Roto Metals response to bad alloy.....
I sent an email to Roto Metals last night about some bad alloy I recently received. This morning (Saturday) here is their response:
Hi Roy. Sorry about this those ingots came from our sister factory and looks like they messed up the alloy or stamped the wrong ingots. What is your order number and I'll send you a new order from the original bars. I'll also email you a return label Monday if you can send back just one ingot I can test it and see what is wrong with it
Thank
Ryan
Now THAT'S the kind of company I like to deal with! They will have my lead business forever!
Here is the email I sent them:
Recently I received a shipment of 20-1 alloy. I’m a longtime user of Roto Metals and have never had an issue. I only cast with Roto Metal alloys as I trust your product and don’t want to put an untrusted product down my expensive match barrels. There is a major problem with this shipment as it simply will not cast proper bullets. It will not fill out the mold.
I switched to the 20-1 alloy I previously purchased and the bullets formed beautifully.
I did a search on the internet and I found another fellow experiencing the exact same problem. I too had the crud continuously forming in the melt and the consistency of maple syrup. My ingots were also the new shape as in this thread:
http://castboolits.gunloads.com/show...Metals-changed
The bars of lead are different in shape and appearance. The new bars are segmented where the old style was a single bar of alloy. The new bars have a cloudy, dull appearance where the old bars were shiny like a bar of silver.
When casting even after heavy fluxing the melt has a clumpy texture with lots of impurities in the dross .
It does not pour freely from my bottom pour pot no matter how large I set the orifice.
It will coat my ladle and stirring stick with the same clumpy clinging stuff.
The bullets do not fill out the mold and have the same cloudy grey color instead of shiny silver. I tried three molds, iron, brass and aluminum.
The alloys I use is 20-1. I tried casting from 675 to 725°. I don't own a hardness tester so I can't comment on that aspect, but the spew is brittle and easily breaks into pieces.
The ONLY thing different in my casting is the alloy I recently bought.
Here is a reprint of the thread on Castboolits web forum from another fellow with the identical issues
I sure hope you are aware of this as I want to order more alloy but I simply can not use this type of product.
Please advise