A couple of procedure questions

[Cloudpeak]

I scored 4, 5 gal. buckets of WW and am getting set up to melt them down into ingots. I'm going to borrow my neighbors turkey cooker and melt them in a big, iron pot. I'm going to clean up the metal and pour it into ingots for later use in the Lee Pro 4-20 that I intend on purchasing in a week or so.

When I melted WW before in a small pot on the Coleman, no matter how much I fluxed, I always seemed to still have some crud on the top. No matter how much stirring, fluxing and skimmin, there always seemed to be a little bunch of crud. I'd skim that off and more seemed to appear. Is there any way to get the melt 100% clean?

When I start melting my ingots in the Lee pot, will I need to keep fluxing to clean the metal? My thoughts are that, if I can get the metal clean when casting ingots, I won't have to do much clean up in the electric pot. Is this correct? My thinking is the bottom feeding of the pot will keep clean lead going into the mold.

Also, a friend gave me 5 coffee cans of birdshot that I plan on blending in with the WW's. I'm shooting reduced loads in a 40 S&W and have had no leading problems in my XD40. I don't want to add to much shot and make my bullets too soft. I was thinking of maybe one Lyman ingot of lead shot mixed with 5-7 ingots of WW's. Sound about right.

I hope to get all of the WW's melted down this weekend so I can back and get some more WW's. I would have brought home more but I was driving the car today and I got kind of weighted down :-D

Thanks, Cloudpeak

[drinks]

Cloudpeak;
If you are really getting into casting, a hardness tester will be a big help.
I use a Cabine Tree tester, really like it, but it is about $100, Lee has finally gotten a supply of the machinests microscopes they needed for their tester and it is now available from such as MidwayUSA for about $33 plus shipping.
Not knowing what the alloy of the shot is, it would be just guessing to say how much to mix with other alloys.
If you are really getting serious, consider joining the Cast Bullet Assn., they are giving new members a 100pg. book that is worth more than the $17 a year dues and you get 6 issues of a magazine written by the members each year, too.

[David R]

Cloudpeak,

This shot you have, is it magnum?

I have used 1/2 WW and 1/2 pure lead with 2 or 3% tin added and had hard enough boolits for my 45 colt. I also quenched some of these and they hardened to about 16. Plenty hard for my 44 mag. I only add the tin for "pourability".

SOO if your lead is soft shot, then 25% would be no big deal to me.

About the dirt and stuff on the top of the lead. Try turning your heat down once the lead is all melted. This should help with oxidation if that is what you are getting. If that is not it, Stir, Stir Stir when you flux. Preferably from the bottom up. Get all the crap out of the lead before you make ingots.

Good luck, Have a blast melting down all those wheelweights.

David

[Cloudpeak]

Cloudpeak,

This shot you have, is it magnum?

I have used 1/2 WW and 1/2 pure lead with 2 or 3% tin added and had hard enough boolits for my 45 colt. I also quenched some of these and they hardened to about 16. Plenty hard for my 44 mag. I only add the tin for "pourability".

SOO if your lead is soft shot, then 25% would be no big deal to me.

About the dirt and stuff on the top of the lead. Try turning your heat down once the lead is all melted. This should help with oxidation if that is what you are getting. If that is not it, Stir, Stir Stir when you flux. Preferably from the bottom up. Get all the crap out of the lead before you make ingots.

Good luck, Have a blast melting down all those wheelweights.

David

David,

I don't know what "magnum shot" is. I think this is just old, generic birdshot in sizes 4, 6 & 7.

I must not be stirring enough. Thanks for the tips.

Cloudpeak

[Cloudpeak]

Cloudpeak;
If you are really getting into casting, a hardness tester will be a big help.
I use a Cabine Tree tester, really like it, but it is about $100, Lee has finally gotten a supply of the machinests microscopes they needed for their tester and it is now available from such as MidwayUSA for about $33 plus shipping.
Not knowing what the alloy of the shot is, it would be just guessing to say how much to mix with other alloys.
If you are really getting serious, consider joining the Cast Bullet Assn., they are giving new members a 100pg. book that is worth more than the $17 a year dues and you get 6 issues of a magazine written by the members each year, too.

I'm trying real hard not to get too carried away with casting. The program is an easier "sell" if I keep everything low key (and cheap), if you know what I mean. I just plan on keeping myself in 40 S&W bullets for practice. I might cast a few 44's out of my Lyman mold for my Ruger 44 Blackhawk (one of the earlier models. 6 1/2" barrel, fluted cylinder and flat top.) I haven't shot it in a long time. Might be fun.

Thanks, Cloudpeak

[454PB]

Personally, I think it's a mistake to mass produce any alloy. You can always make smaller batches of experimental alloys. If you introduce shot into the whole batch, it's irreversible. Go ahead and melt all your wheelweights into ingots, then experiment with adding shot in smaller batches.

[onceabull]

Cloudpeak: If my memory is holding up,i doubt if you can add "too much" of that shot to produce too soft an alloy.. I thought one added birdshot to harden the allow by inputing antimony, especially if you are water quenching from the mould,or oven.. not sure you get much out of it otherwise.. "Magnum/Premium" birdshot contains more antimony than "generic" shot,or the stuff found in socalled "promo loads" ..also the smaller shot sizes tend to have more antimony than the 2 and 4 's.. and somewhere out there in cyberspace is a source for shot content by size at least for one brand at the time of testing.. maybe at Paco Kelly's site,as he's a big advocate of adding birdshot... enjoy yourself in wonderful Wyoming// Onceabull

[C1PNR]

IIRC, the addition of some magnum (hardened) shot will also introduce a bit of Arsenic which aids the boolit "hardening by quenching" process.

I've got several bags of shot laying around, but it's all reclaimed shot I bought from the trap club. May have a little magnum shot in it, but not much. Works fine at the 16 yard line, but handicap yardage suffers from too much "open pattern syndrome" from the deformed shot.