melting old grimy bullets.

[Don1357]

Hello all, new guy here.

I'm just getting started on this. I picked a huge lot of stuff off Craigslist (more 38/357/30 carbine/45 ACP brass that I'll ever need, plus all sorts of oddballs). The crown jewel of the lot is the Lee Loadmaster which I'm in the process of YouTubing how to set it up.

I didn't get lead :'(. Got probably a pound or two of old cast bullets. They are all sorts of grimy, lubbed, and in some cases really crusted. Can I just melt them, skim off the crust, and cast away? This would be for practice and paper punching at low pressures.

[GRid.1569]

Just watch out for old lube igniting when it get to flashpoint.... some folks recommend boiling off the lube in a container of water and letting it solidify on top when cool.... then let the unlubed bullets dry before trying to melt.

[runfiverun]

melt it down and light the lube on fire.
stir everything while it burns.
skim off the gunk and cast away.

[Bookworm]

Yep, that old lube is the reductant, the grime and grease on the boolits is the flux. Like R5R sez, melt it, light it, stir, scrape, cast.

[sutherpride59]

Nope melt the pot and let it burn! I melted about 20lbs of old 45-70 boolits my father in law gave me, they were crusty and nasty. As long as you start them all off in the pot when you turn it on90% of the lube will burn off in smoke before it flashes but I went a head and threw a match in mine so it would burn and not smoke out the neighborhood. If you have to worry about the flames then you are casting somewhere that you shouldn't be and need to reconsider your casting location, I cast in the garage with a fireproof aluminum range hood that I built that reduced my lead levels from 11mcg to 3mcg over the course of a year.

You will be surprised, the vast majority of the oxidized lead will reduce right back into the melt with a little candle wax and sawdust or wood shavings. Just remember to have good ventilation and stir hard. Like I said I have EXCELLENT ventilation so I dont worry about stirring up the lead dust.

[gwpercle]

The lube will flash into flames at around 450 degrees. Light the smoke it gives off , before the melt gets hot enough to flash up and the fumes will burn off with less smoke. After the flames die down stir well and skim 2 or 3 times.

[DerekP Houston]

I do it all the time with my rejects, melt em down. Just watch for smoke and light it on fire! I assumed trying to boil it off in water would just end up with another kitchen pan ruined.

[Grmps]

Let me start out by saying welcome to CB. You will find that there is a wealth of information to be had on this site.

DONT take ANYTHING you read here as "LAW/FACT" without doing due diligence (use common sense and do a little research).
ALL load data must be checked with several references.
Written responses are peoples opinions, how they do things and what works best for them. Don't get me wrong, MOST of this information/resposes are backed by solid facts.

Not recommended smelting in your casting pot. Use an old pot on a camp stove
The loadmaster should come with 2 PRIMER TROUGHs, black=small red=large.(if your large isn't red call Lee and they should send you a red one)

You can go to https://leeprecision.com/, they have; instructions, help videos and product videos in the bottom left help section.

You can get replacements for damaged parts from https://leeprecision.com/ just for the cost of shipping.

To get shell plates, turrets or other items I've found Amazon to be the cheapest

There is a vendor/sponsor on this site TheCaptain that sells cleaned lead 50+lb boxes of lead delivered to one's door for $63 per box. http://castboolits.gunloads.com/showthread.php?333385-VS-quot-Fire-Sale-quot-Clipon-Stickon-and-Range-Lead-1-00-per-pound-w-shipping-discou&p=4029120&viewfull=1#post4029120

We could help you better if we knew what you got off craigslist and what you intended to load for.

It is easier for questions to be answer if you can give as many details as possibile. Pictures really help too.

This is a very easy way to upload pictures,
Go to imgur.com
create an account
simply drag the pictures from your computer and drop them in imgur
select (click on) the picture
go to "Linked BBCode (message boards)", (click on) copy then paste it in the body of your post

[RGrosz]

Welcome Don1357, If I read your post right some of the boolets are loaded. Don't attempt to melt them while they are. You need to disassemble them first, if they were not loaded rounds sorry for this but you could get a nice explosion (or not so nice) if you try. Once again Welcome and read all you want to and be safe.
Rob

[mdi]

One thought, if you are gonna use a bottom pour pot, don't melt scrap in it. You'll definitely have problems with valve clogging. Use a dedicated "melting/smelting" pot, I started with a 2 qt. stainless steel pot on a Coleman stove...

[dondiego]

Make sure there are no primers or loaded rounds in the scrap bullets (are you sure they are no good? They can be salvaged) and then melt away. Put a match head or two in the mix and when they ignite, they will burn off a lot of the wax. Mix well.

[Don1357]

Thank you all for the answers, it is most appreciated. Is it really possible for somebody to both be interested into this sort of precise endeavor and also be capable of thinking that it is a good idea to attempt to melt a live round?

Follow up question; I don't care for the junk lead meant for garden variety bullets for plinking but on better lead, does reheating it multiple times degrade in any way the alloy by precipitating or otherwise oxidizing the tin and/or antimony?

[rondog]

And there's no such thing as "more brass than I'll ever need".

[lightman]

Welcome Aboard!

On your dirty nasty bullets, just melt and flux them and you will have clean lead. If you can light the smoke from the lube and stir it in it will reduce the amount of smoke and help clean everything up. Its about the same as smelting dirty nasty greasy wheelweights.

You can remelt an alloy enough times to reduce the tin but most casters won't do this. Printing companies remelted linotype to recast the letters and eventually had to replenish the alloy.

[6bg6ga]

Throw them in when the pot is cold. Melt them stir the lead skim and cast away. No different than adding ingots into the pot. I actually like to throw some lube into the pot that I have scraped off the sizer/lubricator.

[Wayne Smith]

The only 'degradation' of a bi or tri metal alloy is the oxidation off the top. You will see a skim forming on the top of the pot - this is mostly tin oxidizing out. The wax in your lube returns this to the melt, adding it back into the lead. If you have some sawdust (not ply or glued up board) you can add a small handful and stir it in. This will burn to carbon which will attach to other junk in the mix that you don't want. Let that come to the surface and skim it off.

Oxidation occurs with the contact of the hot alloy to the air. The more you can minimize this the less oxidation you will see. That's why people float some kitty litter (clay) on top of their bottom pour pot - it forms an oxygen barrier.

[dondiego]

Thank you all for the answers, it is most appreciated. Is it really possible for somebody to both be interested into this sort of precise endeavor and also be capable of thinking that it is a good idea to attempt to melt a live round?

Follow up question; I don't care for the junk lead meant for garden variety bullets for plinking but on better lead, does reheating it multiple times degrade in any way the alloy by precipitating or otherwise oxidizing the tin and/or antimony?

No, it is not a good idea to get a live primer in your casting pot and a live .22 LR round in a batch of range scrap in my smelting pot but it did happen. Did you verify that these grimy bullets were totally free of such items?

[Don1357]

Yeah, we are talking a handful and a half of boolits, hard for anything to hide there.

Found a local source for cheap wheel weights so while I read the books and clean up the equipment I'll process those into a neat stack of ingots.

[Texas by God]

I used some old .38 rn 160 grains that had shop dust stuck to the lube. They shot very well and shined the bore up a bit as well. I did wipe the noses off.
Anything worse I would remelt as mentioned by others.

Sent from my SAMSUNG-SM-G930A using Tapatalk

[country gent]

If only a small amount of bullets use a few in the smelting pot with the wheel weights to flux the pot. This way you get some extra good out of them and you wont have to buy sawdust or wax for awhile to flux with.

[Green Frog]

Yeah, we are talking a handful and a half of boolits, hard for anything to hide there.

Found a local source for cheap wheel weights so while I read the books and clean up the equipment I'll process those into a neat stack of ingots.

If you've found a local source for cheap wheelweights, you are quite fortunate indeed! In most of the country they seem to be getting both harder to find and more expensive. I would cherish and cultivate such a source and try to build up a good stock (read "as much as I could get") of WWs while I could get them, even if I didn't need them right away. For many pistol bullets, straight clip-on WWs or COWWs with just one or two % tin added make just about the perfect alloy. Oh yeah, welcome to the madness, but if you plan to "save" by casting and reloading, run away now... you'll just shoot more if you're like the rest of us! :roll:

Froggie

PS. Be sure and read some of the many threads about sorting and identifying non-lead wheelweights. There are a lot of zinc ones out there these days and all it takes is one or two of them to ruin a whole pot of good ones. :(

[jonp]

melt it down and light the lube on fire.
stir everything while it burns.
skim off the gunk and cast away.

I'd do that outside in a stainless pot.

[skeettx]

Do this OUTSIDE