Plumbers lead:Linotype (1:1) 16bhn?

[Joeroe]

I did a little reading here on the forum and ended up ordering a postal scale and it will be here tomorrow. It is good up to 100# and will also read metric.

[Joeroe]

Sure wish you were close, I have 500 lbs of hardball I would trade for the plumbers lead.

Why would you be willing to do that? Just curious.

[Joeroe]

Well I finally have everything and grabbed my lee 6 cavity mold and the locking handel snapped off so looks like I'll have to wait. I emailed lee and I'm sure they will take care of it but I think I will order either a NOE or Accurate mold so something like this doesn't screw me in the future. Always good to have a backup. I'm going to mix my Linotype and lead and make some ingots.

Do do I need to wait more than an hour to do a hardness test on the ingots?

[Spawn-Inc]

Why would you be willing to do that? Just curious.

pure lead is generally worth more then alloyed stuff like wheel weights (clip on). i really wish he was next to me because i don't shoot black powder and all the lead i find seems to be pure outside of a couple of buckets of wheel weights.

with powder coating and even before i powder coated i just mix pure lead and Clip on wheel weights 1:1 for all my handgun needs. 9mm, 38spl, 45acp, 357mag, and 500mag. the last 2 being loaded to max loads more often then not. i don't see the point of shooting them with reduced loads accept for the 500mag. i have had some leading from the 500mag, but for the rest not enough that it's ever been an issue. i clean my guns ever 500-1000 rounds so if leading was an issue it would have become an issue. i use a lubesizer with ben's red lube.

if i was casting for rifle (which i do a bit, but i don't shoot them often due to my location) i would very likely run into more issues, although i suspect powder coating would solve that.

[Joeroe]

Gotcha. Pure lead is used by black powder shooters. Thanks for for clearing that up.

If I was superstitious I would stop casting after today. First my mold handle broke yesterday. Today my cast iron pot sprung a leak at a casting button on the bottom with around 15lbs of alloy in it so I figured I would finish with my RCBS bottom pour pot and guess what. It has a short and keeps popping my GFI so looks like I will have to send that back also.

If I was reading this I would think that the guy posting it must be an idiot and operator error was the reason but that is not the case. This was the second time using the casting pot and it has never had alloy heated over 750 in it and I never wack it with my ladle or spoon. This was the first time attempting to use the RCBS pot and the only thing I did was flip the switch and turn it to its lowest setting. The mold handle broke showing it to my nephew. I opened it then attempted to close it with no force at all and it snapped.

looks like I'll be shooting my rainier lead safes this weekend.

On a positive note. I ended up with 40# of ingots that measured 14BHN an hour after casting them. I also traded a friend 25# of lead that measures around 11BHM for some reloading tools that I don't use anymore. The lead I got is in corn cob form so measuring it was a little challenging. The pours on them were very inconsistent and lumpy.

[Jeffrey]

Be wary of "lead" that has ANY resemblance to oatmeal. You could be looking at zinc contamination. ALWAYS test mystery lead with muriatic (pool) acid. Reject any "lead" that bubbles = zinc contamination.

[Beagle333]

Today my cast iron pot sprung a leak at a casting button on the bottom with around 15lbs of alloy in it so I figured I would finish with my RCBS bottom pour pot and guess what. It has a short and keeps popping my GFI so looks like I will have to send that back also.

Just plug it into a non GFI outlet. It is a very common thing.
http://castboolits.gunloads.com/show...o-melt-running

[Joeroe]

Be wary of "lead" that has ANY resemblance to oatmeal. You could be looking at zinc contamination. ALWAYS test mystery lead with muriatic (pool) acid. Reject any "lead" that bubbles = zinc contamination.

thanks for the heads up on that. I don't think that is the case with this lead though. Looks like it was poured with a small ladle and the lead hardened a little before the last pour.

[Joeroe]

Just plug it into a non GFI outlet. It is a very common thing.
http://castboolits.gunloads.com/show...o-melt-running

Thanks. Looks like I need to unpack it and give that a try before putting it back together. I really didn't want to have to send it back.

[John Boy]

Pure lead is used by black powder shooters.

Only in muzzle loading rifles and percussion cap revolvers. Black powder cartridge rifle reload alloys run from 1:10 to 1:16

[Geezer in NH]

Gee seems real hard to try dropping the bullets from the mold into a 5 gallon pail of water. How hard is that?? Needs to much research Gee this is not rocket science.

[Joeroe]

Gee seems real hard to try dropping the bullets from the mold into a 5 gallon pail of water. How hard is that?? Needs to much research Gee this is not rocket science.

Thanks for the constructive criticism. I'm going to ball up in a fetal position and cry like a little baby now.

[Joeroe]

Only in muzzle loading rifles and percussion cap revolvers. Black powder cartridge rifle reload alloys run from 1:10 to 1:16

Thanks for clearing that up. Makes sense.

[Tenbender]

OK, two mutually exclusive statements there......

Plumbers Lead = 5 BHN.

1 BHN difference between Plumbers Lead and WW.

Plumber's Lead is as close to pure Pb as anything we're likely to scrounge from local suppliers. Pure Pb = 5 BHN.

Most currently available lead WW = ~9 BHN.

That's more than 1 BHN difference, and the difference in absolute hardness doesn't come anywhere close to telling the whole story of the difference in the alloys.

So, what are you calling Plumber's Lead? Where did you get it? What form was it in? Did you check the hardness before you mixed it in your alloy?

Jerry

I have seen that quote over and over again. Why is my WW running 11-12 Bhn ?

[KYCaster]

I have seen that quote over and over again. Why is my WW running 11-12 Bhn ?

Ummm............Because I didn't measure your WW and you didn't measure mine?????

The point of my post is that...WW IS NOT 5 or 6 BHN.

Jerry

[mazo kid]

Harbor Freight has a digital scale that weighs to 50# for around $30.00 or so.