkill category. You would need a hydraulic press to form it. With the money you spend on the press, it would be a LOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOONG time before you started saving money

[Flash]

I'd love to see the old Death Valley Days shows again!

I'd rather see The American Sportsman with Curt Gowdy

[perotter]

Zinc will stick to aluminum so it can tear up a mold it would be best to use a steel mold to cast zinc bullets. Zinc is harder and lighter than lead and bullets have been made of it in the past.

I have not heard of anyone happy with zinc bullets yet, are there any desenting voices out there?

I've cast about 100 zinc bullets in a Lee aluminum mold. The only reason I don't do many is because cutting the spue takes a lot of force. Also, don't use a Lee factory crimp die.

For the zinc, I used a special version of Zamak-3. Zamak-3 is make for high pressure casting. The special version I use is made & sold by Belmont. There name for is is Superdie. Melted zinc doesn't flow well & I doubt is use pennies would work well. This is based on 20 years of casting zinc commercially.

I'd happily use zinc bullets if I every had a mold that made cutting the spue easy.

[Three-Fifty-Seven]

All you need to squish pennies is a train . . . put them on a couple times . . . besides . . . we use to do it for fun!

[vulture47]

A little off topic here but how do you tell a zinc ww from a lead one. I have over 500 lbs of ww's sitting in my shop but I'm not positive what they are made of. The tire guy gave them to me free and they are brand new, never used he just old me they were the wrong ones and he couldn't use them and shipping to return them was more than they were worth so I could have all I wanted, I wanted them all. Is there a simple way to tell the two metals apart?

[lwknight]

Lead weights can be cut with dikes. Zinc will give you a hyena trying to cut.
Also zinc will react with muratic acic. Most zinc weights have Zn stamped somewhere.

[waksupi]

Considering zinc was trading at around 97 cents a pound this week, I don't know if I would be too picky, if it was available real cheap.

[firefly1957]

perotter I have melted and poured zinc pennies for my son's science project the metal flows well much like lead. I was making strips for use in making batteries he got a A for it.

The reason we can pour zinc into Aluminium molds is that A) the zinc cools quickly B) because many of us have smoked or otherwise treated our mold cavities which gives a thin barrier between the to metals. If the zinc is hot enough I have heard of molds be damaged but have never witnessed it. It is also possible to solder brass molds together with lead but have never witnessed it. I did cast some of that zinc from my kids project in a Lyman mold the bullets looked fine and if I remember correctly were 60% lighter than lead. I never loaded them and shot them from slingshot for which they worked well.

[perotter]

firefly1957 It is good to know that the zinc from pennies can be cast. But, with all due respect, a strips & a bullet is a very simple shape to cast. Zinc won't back flow or fill as easily as lead.

Figure, as a rule of the thump, 63% lighter.

[BAGTIC]

Zinc is not 63 % lighter than lead. If it was a 100 grain lead bullet would weigh 37 grains when cast in zinc.

It is 60-63% as heavy as lead. A 100 grain bullet weighs 63 grains when cast in zinc.

[BOOM BOOM]

HI,
I did a thread on the Zn casting of bullets about a year ago.
Check it out before you cast.
Several of the senior members of this board have done it successfully.
Thread search is worth while.:Fire::Fire:

[Rio Grande]

Swaging, uh, jackets - or gas checks...from pennies is certainly a good idea. Maybe something like a swaged penny wrapped around a cheap steel insert or a 000 buckshot - made all in one press stroke (hydraulic press). A potential very high production rate item.

I understand zinc has an 'affinity' with lead, so that zinc fired thru a leaded bore will remove the lead. An extra benefit.

Also, the penny does cost more to manufacture than it's face value - stupid government! When it is abandoned or replaced some people say it will not be 'illegal' any more to melt or modify it.

At work we use pennys for shims when we clamp down hard on machined parts. I enjoy that - being from the South I like putting the pressure on old Abe Lincoln.

[firefly1957]

BAGTIC Thanks I did catch that I had it backwards.

[blackthorn]

The REAL reason the government wants to abolish pennies is somebody told them the troublemakers over at "Cast Boolits" were close to figgering out how to make bullets out of them!!!!

[Dannix]

Thread search is worth while.:Fire::Fire:
Indeed. jbunny has some good posts out there too.

Worth the search guys.


The REAL reason the government wants to abolish pennies is somebody told them the troublemakers over at "Cast Boolits" were close to figgering out how to make bullets out of them!!!!
I can see it now. We'll get penny boolits down, in the years to come the penny will be no more, and then there will be GBs for replicating babbit zinc boolits of yore. :mrgreen:


I'll be very interested to see if any of the commercial guys start using zinc jackets. With the cost of Cu going up, I'm surprised no one has tried it. I guess they are all too established and now risk adverse.

[firefly1957]

With A Moly coat either zinc or aluminum could be worth a try for jackets at least in pistol.