Finally rounded up my lead, question?

[Canuck Bob]

I've collected up 125#s of WW, 100#s magnum shot, and today added 65#s of lino and 325#s of lead flashing and pipe.

This will meet my needs for life.

The lead pipe is quite soft. Some is about 3" and 4" (about 3/16" wall) and some is 1" diameter water pipe with fairly heavy wall (just under 1/4"). Is this stuff close to industrial pure lead or would it have an alloy content? It scores easily with a thumbnail and is easily bent and cuts with a light duty pruning shear easily.

For those that track prices I wanted to buy in bulk and not be bothered with scrounging. The lino cost me $1.20/#, the soft lead .80/#, the WW .50/#. The shot was bought at Bass Pro but may get resold to balance the purchase.

The lino is originally from a news paper and looks like professionally cast 20# ingots with stamped numbers. It is very hard in comparison.

[David2011]

Congrats, Bob!

You have such a widespread variety of metal that you may want to consider getting a hardness tester. A little lino mixed in with some lead pipe (essentially pure lead) will make good plinking boolits but without a tester you could waste precious lino. Someone with more experience than myself will probably be able to tell you exactly how much lino to how much pipe lead. There are also alloy calculators available online that will help like this one: http://gunloads.com/castboolits/showthread.php?t=105952.

Tell us what yo wnat to do with the boolits- that will help get better answers. Rifle? Pistol? Target? Big game? Small game?

Have fun with metallurgy!
David

[dieguy59]

Nice score,Bob. But the fact you are a member of this forum tells me you are notset for life. Haha

[imashooter2]

21,515 boolits at 200 grains average weight. Geez man, I hope you live longer than that...

[Canuck Bob]

You guys scare me sometimes, lol. My average year would be a decent weekend of shooting around here.

I will be loading for a few rifles with mid range loads. A 32-20, 303 Brit, 32 Special, and maybe a Hornet but those tiny cast bullets seem challenging. I guess I missed a few 54 cal balls for the flinter!

[bobthenailer]

615 lbs = 21,215 bullets @200 gr . thats about 2 years of bullets for me. you better get more!

[sqlbullet]

I ingoted up 800 lbs this weekend. Of course, I sold all that to a commercial bullet casting outfit.

For me my consumption ebs and flows. Last year I didn't shoot nearly enough. This year I hope to rectify that. But the first 4 months aren't showing a lot of promise. Year before last I probably shot pretty close to 500 lbs of lead.

To answer you question, the pipe sounds like it is pretty close to pure lead. Here is an easy test when melting: Alloys soften as they get hot and go through a soft phase, then stiff mush, then runny mush, then liquid. Kinda like grainy butter. Pure lead is solid, then liquid, with no soft phase in between. Like an ice cube.

So, take a chunk and melt it watching and poking with a spoon. You will be able to tell very quickly if you have butter (alloy) or ice (pure).

[mrbillbus]

I ingoted up 800 lbs this weekend. Of course, I sold all that to a commercial bullet casting outfit.

I wouldn't have thought a commercial caster would take a chance on reclaimed lead. i just assumed they all bought the same "hard cast" alloy from the foundries and called it good. Learn something new every day!

[mold maker]

When melting the pipe, cut the joints from the pipe and melt them separately. The joints are done with a tin rich wiping solder, while the pipe is mostly pure lead.

[Canuck Bob]

Great tip sqlbullet, thanks.

The pipe came as short lengths of pipe with no joints. I'll remember the tip about rich alloy joints.

Curse you guys. I thought I had a lifetime supply and now I realize I might be kidding myself! The lead will last until retirement for sure.

[runfiverun]

if you mix all of it together you'll have a big batch of approximately ww alloy with some tin in it.
hold out 50 lbs of the soft lead for the muzzle loaders.

[Canuck Bob]

if you mix all of it together you'll have a big batch of approximately ww alloy with some tin in it.
hold out 50 lbs of the soft lead for the muzzle loaders.

This is my plan to be honest. I researched awhile ago about heat treating bullets from low antimony alloys and got a real education in stretching the richer metals. I can water drop or furnace treat for hardness when needed. My needs are very basic, rifle bullets from 1200-1800 fps depending on checked bullets or not. Hunting is not an issue and I still like shooting full power j bullets as well on occasion. I'm using the CBA calculator for reference.

With one decent alloy for my lower volume needs I get plain base 32-20 plinkers or GCed 303 Brit target loads using alloys that are not too rich in costly metals.

Now that I have it all cleaning and casting ingots seems daunting. I have a turkey fryer and cut propane tank for cleaning then alloying. I figure to clean the WWs seperately to check for zinc, I'm using the heat method to seperate. The manual method got old real fast!

I got 3 ingots of linotype so I'll stash one and one bag of shot for future needs. I'll always have some antimony and arsenic for adding to lead.

[40Super]

That pipe should be about as pure as you can get. I'm presently smelting 430lbs of it down and having a heck of a time with it. As said above,it is solid,then instntly liquid.Anything it touches it freezes to(includeing the pour spout) and gums up the stiring spoon ect... And get used to purple ingots,mine is already purple/bluish before it even melts! Maybe some other setups work better,I just have a 220v Lee 20lb,so temp control is some of it.[smilie=b:

[sqlbullet]

I wouldn't have thought a commercial caster would take a chance on reclaimed lead. i just assumed they all bought the same "hard cast" alloy from the foundries and called it good. Learn something new every day!

For about a year I sold lead in the paper. One day these guys called me and bought 100#. They liked it and came back, asked a bunch of questions about my source (isotope lead) and then cleaned me out.

Since then we have settled into a great relationship. They get about a 50% discount off my standard rate, but they buy 1500-2000 lbs at a time and always have money when I have lead. And anything unpainted over 20 lbs they take as is, so the big 31.5 lb cores i just pass along. It is just small items or lead with paint, dirt or glue that gets refined and recast as ingots.

You are right. Most commercial outfits don't give a small scrapper the time of day. But these guys are a boutique shop, they listen to their customers and they cast what works regardless of it's pedigree.

If you are in the west and see Precision Cast at a gun show, chances are it is my lead in the box.

[runfiverun]

haaa, so they did listen.