What in the world do I have here? Soft lead with zinc?

[Traffer]

Yes because alloys change hardness with time it will drive you nuts.
I had a heck of a time when i first started. Every time I went back to some alloy it tested different.
So I quit testing hardness and went to the old fingernail test. For my work I only need to distinguish between hard and soft alloy,. as I only use two harnesses. Soft for 22lr and hard for pistol bullets (10-12 bhn)

[Rcmaveric]

Try preheating the mold for about 5 to 10 min. See if that helps. Hot plate proffered. If you use the edge of the pot dunk the edge into molt for 2 to 5 seconds before casting with.

If its a brand new mold try smoking it with match or lighter. You will be surprised how long it takes to cook the oil out of even if you cleaned it well with boiling soapy water and brake cleaner.

Take your pot temp up to about 900 to 950. See if that helps.

When I get super irritated with stubborn mold/alloy. Pressure fill that bad boy and run that mold hot. Frosted bullets are fine.

If you have a bit of tin adding 1 to 2 oz to a full pot may help aswell.

That's my trouble shooting tree for stubborn casting session.

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[bangerjim]

Zn + HCl = bubbles. Period! Use the acid test to detect Zn, not all that messing around with melt temps and carp in you pot.

[Lloyd Smale]

BHN of 10 is my normal mix for almost everything.

Just some oxide. Flux the crap out of and then cover the top with borax to prevent it from corroding. No real way to say. What's in. Doubt its zinc though. Zinc issues show up more as being a real pita to cast with and the spout freezing over and horrid bulketfill out.

That skum was just oxides from. I get that some times if I don't do a good job fluxing. I flux with saw dust and let it cook lol. Then finnish off with a couple good bee wax or smell good candles. Wifes stolen smell good candles is the secret ingredient to homing bullets if you didn't know.

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I agree. Doesnt look like zinc to me.

[Rickf1985]

Well, I tested the samples I made and then I tested an ingot from the same load of lead and I went back and looked at a bullet I tested but I don't remember if it was this lead or the wheel weigh lead but they all came out to .062 on Lee's scale which is 13.4 BHN. I will take that with no problem. I am still perplexed at the mush in the pot but that lead was pretty dirty and originally poured into metal coffee cans that rusted away so there was all kinds of contamination there. I will get the acid out and see what that shows. Rcmaveric, isn't 950 getting up into the range you do NOT want to get into with lead? I do not want vaporized lead, I have ventilation but I don't want to push my luck.

Here is a pic of the ones I tested. All of the ones on top test at .062 and the bullet at the bottom is sheet lead and tested at .10 You can see on both bullets the fill out problems.

[Rickf1985]

Acid test had zero fizz, nice clean spot on lead but no fizz. cool and damp in garage meant smoke vapor as soon as lid came off the acid! Forgot that part, NOW I am awake and sinuses are clear!!!

[Rickf1985]

Now I feel like the real horses tail end! So I got no fizz on the lead I was working with. I decided to check the dross I pulled off the pot since there was a lot of it and there was a lot of metal in it. Very little fizz and what I saw I attributed to the dirt fizzing so I put all of the dross back in the pot. (after washing off the acid) Fired it up and waited to see what happened it started melting about 550 and kind of fell off until around 750 and then I was able to break it up like crystal. After it got to the same point it was at before on top of the melt I started chopping at it with the blade and breaking it all up and that was when I saw what I actually had......................... Dirt! Worked at it for a while and when I was done I had a pretty fair sized pile of dust and dirt and no metal in the dross pile and probably 10 ounces of lead in the pot. I shut the pot down and once it is cool I will drop out that piece and test it and I am betting it will come out the same as the rest of them did and all along my problem was I just did not break up the chunks and separate the dirt from the metal. If that is the case then I am happy since I have another 150 lbs. of this stuff to smelt down. Very labor intensive to cut it into pieces that will fit into the pot but hey, Free is not always without labor. Now if I could find a big burner.....................

[Cosmic_Charlie]

My bet is those chunks have some antimony in them. Up the temp and flux. Wheel weights look even worse than that until you get it well mixed and fluxed. I just smelted 113 pounds of wheel weights in the garage this morning and it was pretty grody until I got it cleaned up and mixed/ fluxed well. There were a few zinc ones in the melt but they stayed on top with the steel clips and dross and were strained out. Over time you will get used to smelting.

[Rcmaveric]

Nope.... danger zone is way higher. You have to boil it before its bad. Boil point is 3180 °F.

Higher temp just causes faster oxidation rate. You can off set the by coating the surface with borax. It will form borax glass and lock out oxygen.

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[bangerjim]

Yea, let me know the mods you did to get your Pb pot to reach 3,160F - - - - the boiling point of Pb! No vaporized/Pb steam present in the low temps we work at.

[jonp]

Cast a boolit and test it. Ingots will harden over time. I vote against zinc. What you got is dust and crunchy stuff from a not so clean chunk of lead

[Rickf1985]

Dirt is exactly what I had. I will take a pic of the pile I mined out of the pot when I remelted the dross I had taken out and I broke it all up and all the dirt separated out. Been fighting a really bad headache all day and the meds I have to take for that leave me a bit foggy so I don't do anything technical or dangerous until the next day. But I will try making some bullets from this alloy, I just need to get them to form better. What is the average pour temp and what is the upper limit for pouring? I went to Lee's site and watched one of their videos on using this very mold and guess what? The damn bullets look exactly the same!!!! All wrinkled. Doesn't give me a lot of confidence in the mold. I have already tried the dipping the mold in the pot, made no difference.

[Cosmic_Charlie]

I run my pot at 700 degrees. Works very well. I do preheat my molds on the glass top,stove until they are too hot to touch. Get good bullets right away.

[Mitch]

Pm sent

[Rickf1985]

Ok, I am going to resurrect this old thread instead of starting a new one so everyone can see the whole backstory. After Mitch on here got together with me on a couple phone calls plus I purchased a PID for both of my pots from Hatch, also on here, I got the lead cleaning and consistency down pretty good. I have been tied up with other things since and have not had time to do any boolit making but today was a good day for it so I got to work. I my past threads I had that lead that was questionable and that was what I was using today to start. It has a BHN of 15-16 so it is perfect except that it has a strange look to it. It looks crystalized. I did an acid test and nothing at all so no zinc. It melts right at 600 degrees so a low melting temp. I can tell you it does not fill out a mold worth a crap!! I tried taking the temp all the way up to 800 and no joy. Tried heating the molds very hot and also smoking them. Nothing. Emptied the pot and put in some WW lead I had that tested at 14 BHN and lowered the temp to 750 and BINGO! Perfect boolits! Lowered it to 700 and still good boolits. So I am including some pics of the old lead and the WW lead in the form of the boolits as they were made today. Lighting was tough but I tried to get the crystallization to show. All of the bad boolits are on top in the pics except the one where there are 4 boolits on the table and 2 on the lid, in that shot the bad ones are on the left. Let me know what you think.
The first pic are the bad ones and the second pic are the wheel weight ones. One other thing I need to mention, The wheel weight lead is heavier, On these bullets shown the bad ones are 170 grains and the good ones are 174.5 grains. That is measured over 10 boolits of each.

[Centaur 1]

Since no one knows for sure what you have, I'll give you my best hunch. Cast bullets using this alloy weigh less than the ones cast from wheel weights, so there's probably less lead in the mix than clip on wheel weights (coww). The mold isn't filling out as nice as the wheel weight, so my best guess is that it's not tin that's making them lighter. Now there's always the chance that you have something in the babbitt or bismuth families. By any chance did you have an uncle who replaced engine crankshaft bearings, or work in a babbitt mine? If not then it's not very likely that you have something exotic. Coww's have 2.5-3% antimony and .5% tin, and people still add tin to help with fill out in some molds. Rumor has it that really old (pre 1980) coww's had upwards of 6% antimony and .5% tin. If this is what you have, then adding tin would not only work, but most likely it'll be a requirement. In reality, no matter what alloy you have, adding tin will probably be the answer.

I would try mixing small batches of it with other lead you have, then cast some bullets and see how they shoot. Your bullets really don't look as bad as you make them out to be. Try mixing 5lbs of this alloy with 5lbs of coww, then add just enough tin to fill out the sharp corners and make beautiful bullets.

My guess is that this will work just fine for casting bullets. And with either a good lube or a powder coated finish, you'll have no problem reaching 2200+ F.P.S. velocity.

I really hope this helps and doesn't make the confusion any worse.

Mike

[P Flados]

There are a couple of things going on.

You indicate a hardness close to pure, but a melting point of 500 degf.

The normal additive to drop the melting point of lead from 621 to 500 degf would be tin.

I found Rotometals sells a 40:1 (97.5% - 2.5%) lead tin alloy that has a hardness of 7-8 BHN and an 30:1 (97% - 3%) that has a hardness of 9 BHN.

Melting point of both of the above is well above 500 degf (see chart below).

So unless your data points are off quite a bit, the reduced melting point is probably not due to tin. Lead - Bismuth alloys melt at lower temps than Lead - Tin alloys. I am guessing that a small amount of bismuth could drop the melting point quite a bit. I am not sure how bismuth affects hardness. As long as you can get the alloy to work (see below), some bismuth should not hurt anything.

Now for the stuff you removed. Most anything with a melting point over 700 degf is probably best left out of casting lead unless you know what it is and can control the percentage. If you really want to you could try to blend small amounts back into large batches over time. Very small amounts of even the dreaded zinc actually increase hardness a little bit without causing any real problems.

Regardless of all of the above, you seem to have some sort of mystery lead alloy. I would not be reluctant at all in trying to using it. As long as it is heavy and melts decent, at worst it can be blended with other sources of lead to "fix" it.

Try to cast a small batch of bullets. Flux well and confirm you get a smooth liquid alloy (not lumpy or slushy) at a normal casting temp. If not you probably should consider blending this batch with some lead from another source until it becomes more "normal".

See how hard it is to get good fill out and wrinkle free bullets. If needed you can add tin (or pewter) to your small batch to help getting good fill out and no wrinkles.

Once you are getting decent looking bullets, check the weights. If they are a lot lighter than expected, you have mystery alloy that should be blended in with other sources of lead until your weights get reasonable. If they are on the heavy side, you have a high percentage lead. Any high percentage lead alloy can be adjusted to improve it by increasing tin content as needed for better fill out and antimony content (typically by blending in some "hard lead" such as wheel weights, linotype, superhard) to increase hardness.

I really dislike waste, so I tend to try real hard to "do what it takes" for cases like this. I just consider it part of the game.

[Rickf1985]

There are a couple of things going on.

You indicate a hardness close to pure, but a melting point of 500 degf.

The normal additive to drop the melting point of lead from 621 to 500 degf would be tin.

I found Rotometals sells a 40:1 (97.5% - 2.5%) lead tin alloy that has a hardness of 7-8 BHN and an 30:1 (97% - 3%) that has a hardness of 9 BHN.

Melting point of both of the above is well above 500 degf (see chart below).

So unless your data points are off quite a bit, the reduced melting point is probably not due to tin. Lead - Bismuth alloys melt at lower temps than Lead - Tin alloys. I am guessing that a small amount of bismuth could drop the melting point quite a bit. I am not sure how bismuth affects hardness. As long as you can get the alloy to work (see below), some bismuth should not hurt anything.

Now for the stuff you removed. Most anything with a melting point over 700 degf is probably best left out of casting lead unless you know what it is and can control the percentage. If you really want to you could try to blend small amounts back into large batches over time. Very small amounts of even the dreaded zinc actually increase hardness a little bit without causing any real problems.

Regardless of all of the above, you seem to have some sort of mystery lead alloy. I would not be reluctant at all in trying to using it. As long as it is heavy and melts decent, at worst it can be blended with other sources of lead to "fix" it.

Try to cast a small batch of bullets. Flux well and confirm you get a smooth liquid alloy (not lumpy or slushy) at a normal casting temp. If not you probably should consider blending this batch with some lead from another source until it becomes more "normal".

See how hard it is to get good fill out and wrinkle free bullets. If needed you can add tin (or pewter) to your small batch to help getting good fill out and no wrinkles.

Once you are getting decent looking bullets, check the weights. If they are a lot lighter than expected, you have mystery alloy that should be blended in with other sources of lead until your weights get reasonable. If they are on the heavy side, you have a high percentage lead. Any high percentage lead alloy can be adjusted to improve it by increasing tin content as needed for better fill out and antimony content (typically by blending in some "hard lead" such as wheel weights, linotype, superhard) to increase hardness.

I really dislike waste, so I tend to try real hard to "do what it takes" for cases like this. I just consider it part of the game.

What I am working with here with this mix I am using for these bullets comes out to a BHN of 15, far from pure. Melting point is right on 600 degrees and I have melted it several times so I know it is consistent. I think maybe you are looking way back in the beginning at what I was dealing with from the start.

[Rickf1985]

Since no one knows for sure what you have, I'll give you my best hunch. Cast bullets using this alloy weigh less than the ones cast from wheel weights, so there's probably less lead in the mix than clip on wheel weights (coww). The mold isn't filling out as nice as the wheel weight, so my best guess is that it's not tin that's making them lighter. Now there's always the chance that you have something in the babbitt or bismuth families. By any chance did you have an uncle who replaced engine crankshaft bearings, or work in a babbitt mine? If not then it's not very likely that you have something exotic. Coww's have 2.5-3% antimony and .5% tin, and people still add tin to help with fill out in some molds. Rumor has it that really old (pre 1980) coww's had upwards of 6% antimony and .5% tin. If this is what you have, then adding tin would not only work, but most likely it'll be a requirement. In reality, no matter what alloy you have, adding tin will probably be the answer.

I would try mixing small batches of it with other lead you have, then cast some bullets and see how they shoot. Your bullets really don't look as bad as you make them out to be. Try mixing 5lbs of this alloy with 5lbs of coww, then add just enough tin to fill out the sharp corners and make beautiful bullets.

My guess is that this will work just fine for casting bullets. And with either a good lube or a powder coated finish, you'll have no problem reaching 2200+ F.P.S. velocity.

I really hope this helps and doesn't make the confusion any worse.

Mike

You are calling pre 80's really old?!! LOL I must be older than dirt then! Well, This lead was here when I bought the place and it is in the form of what used to be large metal coffee cans filled with lead and then an eye stuck in the end before it hardened. I am thinking an anchor of sorts. I also have three sledgehammers made the same way with a heavy copper pipe for the handle. These all weigh 65 lbs. each. I also found many very large homemade ingots that are dead soft lead. I figure those old weights are at least 60 years old or more. There is a picture of one of them a ways back in the thread.
Here is a pic of one of the hammers, The weight/anchor is the same thing with an eye on the end for a rope.

[Centaur 1]

I also used to live in New Jersey back before they invented dirt, it was a bitch growing those tomatoes in straight Watchung mountain bluestone. Lead was a lot easier to get back then, and homemade boat anchors were a common thing. Those "hammers" are interesting, I'm thinking that they'd even be too heavy for Thor. It makes you wonder what they were trying to build with them. Maybe they were used as fence posts to keep rabbits out of the garden? There are a lot of old homes in your area that had lead pipes in them, that could be where the soft lead came from. Regardless of where it came from I'm sure that you'll be able to make good bullets with it. I would try mixing some of your unknown alloy 50/50 with the soft lead, or try combining equal amounts of the unknown alloy, the soft ingots, and clip on wheel weights.