Fishing sinkers and diving weight composition and alloying

[Dunross]

Howdy,

Brand new member here and equally new to casting!

Anyway, I bought half a bucket of scrap fishing sinkers and dive weights today. Am I correct in believing they are most likely pure lead? If this is true what do I need to add to each pound of cleaned metal to bring it up to a Brinnell hardness of 12 for regular bullet casting? I have some Linotype, can scare up some solder, or can look for other alloying metal sources?

I've had bullet molds for years, have a copy of the Lyman Cast Bullet Handbook, just never got around to using them. Finally found a roundtoit so am eager to get on with it as I pursue the mythical Lyman 429352.

Thanks for your advice!

[Retumbo]

Diving weights could be made out of anything.

Melt into ingots and test hardness after a week or so

[poppy42]

I would not assume that it’s pure lead. I know for a fact that a local FD dive team casts their dive weights from wheel weights. They don’t separate anything. And they heat until everything melts. I don’t dive so I don’t know if that is the norm. I would think the same could be said about fishing sinkers.

[Mitch]

welcome to the madness Dunross
I stay away from things like dive weights and sinkers.Realy anything that someone else has melted. there is no telling what someone else melted in any home bru stuff.I am still leaning what I am looking at when I visit the local scrap yard or some one has lead they think you may need.Better to turn something down you are not sure about than get something you dot need or is contaminated.good luck in the lead hunt.

[John Boy]

Am I correct in believing they are most likely pure lead?

No - will run from any Bhn close to 7 up to 14.3

[RogerDat]

Dive belt weights have a weight stamped on them from the mold. If the actual weight matches the weight cast into the mold it is probably plain/pure lead. Lighter weight indicates some random alloy was used to home cast the belt weight. The molds are intended to be used with plain lead so a mold that casts a 1# weight will only be 1# if the material is lead. COWW's for example would be lighter alloy.

With scrap sources you will probably avoid some problems by working with the scrap in smaller batches of the same material. As alluded to above in another post some weight casters might not remove zinc wheel weights. Zinc makes lead very hard to cast. Gives it a floating skin with an oatmeal like consistency. So you melt the dive weights after checking the weight. If they pour well into your ingot mold there you go, good lead. Do the same with the assorted other stuff. Sort it into "like" groups. Melt and pour as ingots. If the ingots pour well then the chances are the bullets will too.

Thermometer or known lead alloy can be your friend too. COWW lead melts at lower temperature than plain lead. Alloys with more tin content melt lower than COWW's. A pot of known just molten lead or lead alloy or a thermometer can allow you to dip melt unknown items. If it won't melt when dipped into a pot of molten lead at 650* - 675* then it isn't lead. Zinc alloys or contaminated lead just won't dissolve rapidly into that temperature of melt. One can use this approach to test suspected solder or even suspected pewter. Wire might be lead or might be solder. If it melts into a pot of solder at 400* then it is solder not lead. Pewter item should just vanish into a pot of molten pewter. If it doesn't get it out! It isn't pewter.

Last but not least after getting your assorted small batches made into ingots you can decide if you think they were plain or alloys like COWW's based on hardness. Or thunk vs. tink when struck (soft lead goes thunk, alloy being harder goes tink when struck) Take these smaller batches and make into the largest batches of similar hardness or melt characteristics. Then have a sample of the large batch tested or use and adjust mix as needed.

The idea is sort to melt and test. Combine back into large batches of "known good" so you have a big supply that will be consistent. Then use the large batch as an ingredient in your casting. The large consistent batch should yield fairly consistent bullets. Nothing is more of a PITA when using scrap lead than having little 10# and 20# batches that are all different based on what they came from. Much better to have a large batch that you know and can use with other alloys for a consistent recipe.

Big batches of same stuff are best. Your bucket is probably good in that it is a single large batch to process, a little pita due to people often made these at home as a cottage industry from whatever lead they could get so form of item won't tell you with much certainty about what the lead is.

Items of scrap that by their form indicate the alloy are also a good choice. Pipe is soft lead, with possibly tin in the soldered joints, sheet lead is soft lead, COWW's are harder lead, stamped solder bars for tin, Printers lead in letter or pig form are hard and tin rich, even Lee or RCBS molded ingots from an old caster stash will probably be fairly consistent and known good. Dental xray foils (stinky and takes a huge pile to make a melt but nice alloy) All of these you have a pretty decent idea of what the lead is or that it is usable and worth picking up in quantity. You can always buy some rich alloy to sweeten a good supply of soft lead into a harder or tougher alloy. 50/50 soft and COWW's is good for a lot of uses so your 60# soft lead at scrap prices can be supplemented with a COWW or linotype purchase through S&S forum or ordering other alloy from Rotometals as a sweetener.

[NyFirefighter357]

Melt it into ingots and send a sample for testing. Could be anything from soft lead to wheel weights mixed with zinc. I'd melt the sinkers in one lot and the dive weights in another. You might want to try an acid test on some of them first, that will show if there is any Zinc.

[lightman]

Like the others have said, homemade sinkers and dive weights could be about anything. Bullet casters hate zinc and take precautions to avoid it. For dive weights and fishing sinkers, there is no need to worry about zinc so you should be at least a little cautious. I would do as NYFirefighter suggest.

I have played around with a few factory dive weights and the hardness was about like wheel weight alloy. I didn't cast with them as they were more valuable as dive weights than they were as casting alloy.

[Mitch]

Dive belt weights have a weight stamped on them from the mold. If the actual weight matches the weight cast into the mold it is probably plain/pure lead. Lighter weight indicates some random alloy was used to home cast the belt weight. The molds are intended to be used with plain lead so a mold that casts a 1# weight will only be 1# if the material is lead. COWW's for example would be lighter alloy.

With scrap sources you will probably avoid some problems by working with the scrap in smaller batches of the same material. As alluded to above in another post some weight casters might not remove zinc wheel weights. Zinc makes lead very hard to cast. Gives it a floating skin with an oatmeal like consistency. So you melt the dive weights after checking the weight. If they pour well into your ingot mold there you go, good lead. Do the same with the assorted other stuff. Sort it into "like" groups. Melt and pour as ingots. If the ingots pour well then the chances are the bullets will too.

Thermometer or known lead alloy can be your friend too. COWW lead melts at lower temperature than plain lead. Alloys with more tin content melt lower than COWW's. A pot of known just molten lead or lead alloy or a thermometer can allow you to dip melt unknown items. If it won't melt when dipped into a pot of molten lead at 650* - 675* then it isn't lead. Zinc alloys or contaminated lead just won't dissolve rapidly into that temperature of melt. One can use this approach to test suspected solder or even suspected pewter. Wire might be lead or might be solder. If it melts into a pot of solder at 400* then it is solder not lead. Pewter item should just vanish into a pot of molten pewter. If it doesn't get it out! It isn't pewter.

Last but not least after getting your assorted small batches made into ingots you can decide if you think they were plain or alloys like COWW's based on hardness. Or thunk vs. tink when struck (soft lead goes thunk, alloy being harder goes tink when struck) Take these smaller batches and make into the largest batches of similar hardness or melt characteristics. Then have a sample of the large batch tested or use and adjust mix as needed.

The idea is sort to melt and test. Combine back into large batches of "known good" so you have a big supply that will be consistent. Then use the large batch as an ingredient in your casting. The large consistent batch should yield fairly consistent bullets. Nothing is more of a PITA when using scrap lead than having little 10# and 20# batches that are all different based on what they came from. Much better to have a large batch that you know and can use with other alloys for a consistent recipe.

Big batches of same stuff are best. Your bucket is probably good in that it is a single large batch to process, a little pita due to people often made these at home as a cottage industry from whatever lead they could get so form of item won't tell you with much certainty about what the lead is.

Items of scrap that by their form indicate the alloy are also a good choice. Pipe is soft lead, with possibly tin in the soldered joints, sheet lead is soft lead, COWW's are harder lead, stamped solder bars for tin, Printers lead in letter or pig form are hard and tin rich, even Lee or RCBS molded ingots from an old caster stash will probably be fairly consistent and known good. Dental xray foils (stinky and takes a huge pile to make a melt but nice alloy) All of these you have a pretty decent idea of what the lead is or that it is usable and worth picking up in quantity. You can always buy some rich alloy to sweeten a good supply of soft lead into a harder or tougher alloy. 50/50 soft and COWW's is good for a lot of uses so your 60# soft lead at scrap prices can be supplemented with a COWW or linotype purchase through S&S forum or ordering other alloy from Rotometals as a sweetener.

well done Roger.

[Dunross]

Thanks for the advice, folks!

So, to recap:

#1 - Weigh the dive weights to see how close in actual weight they are to what they are marked. The closer in actual weight to claimed weight the higher the lead content.

#2 - I should separate the sinkers from the dive weights and cast ingots of each. Look for the oatmealy signs of zinc contamination. If I see any I suppose I could try the sulfur treatment to see if it cleans up.

#3 - Optionally, have some samples tested. Where does one send samples to be tested and roughly how much does that cost?

#4 - While doing the initial melt keep the temperature to under 700 degrees so that anything with zinc in it will be slow to melt or won't melt at all. I'm ordering a thermometer today.


The salvage yard has roof flashing as well that I didn't pick up at the time mostly because it's in more unwieldy size pieces, but I suppose I can hammer it down into lumps small enough to get into the pot I'm going to use to clean up the metal. I'll pick up some of that to give me something to work with right away as I detectivate the sinker/dive weight lead. I kind of have to move quickly because the yard is going out of business at the first of the year so I want to get while the getting's good.

Assuming the lead roof flashing is more or less pure lead how much Linotype, solder, whatever should I add per pound to get it up to a Brinnell hardness of about twelve or so?

Thanks again for the advice!

[RogerDat]

Member named BNE will test a BB sized sample in exchange for 1 pound of any lead. One of the benefits of large batches is fewer samples. Reach out to him via a PM (Private Message) using the forum. He will send you the details.

Lead mixology. You want the free Lead Alloy Calculator crafted by Bumpo628 http://castboolits.gunloads.com/show...oy-calculators Allows you to enter weights for common alloys or add custom alloys and will calculate the approx. BHN (hardness) and final percentages of key alloy components.

Lead Alloy Calculator is an Excel spreadsheet so if you don't have Microsoft Office Excel you will want to download the free Open Office software. Available for Windows, Mac, or Linux. The Calc program from the Open Office will run the lead alloy calculator spreadsheet. https://www.openoffice.org/download/ Open Office is an open source project which is maintained by Apache foundation. Well maintained and good quality software for free, programmers contribute work to the project. Apache foundation manages the project. Apache is the group that makes the software that runs web servers, probably the most common web server in use is Apache. In short big time support with long term commitment yields top quality free software.

What I usually do when making a batch of bullet alloy is put some numbers into the Lead Alloy Calculator, see the results, then adjust by adding more or less of lead or alloys until the results are what I want. For example the roofing lead sheets. BHN around 7 and desire is pistol rounds with BHN around 10.5 with 1.5% tin for flow. I just put in the quantity of roofing lead (say 40#) then add some weight of COWW's or Linotype to see what it calculates to for a final BHN and tin percentage. With Lino having tin that will show up. COWW's not having tin I would end up plugging in weight for solder or pewter until the calculation showed the desired 1.5% tin.

Roughly 50% plain and 50% Linotype is Hardball alloy. 2/6/92 Sn/Sb/Pb which has a pretty hard BHN of ~15 suitable for rifle rounds. A little hard for say moderate revolver or 45 acp rounds. Cut the 2/6/92 with 50% plain and you have something close to COWW's with 1% tin. A very usable alloy. You could go softer for regular revolver or slow 45 acp but that alloy would work across a wide range.

50/50 mix of plain/COWW's plus tin to 2% or less (more is wasted, as little as 1% tin will make a difference in flow in mold) This is a common alloy. A little soft for max rifle velocities but excellent handgun and suitable for plinking rifle rounds. The softer lead will expand well so for hunting it may be appropriate in some calibers.

Thing is with the alloy calculator you can plug in 10#of this and 10# of that plus 1# of the other and see what it yields, adjust until you like the outcome then increase the amounts equally to make a larger batch. 10# times 4 is 40# of this + 40# of that + 4# of the other Bingo an 84# batch of alloy. There is a bit of a balance to maintain between mixing final alloys and keeping ingredients available for mixing what you need in the future. Can't take the linotype, or solder back out of a mix. So batches mixed need to meet needs but not suck up all your good alloy, leaving you with nothing to make a different alloy for a different need later. E.g. if all your linotype is in a batch of plain lead pistol alloy you won't be able to make hardball alloy to cast for a .30 caliber rifle load.

Bumpo's calculator is like a Christmas gift to yourself.

PS. Plain lead such as roof flashing is what is needed for muzzle loaders and cap and ball. Both need soft lead to cast for. So for your own ML needs or as a trade/sale item that soft lead has a specific use in addition to being an ingredient in other alloys.

[durango]

FWIW--If your dive weights and fishing weights are clean and look fairly good, you would be better off selling them as what they are--dive or fishing weights-- and then buying clean lead here on this forum. My research on various forums indicate that fishing weights sell for about $3.00/lb. and dive weights can go for $5.00/lb. or more. Clean lead ingots sell for $1.00/lb. here on cast bullets.
If you live near the coasts or larger bodies of water, you should be able to sell FTF fairly easily and avoid the hassle of shipping. Do the math. I agree with the others who have responded to this thread. Welcome to cast boolits. Steve

[lightman]

[QUOTE=Dunross;4532266]Thanks for the advice, folks!

So, to recap:

#1 - Weigh the dive weights to see how close in actual weight they are to what they are marked. The closer in actual weight to claimed weight the higher the lead content.

I probably would not go to the trouble of weighing those weights. I would melt them into one batch and have them tested.

#2 - I should separate the sinkers from the dive weights and cast ingots of each. Look for the oatmealy signs of zinc contamination. If I see any I suppose I could try the sulfur treatment to see if it cleans up.

I would separate the dive weights from the sinkers. It won't hurt to look for the oatmeal mix but I would not worry about trying to remove the zinc. A small % won't hurt and you would probably be more successful mixing the contaminated lead in a little at a time with good alloy rather than trying to remove the zinc. Many of the guys on here quote the saying "dilution is the solution to pollution" and it has some merit.

#3 - Optionally, have some samples tested. Where does one send samples to be tested and roughly how much does that cost?

A member (BNE) here offers this service. You can send him a PM for the particulars. You can find his name on the stickies about XFR test results on wheel weights. He ask for a pound of lead per sample as payment. He accepts any type of lead but I usually ask him what he prefers. He has to do this around his work schedule but he is usually pretty quick.

#4 - While doing the initial melt keep the temperature to under 700 degrees so that anything with zinc in it will be slow to melt or won't melt at all. I'm ordering a thermometer today.

A thermometer is nice to have but I would not worry too much about keeping your melt under 700º. If its contaminated, its contaminated, you're not going to hurt it more by melting it again. Later on if you start melting wheel weights it will pay to watch the temps but this batch is either contaminated or not.

My advice may contradict what a few others have suggested. Everything posted will work but this is just what I would do from having been in the same situations before. As for mixing alloys Roger has provided a link to a calculator that works really well.

I'll 2nd the advice of checking the market for dive weights and fishing sinkers in your area.

[shooting on a shoestring]

We all have our habits, methods, ways of doing things. Great thing about this site is seeing how other casters work their casting. One can learn a thing or two on here by others experience or knowledge. This thread is a good example.

I’ll strongly second keeping zinc out of your alloys. Zinc brings frustration.

I’ll add I approach my casting in 2 tiers.

The first and most used tier is general pistol boolits. Not striving for super accuracy, just need to plink, shoot a dueling tree, a swinging target, ping pong balls all without a bench resting. I want no leading, good accuracy, good quick production volume in casting and reloading, minimum fuss, maximum fun. In this tier, I guesstaimate the alloy, don’t worry about measuring hardness, just get the diameter I need and roll.

The second tier is for long range work, rifle work, defensive loads/boolits, things that are “serious”. Here’s where I think, research, experiment, keep track, measure and “fuss” over the small details it takes to get small groups, or big expansion, or whatever I’m striving to accomplish.

Just wanting to point out lots of fun can be had casting/reloading/shooting a bucket of boolits through a revolver without stressing over the details. But then fun can also be had stressing over the details and getting rewarded by tiny groups. Kind of like choosing the right tool for the job.