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Thread: Possible newby mistake.

  1. #1
    Boolit Mold
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    Possible newby mistake.

    Soo, I went all out the last couple of years to scrounge as much wheel weights as possible here in commiefornia. They've been outlawed you know.. In my haste to make them into manageable sized ingots I smelted them all together. Mind you it was all lead that was smelted I just didnt differentiate between the stick on lead and all the other different types of lead. In my mind it was all lead and ingots it was made into with WW from different sources and complete different mixtures of lead. I am also sitting on a pile of pewter (all different watermarks) and need to reduce its volume before the wife sees what is in the bag. Do I need to separate the pewter like lead? How can I get a uniform hardness with all the different types of WW ingots I have. Any help in this matter is greatly appreciated.

    ritzcracker<*(((()>{

  2. #2
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    Hey Ritz,

    Welcome to Castboolits! Mixing the COWW (clip on wheelweights) with the stick on (soww) is not the end of the world. It's best to separate them but for moderate pressure and velocity you should be fine. Lots of boolits have been made with 50/50 coww-soww. As you gain experience you'll probably want to blend your own alloys and it's easier if you keep the various types of lead separate. I use a paint marker to write on mine whether they're linotype, coww or Pb - soww that are essentially pure lead. I tried a Sharpie but the markings faded too fast.

    The pewter will not vary as much as wheelweights do so go ahead and ingotize it all together. Some people use stainless steel condiment cups (very inexpensive) for pewter molds so the ingots are only a few ounces each. No need to fill the cups all the way to the top.
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  3. #3
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    Use the pencil scratch test,you can separate the ingots into like groups.
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  4. #4
    Boolit Master
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    cast up some bullets and try them. I have been casting since 72. started out with straight wheel weights. started adding lead a little at a time still no leading. if using gas checks I go a little softer. until I came here I never heard of all alchemy that goes on here.

  5. #5
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    my bucket ratio of stick on to clip on has pretty much always been 3 to 1.
    guess what my mix ratio of clip on to stick on ww's all ingoted up under the bench are?
    yep.
    anyway I re-run all my melted and ingoted stuff back through and try to mix all the batches together in an equal proportion.

    as far as the pewter:
    if your 100% positive it is all Pewter.
    bash it all up and melt it down then make whatever ingots your comfortable with.
    if you have some not so sure pieces, melt them separately until you see them melt and know it's Pewter.
    all marked Pewter is at least 85% Tin.

  6. #6
    Boolit Grand Master

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    How big of batches did you melt together? What was the approximate ratio of clip-on to stick-on?

    I see no need in trying to separate the different types of pewter. If you like, you can do as much of it together as you can and label it. Like batch #1, ect. I use the days date as my batch number. You might look at purchasing a cheap set of Harbor Freight steel stamps to permanently mark your ingots.

    I don't think you hurt anything. At least nothing that can'y be fixed. I smelt in batches of 350-400#. In the old days I never separated the stick-ons from the clip-ons simply because there were so few stick-ons and wheelweights had more alloy in them than they do now. You can always remelt and add in more alloy.

  7. #7
    Boolit Grand Master OS OK's Avatar
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    This is just me here...the way I have learned, 'trial and error' and heavy on the error department but...If I had it all to do over again in all the smelting, I'd smelt into ingots of like sources...as you learn and become competent at measuring and blending specific batches then you can go to your lead stash and grocery shop the weight and type you want for the pour pot. You are going to go through a metamorphosis in this casting craft as you acquire more tools of the trade and read, read, read...did you get the drift about reading?

    Here's a good place to start reading... http://www.lasc.us/LASC_Article_Index.pdf

    When it comes to ingots, I wouldn't get in a hurry to melt it all together just for the sake of having made ingots...separate your sources
    COWW's are one specific ingot, SOWW's, Roof flashing and other soft Pb's. are another...

    I'd still use the muffin pan for the above Pb's as it is a more efficient size for the 20lb. pot or make yourself your own custom ingot moulds from angle iron and channel iron...for more on that use the search function upper right.

    Theres another very small muffin type pan that measures about 1 1/4" across the top...I'd use that one for the Sn, tin. I wouldn't pour them all the way full either so that the tin ingots can be easily divided into the ounce measurements you need for a specific pot-O-Pb blend.
    There's a calculator here you can download from Bumpo . . . https://www.google.com/url?q=http://...2eqvxcrzU-NGQQ . . . Not sure if this is the correct link though.

    You might consider getting one of the BHN measuring tools too...comes in very handy. If you don't want to spend the money you can build yourself your own test kit from some quality artist pencils... http://r.search.yahoo.com/_ylt=AwrS3...6Wzffhb767zGo- . . Cheapskate's Lead Hardness Tester-- Accurate, Available, Portable

    I'd buy the 1/4" stamp set @ Harbor Freight and use it to mark your ingots...mark them with a simple code or do full description on one of them and associate the rest of the batch to that ingot by code (that makes for a LOT less stamping) then if the ingots ever got mixed up in a house move or shop cleanup, then your work will have made it simple to restock into the proper batches.

    Hell, I could go on and on about the tricks and tips I've picked up here...you made the first step in the right direction though...you came here to learn.

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  8. #8
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    Not necessarily a mistake, it's what we all did before Cast Boolits!
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  9. #9
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    ritzblanco,
    welcome to the forum.

    Yeah, most of us have made the same rookie mistake...but it's not a real big one, I wouldn't worry too much about it, I'd just mark them "mixed WW" and use those ingots for casting boolits that will get loaded with lower pressure ammo, like 38 spl or 45 acp...or light loads in magnum pistol cartridges. BUT, you can surely Water drop that alloy, and likely get near the perfect hardness for full house Magnum pistol and regular castboolit load rifle ammo.

    OS OK offers some great helpful info. I highly recommend everything he said.

    I'm sure you will be separating your COWW and SOWW from now on, I'd just say, be sure to mark them well so a few years from now, you don't accidentally get them mixed up with this "mixed WW" alloy you just ingotized.

    Lastly, regarding Pewter, I smelt all my pewter together. I've tried casting many different size ingots and/or large caliber boolits. The size I find the most useful is using the inexpensive Lee ingot mold and only pouring the 1/2lb cavities and then only filling them about halfway, which makes a pencil sized ingot. But also, when I cast the large boolits as ingots, I also save the sprue puddles, that'd give me a large range of sizes. Hope some of this helps?
    Good Luck.
    Last edited by JonB_in_Glencoe; 09-04-2017 at 10:42 AM.
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  10. #10
    Boolit Mold
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    Wow, well thanks for all the info. I have been using the mini muffin tin for my ingots and plan to use the same tin for the pewter just not goibg to fill up the cavity all the way. Thanks for all the advice.

  11. #11
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    What I am understanding is you have collected a bunch of wheel weights COWW (clip on wheel weights) stick on SOWW (stick on wheel weights).
    You have smelted them together but have different percentages of COWW to SOWW in each batch and you would like all the ingots to be the same.
    It would be nice to know how many pounds of mixed WW ingots you have and how big your smelting pot is---- moving on
    If you have a lot of ingots, I would get a larger mold or more molds for this process.
    You re-smelt all your ingots (don't forget to flux each smelt, I like pine sawdust) in as big a batch as your smelting pot can handle,
    You keep each batch of ingots in a separate box, bin, ...
    when you get all you ingots smelted, then your re-smelt them all again, this time you use equal amounts of ingots from each box/smelting batch
    now you will have a common alloy, all your lead will be the same.
    You could send a sample to BNE (a forum member) and he will XRF (test) it and tell you exactly what alloy you have for 1 # of lead per test fee.
    and/or do the pencil hardness test. (it's easier to alloy if you know the exact ratio of you lead meaning adding antimony and/or tin (pewter) to get the desired alloy.)
    Normally we use the mini pan for pewter/ tin and the normal pan for lead and alloys. Many of us use the commercial 1 pound ingot molds or home made molds.





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Abbreviations used in Reloading

BP Bronze Point IMR Improved Military Rifle PTD Pointed
BR Bench Rest M Magnum RN Round Nose
BT Boat Tail PL Power-Lokt SP Soft Point
C Compressed Charge PR Primer SPCL Soft Point "Core-Lokt"
HP Hollow Point PSPCL Pointed Soft Point "Core Lokt" C.O.L. Cartridge Overall Length
PSP Pointed Soft Point Spz Spitzer Point SBT Spitzer Boat Tail
LRN Lead Round Nose LWC Lead Wad Cutter LSWC Lead Semi Wad Cutter
GC Gas Check