Is this oatmeal worth trying to save?

[chutestrate]

My melt temp is about 825, and there is a thick layer of oatmeal on top. The alloy is unknown composition. A lot of it came from plumbing piping. It just seems awfully thick.

The silver sheen is the lead after pulling back the oatmeal.

[GoBig]

I pull a lot of this stuff off too. I've set it aside, hoping for an answer.

[RP]

You have flux the pot I take it ?

[chutestrate]

Yes I do flux. I'll admit that I don't see any improvement when I flux after finding this oatmeal. I flux, then when I let the pot sit for a while heating up the oatmeal returns.

[Oklahoma Rebel]

what do you flux with, I use old bullet lube or beeswax if I have too ( haven't had to yet!)

[Yodogsandman]

Have you tried turning down the pot after fluxing?

[muskeg13]

Looks like zinc contamination to me. If it is zinc, I'd skim off the "oatmeal," discard it and save the rest.

[chutestrate]

I flux with a white powder from frankford arsenal. I typically keep my temp around 750. i thought I could mix the oatmeal back in.

[Tatume]

Try skimming off the top, and then cast some bullets with the clean alloy underneath. If it will fill out the mold and make nice looking bullets, weigh them. If the are wrinkle free, and weigh approximately what you expect, then use the alloy. You can figure out what the other stuff is later.

If the material won't fill the cavities or wrinkles, the bullets are lighter than you expect, or both, then the material is contaminated, probably with zinc.

Try it, and let us know what you learn.

Take care, Tom

[chutestrate]

Thanks Tom. I've been doing that for a while. I've saved all the oatmeal so I can go back to it and try to salvage what i can. The bullets fill the molds nicely, and I am averaging 122 to 124 gr for my lee 9mm 124 gr mold.

[Bama]

You may want to read the threads on using copper sulfate. It also removes the last of the Zinc as well as adding a little copper. Just be sure NOT to stir before the blue crystal turn white. After mixing the dirty white powder contains the zinc.

[6622729]

It looks like zinc. Which came first in regards to the 825 temp? We're you simply running that hot and accidentally got some zinc in there which will melt when that hot or would your pot just not melt so you cranked up the temp? I'd be trying to run a lot cooler than 825. A 700 degree burn would be no fun but a bad afternoon at 825 has to be exponentially worse.

[chutestrate]

I didn't expect the temp to go that high. I normally go 650 to 700. I will look at the the copper sulfite threads. Didn't know about that.

[Bird]

Take the pot temp to 600 deg and scrape off everything that comes to the surface. The zinc will stay in the mix below this temp, and much above 620 deg it will go back into the melt. I have just been through a similar scenario, although with a smaller amount of contamination.
Give it a try, it worked out good for me.
You may need to go a little higher than 600 if you are using pure lead.

[243winxb]

A guy gave me a 40 lb ingot that looked like that . Fluxed and cleaned the dross off the top.
Was close to pure lead. Added some linotype. Made good bullets.

Clean scrap in a different pot, make ingots that fit the casting pot.

[Andy]

Thanks for posting the photo, I have had this on occasion and did not know what it was. I too have been saving it and will try the temp recommendations in this post. I wouldn't have realized it applied to me unless I had seen your photo, thanks for sharing.

[44man]

Take the pot temp to 600 deg and scrape off everything that comes to the surface. The zinc will stay in the mix below this temp, and much above 620 deg it will go back into the melt. I have just been through a similar scenario, although with a smaller amount of contamination.
Give it a try, it worked out good for me.
You may need to go a little higher than 600 if you are using pure lead.
This is correct.
DO NOT flux it in, dump it. It IS zinc. If you added SO weights to CO that is where it came from.
I have seen that from plumbing pipe and it might be calcium plus a lot of junk from water.

[chutestrate]

Thank you all for the advice.

[leadman]

I use Zep Root Killer, which is copper sulfate to clean lead like this. I found if you crush the crystals with the backside of a spoon before using them it seems to work better. As stated above do not stir them in until ALL of the blue is gone. The color changes when the moisture is gone.

[runfiverun]

if you trade the copper in for zinc [especially at a percentage high enough for the gunk to come out like that] you run into other problems casting the copper alloy.

I think you have a bunch of other 'stuff' in there too.
some of it is just lead oxide, the other could be a little zinc or it could be calcium or a combination of things.

you could just cut some of your alloy in half with some other lead.
if the issue turns better, cut a small portion again, if it goes away you just diluted it down to a manageable level.

[Springfield]

Run the pot at about 725, and flux with pine shavings and a little candle wax. If the wax self ignites then you are the right temp. Stir it in and light it, making sure the flames cover the top of the pot. Keep doing this until it all goes back in. You may have to do this 4-5 times, going by how much oatmeal you have. Keep fluxing until all you have on top is a fine ash. If it still has oatmeal in the flux, then you need to do it again. Running hot like you did caused the oatmeal. Don't know why, it just does. I smelt a couple of thousand pounds a year, from a lot of sources, and this has been my experience.

[Shiloh]

Looks like zinc contamination to me. If it is zinc, I'd skim off the "oatmeal," discard it and save the rest.

I agree. Certainly plausible.

Shiloh

[seppos]

If you have steel mold. Pump up the temperature and see how it goes. If it looks like pouring well, try few sample bullets with warm molds. If it works, just transform it to boolits. No reason to waste if it works.
Also, try to awoid ranges where they collect lead for boolit casting so that you dont contaminate others alloys.

S

[Thumbcocker]

Zink.

[44man]

I had some pipe that did that and it would not fill the mold. I let it cool and brought it back to 600° and skimmed it, works good now.
Cable sheathing did not have anything but they usually used tin to solder connections so I cut that out and made ingots. Didn't get much.