New here and to casting

[cbourbeau32]

Hello, I've been looking around here for a couple of day and can't find exactly what I am looking for so I thought I would ask.

I hunt, shoot and reload but just recently decided to get into casting my own bullets. I have a fair supply of pure lead that I will add some tin to to make my first round of bullets but my lead is from old plumbing pipe that a friend took out of his house he is remodeling. My question is this. Is there a "sticky" here somewhere that details the cleaning of dirty lead? I looked around but couldn't find one. Thanks in advance for any replies. Charlie

[docone31]

The lead will melt, and clean itself. Old plumbing lead is good stuff.
I do not think you will need tin. Just keep the mold hot while you pour.
Fine the lead seperately from the pot for casting. It keeps the crud out. Melt it, make ingots, keep seperate. From there you have a known to make an alloy from.
I use the kitchen stove for fineing. I have built an evacuation fan set up to keep the fumes out. I do clean thoroughly after fineing.
For hunting, you might consider paper patching. I paper patch my .30s and they PERFORM!.
Depending on the caliber, it should work well.
Good luck and welcome. A lot of dedicated folks will pipe in.
First, fine the lead.

[Echo]

Yo, Charlie, and Welcome to the Board.

Cleaning the 'dirty' lead should be no problem. Render it down in a container of some kind, scoop the trash off the top, stir the melt with a wood stick for flux, and when it is nice and purdy pour up into ingot molds.

Many folks here use a turkey fryer and dutch oven for their rendering (I do). And for tin, I suggest lead-free solder from Ace or wherever - I bought 10 lbs from Grainger a couple of years ago for about $9/lb delivered. I assume the price has gone up. Remember, anything over 3% is wasteful, so 1 lb of lead-free will take care of 30-40 lbs of pure Pb. Or if you have access to a radiator shop, they often have scrap solder that they would like to dispose of. It is usually 50/50 tin/lead, but may be 40/60.

Keep us informed as to how things are going.

[Phat Man Mike]

welcome !! kick then shoes off and jump right in!! LOL

[HORNET]

Charlie, welcome to the fun. If you go down the main index page a ways, there's a whole forum dedicated to Lead and Lead Alloys that has a lot of discussions on cleaning up your lead and what to do with it for different purposes. There's also some good info if you follow the link at the bottom of the page to the cast bullet (they misspell it for some reason) notes on the LASC website. Also try searching under "Smelting" and "Fluxing". A few days of reading material.

[armyrat1970]

Welcome Charlie. You've come to the right place for casting. Here is a link that may help with some of your questions:
http://www.lasc.us/
Read as much of it as you can. Then come back with anymore questions.

[44man]

Yes, welcome to the nut house! :drinks:
But you fail to say what you intend to shoot pure lead in. Unless you are shooting a muzzle loader you will need to alloy that nice pure lead or trade it for something harder.
A lot of fellas champ at the bit for pure so you should be able to get more WW ingots in trade.
Tin will not harden it, only make it easier to pour.

[chris in va]

I'd probably just melt down the pure lead and sell/trade for some wheelweight ingots if you plan to shoot it.

[cbourbeau32]

Phineas I do have some straight runs of pipe but I also have some joints. I guess they are joints. The pipe swells for about 4 or 5 inches then returns to straight pipe. Are those joints? Thanks for the heads up.

[cbourbeau32]

44man are you the same 44man from GB Outdoors?

[303Guy]

Hi there, cbourbeau32.

You'll find this site to be pleasant, intellegent and loaded with wisdom!

Welcome aboard.

Till now, I did not know that 'soldered or wiped' joints were high in tin and I did not realize that tin does not 'harden' lead. I had discovered that lead pipe is good stuff and that it stinks something awful when rendering! I also discovered that when mixed in with whatever I had - WW, a little lino, solder sticks, it produced an amazing alloy that was soft and expanded well and still held together. I learned from this site it was the tin that made it hold together. Ummm.... as docone31 hinted at, do try paper patching sometime. It is more time consuming and there is a chance you won't watch TV quite so much anymore and you may never learn all there is to know but you do get to chat to some great folks and 'witness' some amazing feats of accuracy and performance. :mrgreen:

This is how well lead pipe based alloy expands and yet holds together (different velocities of course) when fired into fine sand.
http://i388.photobucket.com/albums/oo327/303Guy/th_MVC-468F.jpghttp://i388.photobucket.com/albums/oo327/303Guy/th_MVC-452F.jpghttp://i388.photobucket.com/albums/oo327/303Guy/th_MVC-458F.jpghttp://i388.photobucket.com/albums/oo327/303Guy/th_MVC-451F.jpg

So much fun to be had, so little time!:mrgreen:

[armyrat1970]

Tin has little to no effect in adding hardness to PB. What it does is makes the alloy flow better and causes the alloy to fill the mold better. In that respect though, I believe it does add some slight hardness. Antimony and arsenic is additives that help to harden. Look at different charts with the different additives and you will see.