Confused Bout Zinc WW ???

[Russ in WY]

Last time I cast zinc WW didn't exist . Now reading here about them & how to spot them, I was going thru a 80 lb bucket of nice clean & new looking WW. Using the scratch test was easy to find std WW. However many with square ends that seemed very hard when dropped on cement , don't have a ringing sound. They seen to have a frosty/shiny coating of some sort on them . I am running about 60%+ reject rate. This seems a bit high. Will try to remove the coating & see whats there tomorrow. Has anyone else ran into this ??? Tks for any help. Russ.

[Ole]

Just toss everything in your melter and skim out what doesn't melt by 600 degrees.

[snaggdit]

I, too was leary about zinc my first few times smelting WW. Then I saw a post that said many lead WWs today have a paint coating. I tried the wire cutters approach and discovered that the only zinc was marked (Zn or Fe, Iron) hard stickons or riveted WW. I still separated the painted/coated and smelted them separately, but then cast from the separated ingots and had no problems. From now on I know what I am looking for. Hard squares of stickons (easy to distiguish from soft, pure lead stickons) and riveted WW. You still need to look at the rest of the WW, but it gets easy to feel/spot a dud. Last ditch, smelt at just enough heat to melt the lead and float the zinc. Do what others recommend. Melt 3-5 lbs, then add WW to get 10-20 lbs. As you add them, the zinc will float, along with clips. Just my observances, I am relatively new to this myself. I'm sure an expert will chime in:-)

[southpaw]

all i do is pull the junk ( valve stems, paper, razor blades... ) and seperate the stick ons. most of the zn that i find is in the stick ons. keep your melt under 700 and you will be fine. i keep mine around 600-650. once i get things going i can cast up to 100# an hour. depends how many boolits im sending down range.

[sniper7369]

I just pull out all the garbage and stick ons. Everything else goes in the pot. I may have melted some zinc into my alloy a couple times, but I don't lose any sleep over it. :coffee:

[monadnock#5]

On those occasions when I've sat down to go through a bucket, sorting the wheat from the chaff, I hear my HS English teacher asking me "Would you rather fish or cut bait?". The process is way too labor and time intensive. So I do as those above, and skim whatever floats to the top. I don't use a thermometer, just timing. I keep a slotted spoon in the melt, fully up to temp and ready to go, so that when I adjudge that the time is right, the floaters go into the dross can ASAP.

[RustyFN]

all i do is pull the junk ( valve stems, paper, razor blades... ) and seperate the stick ons. most of the zn that i find is in the stick ons. keep your melt under 700 and you will be fine. i keep mine around 600-650. once i get things going i can cast up to 100# an hour. depends how many boolits im sending down range.
That's the same thing I do. The zinc weights will scoop out with the clips.
Rusty

[housedad]

Just when did they start making the WW with or out of zinc? I havn't cast in many years, and I have some 30 lb ingots from the 90's. Idid not even look for zinc WW Back then.

[Willbird]

Just when did they start making the WW with or out of zinc? I havn't cast in many years, and I have some 30 lb ingots from the 90's. Idid not even look for zinc WW Back then. I have only smelted about 1000 lbs so far, never found a single zinc WW yet in NW Ohio, I found a steel one once.

Bill

[Hardcast416taylor]

I started running inti zn weights in the 80`s. I had made so much ingots from good ww in the late 60`s and early 70`s I hadn`t smelted in a lomg time. I hear about total ban on ww in 2012 and being replaced with a sort of sand weighted plastic stick on weight.:-x Robert