Are these ingots ok to use?

[TonyR]

Hey all,

New to the forum and just getting started in casting and reloading. I just wanted to get some input from more experienced people on these lead ingots i have the opportunity to pick up. There is someone local selling lead ingots for 1.50/pound and I was able to negotiate down to $1/lb if I buy 200 lbs. In the picture I am attaching, I noticed brown residue on the ingots which I am assuming is rust? Will these be ok to cast into bullets or should I melt them down again and refine them first? This will be my first batch of casting and reloading and want to make sure I do it right the first time. The rounds will only be used for plinking ammo.



Any advice is appreciated and Happy Holidays

Tony

[Winger Ed.]

Just a guess, but that residue is probably just dirt.
When lead tarnishes, its a dull gray.

I'd melt & use them.
It they're pure, and they probably are, you might want to mix in a little tin and/or old school wheel weights to alloy the pot.

[jdfoxinc]

The rust is probably from the cast iron lyman ingot mold and will float to the top with the rest of the dross. (Auto correct said dress) just flux as posted here 2henever you add more to the pot.

[Traffer]

Making lead bullets is not rocket science. If it's heavy, melts and fills a mold SHOOT IT.

[Dusty Bannister]

If you see rust on an ingot, consider that there might be residual moisture present and make sure the ingot is preheated to drive off the moisture before adding it to a casting pot. Steam explosions are hazardous. Did you drop the ingots on cement to see if they ring, or if they go thud. That will help you determine how soft the lead might be and if you need to add some type of hardening agent. There are some good sticky threads to read before you turn on the casting furnace that can make life safer and easier.

[Iron369]

Making bullies is not rocket science, but there’s definitely a science to it. What your intentions are is far more important than the alloy you have.

[TonyR]

Thanks for the quick responses, like I said these are just for plinking so i'm not overly concerned about it. I just wanted to make sure I wasn't getting one pulled over on me. The price seems good to me, especially since they are already in manageable ingot form. I will definitely heat them up before melting them down just to make sure I don't blow my operation up.

Thanks for the advice.

[Traffer]

Another thing is: you don't need to know everything before you start. Just learn as you go. If you have problems ...a zillion people here will help you out whenever you need. But for starters just mold up some bullets and see how you do. (Obviously be safe...water and molten lead will get you burnt. Don't burn things that make awful fumes...basic stuff like that.)

[NyFirefighter357]

Test them with a drop or two of muriatic acid to see if Zn is in the alloy, besides that I'd bet they are a mix of wheel weights. The rust isn't from the ingot it's from how/where it was stored. Despite what people say lead doesn't hold moisture & it's not porous. Lead is dense and takes a long time to change temperature. Cold lead sweats because of the moisture in the air whether it's humidity or the exhaust gases of the burner which are mostly water condensing on the colder lead.

[Three44s]

Just a little residual iron from the ingot mold that has rusted. It will float free when you melt them. The caution about a bit of moisture and the need to pre-heat the ingots of lead is a good idea to reduce the chance for splatters upon melting them.

If you stack them endways in a cold lead pot and then heat it all up together, that would suffice. The remaining still cold lead bars would need a pre-heat however.

Three44s

[MrWolf]

Test them with a drop or two of muriatic acid to see if Zn is in the alloy, besides that I'd bet they are a mix of wheel weights. The rust isn't from the ingot it's from how/where it was stored. Despite what people say lead doesn't hold moisture & it's not porous. Lead is dense and takes a long time to change temperature. Cold lead sweats because of the moisture in the air whether it's humidity or the exhaust gases of the burner which are mostly water condensing on the colder lead.

This. If you can scratch it easy enough and no reaction from the muriatic acid (swimming pool stuff works) then you should be good to go. Good luck

[AlHunt]

Thanks for the quick responses, like I said these are just for plinking so i'm not overly concerned about it. I just wanted to make sure I wasn't getting one pulled over on me. The price seems good to me, especially since they are already in manageable ingot form. I will definitely heat them up before melting them down just to make sure I don't blow my operation up.

Thanks for the advice.

You say you're new to casting so, this may not be old news ... either put the ingots in your pot before you turn it on or, if adding on the fly, lay it across the top of the pot for a few minutes to drive off any condensation.

You've had plenty of feedback on what appears to be a non-issue. I agree any "rust" on there looks storage related or was something on the ingot mold.

A buck a pound is quite fair from what I've seen available. Free-for-the-taking lead is uncommon any more.

[TonyR]

I wanted to post an update here instead of making a new thread.

I picked up the lead today. It was stored outside in the backyard underneath a tarp. The tarp had water on in and I’d imagine the lead was left out in the elements for some time which explains the rusty look. I plan on melting it all down and refining it into larger ingots for easier management and to clean the lead up.

She told me that most of it was from melted down wheel weights. What would you all recommend to add to this lead, if anything, to make it better for bullet casting? What’s a good rule of thumb for the ratio on pounds of lead with what I should add to it? I’ve seen people use anything from saw dust to candle wax to flux lead, are these ok to use in my scenario?

Sorry for the bombardment of questions, I’m drinking through a fire hose but learning a lot already, thanks.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

[kevin c]

Welcome!

COWW (clip on wheel weight) alloy in years past was about 3% Sb (antimony) with a bit of tin (Sn) and a trace of arsenic (As). As is, it casts well with good hardness for up to intermediate velocities, but many would add a bit of tin to improve mold fill out at lower casting temperatures (or you can just raise the melt temp instead), and many more would cut it, maybe 1:1, with soft lead to make it go further (it's getting much harder to source these days). The arsenic, even in trace amounts, allows for extra steps that can harden the cast bullet beyond what the native alloy would achieve just by air cooling.

Hydrocarbons burning on top of the melt and carbon from them stirred into it are used to reduce oxides and to sequester and skim out impurities respectively. Sawdust and candle wax are cheap, readily available and work well.

Lots of good advice available here from wise heads willing to share their experiences and from the stickies and a little application of search fu, but I'm suprised that nobody has suggested the lasc.com site, especially Glenn Fryxell's articles, "From Ingot to Target". Everything I've mentioned and a whole lot more is there.

[AlHunt]

If those ingots are sized to fit in your melt pot there's really no need to re-melt them into larger ingots. Sounds like someone already did the re-smelt part for you.

If they're mostly COWW, cast something with them as-is and see how it goes. You'll flux in the pot. I use sawdust from under the table saw (strain out the cat turds first). Throw it in, stir it like mad and skim it off and get casting.

If you have the details of your mold right (properly cleaned, seasoned, running it hot enough) I'd bet it'll cast just fine.

[Walstr]

Try this my friend. A BHN Machine is so not worth it! LOL

Lead Hardness Testing
Purpose: Determine the BHN hardness of an unknkown sample of lead alloy, by comparing it to a known sample of pure lead, BHN 5.
Procedure: Cast 2 flat samples of lead via bottle caps, shallow Forstner holes in wood, etc., allow to air cool. Assure the test surfaces are flat & smooth to permit accurate measurements of indentations. Obtain a 3/8" dia. steel ball & sandwich between the known & unknown lead casts, then compress sufficiently to produce a measureable indentation. Allow a few moments for compressive forces to stabilize before removing pressure. The difference between the indentation diameters will determine BHN of the unknown sample.
Formula: Hu = Hr * Dr^2 / Du^2
Hu= 13.14828342 Brinell Hardness Number of Unknown Sample
Hr= 5 Brinell Hardness Number of Known Reference Sample, typically BHN=5 for pure lead .
Dr= 0.18 Indentation Diameter Formed in the Reference Sample
Du= 0.111 Indentation Diameter Formed in the Unknown Sample

[P Flados]

You did great on your first lead score. I can get soft lead for around $1.10/lb, but hard lead (like yours) is hard to find and $1.35 or more.

If you think you are going to be into casting for a while, start watching for re-supply opportunities. If you can, mix your coww with soft lead at say 50-50 for "plinking bullets" to stretch the coww out.

[jsizemore]

If the accumulation on the surface of the ingots looks like anything in the following pictures, put on you respirator and your latex/nitrile gloves before you handle them or breath in that dust:

https://www.google.com/search?q=surf...BL9Uj1L4CWwKpM

[40-82 hiker]

Without actually testing this myself (?), I think it is possible that IF it is iron rust on your ingots, the muriatic acid used to test for the presence of zinc is going to bubble anyway, whether there is zinc present or not. Clean the surface off real good, and then scrape to clean, bright, ingot alloy before the test for the presence of zinc.

If I am wrong about this, please correct me. If I remember correctly, this reaction between hydrochloric acid and iron does create bubbles. At what rate, and in which concentrations I do not know.

[Conditor22]

I would test the hardness of each got before smelting. easy cheap way to go is http://castboolits.gunloads.com/show...-testing-trick

you would have a mixture of pure and COWW. a quick test is to drop each ingot on concrete if it thuds it probably pure if it rings a little COWW

When smelting use bot pine sawdust and wax to flux the lead with