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So a good buddy of mine owns a garage and he sold me a 5 gallon bucket of weights. There is alot in there! I melted down all the lead and made muffin ingots. So now my only concern is what is the alloy? People say theres tin, some say zinc. I dont know. I usually make bulelts out of lead pipes that are pure lead. All I know is that when I take my ingots and drop them. The lead goes CLUNK, and the wheel weight lead goes CLUNK with a little ding. So id say its harder.
clip-on wheel weights are a lead alloy that is harder than pure, about 10 to 12 brinnel, they make excellent cast boolits as is. you did hand sort off the zinc correct, if not and you melted the zinc in with the lead you will get "uneven" boolits, meaning they will vary in weight and will not fly straight. the stick-on wheel weights are mostly soft lead.
If it was all clip on WWs you probably have a ternary alloy of 97% +/_ lead, 2 - 21/2% antimony, .05% tin and some other trace elements.
If there was stick on WWs in there that will raise the % of lead depending on the % or stick ons as they are almost pure lead.
Either way it can make for decent cast bullets. You will have better bullets by adding 2% tin to the alloy, especially if the amount of stick on WW content was low.
My advice to you would be to get some more.
There wasnt many stick on weights. Mostly all clip on. I pretty much had a pair of cutters and tried to cut the corners... The pure lead was super easy, the weights that had FN and MC on them had a thin coating of plastic on them, but they were abit harder. And then the Fe steel weights a discarded.Quote:
Originally Posted by Larry Gibson
Zinc WWs typically have a “Z” on them somewhere. They are a lot harder than the stick on or clip ons. It is easy to tell them apart when you try to cut or bend a known sample.
Zinc WWs typically have a “Z” on them somewhere. They are a lot harder than the stick on or clip ons. It is easy to tell them apart when you try to cut or bend a known sample.
The way I would look at this question is: If I were making pistol bullets, no problem. If I was making cast bullets for my scheutzen rifle I'd go buy certified metal from Rotometals in 20/1.
I have a lot of money in testers and different pots. It takes me a lot of time and adjusting to make good alloy for my cast bullet shoots. I have found thru experience " it's easier, faster, less stressful, more enjoyable, and no more costly, to shoot certified alloys.
I hope this helps you out.
Don't quote me on this, but I think lead melts around 600-620F. Zinc is almost 800F. So when I melt my wheel weights I use a thermometer and try to keep the temp rite near 700F. That way the Zinc and all the other unwanted crud floats to the top and gets skimmed off. (Including clips and Iron weights) You won't notice small amounts of Zinc when casting Pistol Boolits, but if you get too much it will really mess with you.
If you have a automatic center punch use it on a known lead and a known iron weight the zinc weights will punch a hole much like the steel while the lead ones are obviously deeper and wider
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Well, if it was a good price and the amount of junk was not too bad, get some more! There are a few stickies at the top of this thread that are very helpful. How to sort wheel weights and the XFR test showing wheel weight content are very useful. But, to sum it up: Clip on weights will have an alloy content of around 95-96% lead, .05% tin and 2-3% antimony. Stick on weights will be an alloy of 98-99% pure with a trace amount of other stuff. Straight clip on weights usually make good bullets, as is, or you can add 1-2% tin for better fill out.
There are wheel weights made of lead alloy, Zinc, Iron and a composite material made of powdered metal. Stick on weights are also made from these materials. There are many different ways of sorting these weights. I usually just look at each weight and make a test cut on each suspicious weight. After you sort several you will develop a feel for the junk. You will not melt an iron weight at anywhere near the temperatures that we cast at and zinc melts at about 80º more than lead alloys.
Sort it before smelting. Get rid of "Fe" and Zn and anything that you don't think looks right. Separate clip on from stick on. Keep your ingots separate. You can soften your clip on ingots with stick on ingots or harden clip on ingots with tin and get the metal to flow better with a little tin. Take your time and enjoy sorting and smelting.
YES!!!!!!!! ALWAYS ALWAYS hand sort B4 every melting or you will get a pot-o-carp that will be much lighter that you expect due to the Zn. The MP of ZN is close enough to Pb you have to watch your re-melting pot very closely.
COWW’s are darned near always 12 Bhn. Just look up on here or the net what the mix % is. If it really matters. I just cast everything with them and not sweat the hardness down to 0.0000%/Bhn like some on here do. I now simply make a ~12 mix, since Pb COWW’s are almost extinct around here.
I have never seen a PURE COWW as you alluded to above. They alloy them to ~12 so they will last and not fly off and deform at high speeds.
Banger
I never saw a Zinc WW until about 4 years ago, now at least a third are zinc and half the rest are steel but at least they are free to me. I always clean and sort weights before smelting and never take WW that someone else has cast into ingots unless I test for zinc. I tumble the WW in my cement mixer with some washing powder, makes it easier to see what is what and cuts down on the stink of oil and grease when smelting. Regards Stephen