crappy alloy

[powderburnerr]

got me 100 # of 25-1 and it is made from cable sheathing and 50-50 solder .. it is casting about 5 gns light and is leaving a white residue on the bullet where it isnt filling out ... I'm gonna remelt the whole pot and flux the begeezus out of it and see if that helps ... never had the white residue ..... anybody see such a thing?

any other ideas I have tried cool and hot and everything in between .. even cleaned the mould .. it is also shrinking away from the spru plate and no matter how long I wait the spru tears ... usually a big hole ... the bullets might make practice stuff but probably not.........Dean

[454PB]

I acquired a lot of cable sheathing while working in power plants, and it was all dead soft pure lead. I smelted it down into ingots, and the only thing that comes to mind is the fact that it is generally coated with a nasty dielectric grease that needs to be cooked off. I don't recall any white residue, just lots of smoke and dross.

[Buckshot]

...............Deano, not I haven't seen that before. So the 'white residue' is actually something you can wipe a finger across and see on your skin, like a mold? How does the balance of the bullet cast? Sharp, rounded?

Without saying I know what it is, a few things definately come to mind. A lighter wieght is indicative of a lower lead content (the heaviest constituent of the alloy) and the tearing of the spruehole is again indicative of an elevated antimony (or some contaminant) causing brittleness. I don't know how heavy the slug is you're trying to cast, but having met you, if it's a rifle slug it must be about 45 caliber and 500 grains? :-)

This is just some scattered supposing here. Shotgunning :)

I don't think it's anywhere near 25-1. I don't think I would work with that whole 100 pounds or even what you have currently in the pot. That 5 grains difference is quite a bit. You have some strange stuff going on. Pour it off to maybe a quarter pot.

Somehow or the other your scrap just ain't what it's supposed to be, or some of it isn't anyway. Lead will alloy to greater or lesser degrees with quite a few other metals and cause problems. The most common contaminant that lead will accept in any amount is zinc and it doesn't take much to destroy it's castability. Ditto antimony, which really isn't a contaminant so much unless there is a large quantity.

It could be calcium, cadmium, arsenic, aluminum, copper, as the most common metals or even elevated antimony. Maybe a combination as I'm just guessing.

When a lead alloy cools the antimony drops out to form pure antimony crystals. However it shouldn't be localized on the bullet and I don't know if it would show up as a white powder, although antimony is a white metal.

Experiment with that quarter pot. Don't add any 50-50 as that's too much tin and we don't want anything else in there to complicate things further. If you have any pure lead, add half the weight that's in the pot, to the pot. Then see how it casts. Also, when heating up the stuff in the pot watch it to see what it does as it becomes a liquid. Ditto while cooling.

If a 50% addition or pure lead doesn't straighten things out, I don't know if I'd mess with it any further.

..................Buckshot

[Bass Ackward]

I would like to see you do two things.

1. Change to a smaller mold and repeat your molding to see if smaller bullets give you the same problems.

2. Then I would like to see you try the same mold and use a damp cloth or spong to touch the bottom of the mold on for about 3 seconds in between pours. Don't worry about fillout yet, just see if you get the powder.

Don't bother to waste 2 hours or something. Just get about 20 fills from each mold and see what happens. I have had bullets get a powdery substance on it, but those remained in water too long after being dropped.

[44man]

It sounds like you got it already mixed. The cable sheathing sounds OK but I wonder what solder was mixed with it.

[13Echo]

I read somewhere (how many times have you seen that) that the solder in cable sheathing may contain calcium or some other undesirable element. If you didn't cut out the soldered sections then that may be your problem. I'll see if I can find my dimly remembered source.

Jerry

[44man]

Years ago they used pure tin to solder the sheathing because of the low melting point. I have cut those sections off and put them to good use many times without a problem.

[powderburnerr]

The bullets cast quite well at the start of the batch,but were lighter than normal, I put in an extra 5 # of lead to the mix. but it didnt seem to change the bullet weight . and as I neared the 1/2 way point they started going downhill .The white residue is kinda oily in that it wipes off but leaves a film and stops the bullet from filling .. but the next bullet will be ok but bad in a different area .

they are 550's and it is in different areas of the lube grooves it shows itself.

the solder is a good 50-50 . I have the msds on it

I am kinda liking the idea of the joint solder on the cable as there were some big joints on one pot full .
I have gone back and found another block that has a definate ring to it and tests harder than the other blocks of lead from the sheathing .

with both the Cabine tree and Lbt testers I get 20 -1 alloy readings . ie 10 with Lbt and 68 with Cabine trees .

I am thinking I will reheat to 500 or so and skim the pot then flux and clean a lot and if that dont work I will cast it into pistol bullets .. which do cast ok but I didnt cast a lot of them .

when the pot melts it is very cohesive looking ...smooth and rounded like fresh fluxed and when it cools it forms a lot of small craters in a spider web design to the middle . I checked some bullet bases and there is a definate concaveidness to them .. now that is quite a word.. with real torn cavities in them no polished cut areas at all .

I use a clock to cast with rather than a wet sponge and use a 40 sec cool on the mould before cutting . while running this pot I have tried cutting the spru as soon as it cools to waiting 60 sec with the same results , . one other thing I need to check is to make sure the thermostat is holding on the pot . it normally holds about 7 degrees.

kinda reminds me of some old batteries I cast up a long time ago ,,,before cadmimum and calcium ....soft but brittle

my std mix with this stuff has been 92 lbs of lead and 8 lbs of 50-50 with a half gn difference in batches . this one just went screwy some where .....Dean

[Bullshop]

Dean
A word of caution!!! I cant say what your problem is as it could be many different things. I just want to caution you as to what happened to me with a contaminated alloy. This alloy would also leave a white powder on bullets. As best I could figure out it was contaminated with calcium from a maintenance free battery, or possibly calcium solder from joints on under ground cable. I got it from a scrap dealer. First I got a couple 100 lbs that was good. I went back and told him that if he could keep the mountain of cable sepperate from all the other junk in his smelting pile (batteries ect) I would buy it all. In the end when I found the huge quantity I got was worthless for bullets he told me he had hired summer help (kids) and they had just thrown everything in the melt.
The big bad OH NO!!!! was that this stuff began to eat my aluminum molds.
I left boolits in the cavities of a new LBT mold for a short time and when I went to use it again the cavities were pocked holed and covered in white powder. That is why I always lube my molds after use for storage even aluminum. Whatever it was it was merder to aluminum, so be carfull.
BIC/BS

[powderburnerr]

here is an up date . I got the cable in cable form
I have the solder from a wholesaler.

I checked the bullets under a 10 power magnifier and they are definately rounded but it is not visible with the naked eye ,

the white stuff does wipe off but leaves a film

temps are as follows :
520 solid
530 -sand like crumbly but solid
540 liquid in the thermometer hole ,thermometer will not push through the crust
550 liquid tubes in pot with crumbly crust pump the thermometer and lead puddles appear all over the top
555 the bottom of pot is liquid but is slushy
560 slushy but getting shiny wont float thermometer yet
565 slush getting thinner and will swirl, smaller grains show
570 liquid , floated thermometer
alloy melted without any lumps or clumps shiny ,slushy ,liquid.

there was a post somewhere with the melting points of alloys , any one know its whereabouts? .........Dean
I am kinda leaning more and more to the solder joints in the cable splices . I had one melt with a lot of them . and they were 4 and 6 inch joints ..

most all the lead from the cable has been just the cable ,and it is very good just this one batch ............Dean