Contaminated Lead? Can it be salvaged?

[wlambert]

Recently, my neighbor gave me some thin sheet lead that had been painted gray. I have been mixing it with linotype about 17lb lead with 3lb linotype.

It works pretty well for 200 gr. SWC boolets for Bullseye shooting.

I am now trying to cast 98 gr. .32 cal. wadcutters with a SAECO mold. Corners are rounded and poorly filled out. I tried varying the mix to 4lb. linotype, 15lb. lead, and 1 lb. tin. I think this mix is about 5.8% tin, 2.4% antimony, and 91.8% lead. I have tried varying the temperature, but results are still unacceptable.

I sent the mold back to SAECO and they returned it with four very nice boolets. There is no problem with the mold. The problem is definitely with me.

I dawned on me that the paint may have contained zink or aluminum. The paint turned to red dust when I melted the sheet to make ingots. I flux with the bule stuff I got from Midway, but I think that only helps with the tin and doesn't do anything to remove zink or aluminum. I read that wood saw dust might help with the impurities and will try it as soon as I get some.

Does anyone have any ideas? If the lead is contaminated as I think it is, can it be salvaged for use with the .32?

[IcerUSA]

If you have a thermometer I would just get it hot enough to melt the lead as most contaminants melt at a higher temp , might take a few tries to get the stuff to separate but it should get enough out of the mix to make it usable.
Just my $.02 worth minus taxes , fees and what ever else the guberment does to our money . :)

Keith

[docone31]

The paint will not be as much a factor as you are feeling. It sounds like you need some tin added, and the mold a little hotter. The casting you are doing is small in comparison to the ones a lot of other folks do.
Heat the mold, try a couple of inches of lead free, or 95/5 solder, and keep on casting.

[leadeye]

Probably no zinc in the paint, zinc chromate is used as an anti corrosion additive which you would find on steel parts. It would be redundant to use it on lead.

[catkiller45]

From my experience I think you are not running the temps high enough...Are you using a bottom pore pot or a ladle pot....I used to have a similar problem with my bottom pour not putting out enough melt fast enough and the mold was not getting hot enough for good results......I really doubt if the paint has anything to due with it at all....

[GLL]

As an experiment crank up the temperature and ladle pour a few using the pressure-pour technique.
See if that improves fillout.

Sounds like you already have plenty of tin.

Jerry

[wlambert]

The pot is a Lyman Mag 20 and I am using the bottom pour spout. I had the lead up to 800 degrees. I am reluctant to run the temperature too high because I am worried about shrinkage. I need a fully formed boolet so I get consistent sizing.

It is cold in the garage and the boolets are small compared to the area of the mold. Possibly the mold is not getting hot enough.

Is it safe to heat the mold over a propane torch?

Thanks for the ideas.

[HABCAN]

On the face of it, the problem is the small boolit/big block syndrome. Without watching you do it, I'd vote for the mold being 'way too cold as frequently is the case with small boolits. Alternatively, you might be casting at too slow a rate, allowing the mold to cool between casts. Run your pot at full heat which should deliver well-filled-out boolits, then keep reducing the temp until quality suffers, increase temp a little and goferit. You might put some shielding around the pot area to keep out the cold.

Be VERY gentle with a propane torch! You CAN warp a mold block. Better to do as recommended and dip it in the melt.

[DLCTEX]

Dip the mold in the melt to heat it. When the mold is hot enough to enable you to wipe off the lead with a gloved hand or rag, it is probably hot enough to cast.Just dip the bottom corners about halfway to the handle grooves on a closed mold. DALE

[fecmech]

Another suggestion to preheat the mold is lay it across the top of your pot and cover the blocks with an aluminum foil cover to hold the heat in. That is what I do when I turn my pot on (in my cold garage) and come back 30 -45 minutes later and start casting. I get good bullets on the first or second cast that way.

[runfiverun]

this is one of those times where you can use a ladle and pour it [not force feed it]
you can keep your mold on top of the pot the entire tme and keep extra heat into it.
the red dust you describe is consistent with the lead base they used to use in paint mixing.
i would bet your mold just isnt hot enough. you have 3 times the tin you need.

[wlambert]

Thanks to everyone who responded to my post.

Your suggestions were right on. The lead was good, but the mold was not hot enough.

This afternoon I turned the pot all the way up. The melt was just shy of 800 degrees. I put the mold into the mix, as suggested, to heat it up. Boolets were good right from the first one. They filled out very nice.

I cast around 500 rounds with excellent results. The nice thing about the .32, and 98 grains per boolet, is that you get a lot of rounds from a pot of lead.

I put the .314 die in the Magma (Star) and sized around 50 rounds, then loaded 40. 1.6gr of Bullseye.

I just got back from the range. Only shot 20 rounds, but they are holding the X ring on a Bullseye target at 25 yards. I am a happy camper.

Thanks again for the help.

[deltaenterprizes]

I use an electric burner to preheat my molds, a tip I got from Hensley & Gibbs catalog!