anchor lead alloy question

[uncle joe]

I just came into some Powers brand lead anchors. Their website says that one part of the anchor is made of antimonial lead alloy. I'm wondering if anyone knows how much antimony is in these anchors and what amount I need to mix with straight ww to get a good boolit mixture. The other half they say is made of zamac alloy. Something I'm sure they invented and is of a secret majic mixture, but I thought I may get some good mixture with the lead half.
anyone got any ideas.
:castmine:

[JSnover]

I know ZAMAC is an acronym for Zinc Aluminum Magnesium And Copper alloy but I don't have any idea what the proportions are. None of them are any good for casting boolits, though.....

[uncle joe]

sounds like it might be fun to burn it and spray water on it :mrgreen:

[runfiverun]

i think i would just melt it down and make an boat anchor out of it

[Johnch]

ZAMAC is what they make a lot of the cheap 22 - 45 blow back pistols out of

I beleive it melts at a rather hight temp from memory

I would also try to not run the pot to hot and metl any of it into the lead

John

[dnepr]

Zamac is a casting alloy. If memory serves me these are mostly zinc and cast at low temps. There are different alloys. Zamac 3 is the common diecast alloy , all kinds of stuff is produce with this stuff . and that is probably what you are dealing with.If you can find someone who has been reading the Gingery series on hobby casting you should be able to do a profitable swap for some lead.
These alloys are generally looked at as junk because a lot of cheap stuff is cast fron them but some of the higher grades like Zamac 10 ( I think thats the right # but I am going from memory ) is a little harder to cast with and doesn't flow as well but has a similar tensile strength as cast iron.

[HORNET]

You might want to hang onto those ZAMAC anchors for a little bit. we do have a member on here that uses zinc WW and zinc-contaminated alloy to cast mortar/cannon balls. IIRC, I think he's playing in the middle-east sandbox at the moment (can't think of his name, dagnabbit).
For that matter, you might get a fairly good price for them as scrap, or just resell them as anchors.

[uncle joe]

I melted the soft halves down in to ingots. they melted just like the ww I have a few hundred pounds of.

I put a torch up to the harder half which is the zamac, it did some nasty simmering and didn't look like it would melt well at all.
I let the garbage man have it, didn' think it would be of any use for any one.