Does anyone use or has anyone used an XRF Analyzer for yer lead?

[Stilly]

I was wanting to smelt my ingots into a more uniform batch so my weights could be consistent and I thought, maybe it is time to get an XRF Analyzer to test the metal and see if I should mix or not certain ingots together.

Sadly though, There are no XRF analyzers for my affordable amount of $500 or so.

So yeah. I was curious if anyone used them and if they really are all that. I could rent one for a day for around $300 or a week for about a grand... But now I am just being ridiculous.

My only other viable solution is to spend the money for a Satan's Smelter or something similar and try to unify it all in that pot.

[Beagle333]

How many boolits do you need that have to be a perfectly known alloy? Perhaps buying known alloy from Rotometals or some such place would give you the consistency you need for that many boolits without the trouble of identifying and mixing the random alloys that you have? Just another thought on it.

If you needed it all analyzed, wasn't there a fellow on here (or maybe more than one) who will give scan results for a pound of lead? Being extreme with an example, you could send 100 one-pound ingots (two 50# boxes) from 100 different batches of your lead for under $200 and still come out cheaper than rental of $300 for one day. That was my second thought and now I'm out of them.
Good luck!

[lightman]

We have a member here, BNE, that will test samples for you. He is a good guy to deal with and has a pretty fast turn around time. A recent thread suggested checking with pawn shops that buy gold or silver. Never thought of that but it sounds like a good idea. Most of us can not afford or justify the expense of one of those machines.

[Stilly]

Yeah...

All of my batches have run together so I only know them as alloy or lead by dropping them on the concrete and listening for the ping or thud. It would not be cost effective for me to ship samples of my lead out since I have no official representation ingots. I guess I really just want to play with one and see if I can use it to make better ingots.

I started thinking of this when I sold a gentleman some SS pins for wet tumbling and I gave him some .451 230gr TC and RN pills that I had PCed for him to try out. I got to thinking, hey I bet I could start selling some PC pills here and then for a little more money, and then I weighed them and they were all between 232gr-238gr so I was not thrilled to see the inconsistency. I really did not want to sell my reloading supplies, but I wanted to see if I could get a small revenue stream coming in that would allow me to pay off the bills faster.

[Tazza]

I currently use old range scrap, so the hardness is lower than ideal with the mix of soft .22 and hard .38/9mm hard cast, i know there is variation, but for most people, this really doesn't bother them if they know they are not "match quality".

I sell a few projectiles at my local club, but i tell them that they are not perfect, honestly, if the price is right, people don't care. They are mostly pushed through pistols doing no more than 1,200fps, they are plenty hard enough for this.

Cast and coat a few thousand and offer them at a competitive price, see how you go.

With what i make and sell, it doesn't let me live the life of luxury, but it does give a little extra money to take the wife out to dinner every so often and pay by shooting club fees.

[jdfoxinc]

I have a similar situation. Who are you able to rent a gun from?

[dyvking]

I was wanting to smelt my ingots into a more uniform batch so my weights could be consistent and I thought, maybe it is time to get an XRF Analyzer to test the metal and see if I should mix or not certain ingots together.

Yeah.. pricey buggers. I can see where it would be useful to have one available. I have found my Lee hardness testing kit to be consistent in determining BHN, i.e. it gives me the same reading on the same sample each time, but who knows how accurate those results really are as to actual BHN. Anyway.. I use it to get a hardness value for ingots and mix them accordingly when I feel the need. It seems to work well enough to get a batch at 16 BHN alloy when that's what I want. As far as weight consistency goes, one of the biggest improvements I made was to start using a PID contoller to keep the pot temp right throughout the batch. That really tightened up my bullet-to-bullet variance.

I think that if I were you, I'd scrounge up a big cast iron pot and a turkey fryer base or some similar rig, and throw everything together to get all you alloy evened out, then use a Lee or other tester to see where you are for hardness. Then just add necessary metal to bring your casting batch to whatever you need. I pretty much just use powder-coated range scrap for most of my semi-auto stuff and don't worry about the alloy. It doesn’t seem to matter. A couple of my revolvers like a harder alloy though, so I add to it based on a calculation after I've tested my current supply. I usually get close enough to the target BHN that way.

Post up when you figure out what you are going to do.

[Stilly]

That is about what I am coming to. Just get a HUGE melting pot on my turkey fryer and remelt it all... I dunno how long it would take the melt to reach melting point though and given that it took the turkey fryer about 30 + minutes just to hit 350 deg I am willing to bet I would run out of propane before it got to melt any lead. I kid I kid. I just want to rationalize owning something called a smelter and made by Satan. I DO hate to waste gas though and if I could find an efficient way to melt it all, I would toss it all in the pot and combine all of the alloyed parts, toss in some more Lino for good measure and be good.

I am not worried hardness wise, I think I read that I only needed about 2-4% Antimony to be able to harden up the lead if I wanted to, but since I PC everything I figured I do not need hard lead, but Soft should be okay, but the option to flip the switch and make it hard is nice to have.

I just saw though that I had sent a few SAMPLE projectiles to someone so they could load them up and see if they liked how PC shot, and I felt a little embarrassed that my pills weighed either 234gr or 238gr and when I buy plated loads I weigh them and find that they are within +/- 1-2 gr variance.

Who am I to talk with any knowledge about making anything and I can't even make a consistent bullet weight... [Cue Sad Trombone music, Exit stage left]...