Range lead and wheel weight lead

[dj454]

I just picked up some lead today. 63 lbs of range lead melted into one big ingot (a small block chevy valve cover) and 2 large blocks that were used as race car weights both 25 lbs each. The race car weights were made from wheel weights but I have no idea if they skimmed off the good stuff or not. I plan to melt them down and put them into smaller ingots (muffin size) for future casting. I am just getting started so I will have a few questions as I proceed. I plan to buy some artists pencils tonight to get a ball park idea of what hardness I am dealing with. I have a pretty good idea it is softer than I want because it scratches very easily with my fingernail.

I want to be able to get my mix as consistent as I can and I know it's not going to be exact especially buying scrap lead. A coworker that cast said to buy scrap pewter and add about 1 lb to 20lbs of lead. Does this sound reasonable? If I had melted down the wheel weights myself and fluxed them I would probably cast them as is for the slow speeds I intend to shoot. The range lead of course I have no idea what it consists of so I am open to suggestions.

I will make my ingot first but I should have a couple of bullet molds in the next 2 weeks or so and I am ready to start casting but I want to get it right. I am going to be coating my bullets with the coating Bayou bullets uses. I ordered it today and it should be here next week. I have everything ready to start coating my bullets. I am going to coat my remaining store bought bullets with it also.

[bosterr]

In regard to your race car ingot. I ran into this a couple weeks ago. I melted down with a propane torch a chunk about 8" X 10" with a v-groove down the middle with 4 bolt holes. The average racer owns and uses a cutting torch for a lot of things, including melting WW into ballast. Zinc WW are no match for a cutting torch. I kept these ingots separate from the rest. Sure enough, I tried casting into bullets, and all went to hell. The boolits dropped would not fill out. By that I mean, at 800 degrees, all the edges that should have been sharp were not and were grainy. I had attempted to use 50/50 WW and pure lead. All I'm out is a few pounds of pure. Dumped this junk and refilled the pot with good, known WW and pure again, and got good drops from the beginning. This **** is still laying outside with no good use for it (at least for me). I don't fish or need sinkers.

[bangerjim]

Yes.....with buying "alien" lead, you have absolutely no idea what is in there. Only way to really know is to take an ingot of it to a scrap yard that has an x-ray analysis gun and (talking reeeeel nice) get them to do an analysis on it. That only takes about 15-20 seconds.

You could have a ton of zinc in there and it will not be known until you try to cast some slugs. You may even have trouble melting it! You can clean out the zinc with sulfur and/or copper sulfate. There is a thread on here about how to do it. Give it a search.

Good luck........hope you do not have a bunch of contaminated stuff on your hands!


IF there is a lot of zinc in there, shadygrady on here might be interested in it. Contact him by PM.


bangerjim

[el34]

And one last thing, it's spelled b-o-o-l-i-t-s!

[felix]

My experience over 40 years with lead boolits says you do NOT need sharply defined edges for accuracy. You NEED every accuracy boolit to weigh within + or - 0.1 grain and placed into three distinct piles with each having zero tolerance. When your whole pot of lead delivers those boolits as suggested withing 80 percent or thereabouts, the alloy is of no concern except for the powder and primer selection for the three piles. The alloy HAS to meet dimensions, however, and that can be a problem. Mix the alloy with "stuff" until boolit expansion meets the gun's criteria. ... felix

[Czech_too]

With regard to the OP, you say that you want to get your mix as consistant as possible, but you're working with alloys of unknown composition. So why not take the range lead and use it for starters since you're going to be loading slower loads, at least initially. When you can better determine what sort of alloys you're dealing with on the other large ingots then you can start working with it.
To date all I've been using is range lead and I'm using it in anything from a .223 to .30 cal to 45ACP. Mind you that none of these loads are barn burners but they've worked and I'm not getting any leading. As someone once quoted "Fit is King".

[shadygrady]

i do not need contaminated zinc with lead only zinc or real zinc alloy no lead or any that is contaminated with what you do not know thats in it thks

[dj454]

I melted my lead down today. I kept the temp around 650 since zinc melts at almost 800. It appears to have no zinc in it. The guy I got it from assured me he separated the zinc wheel weights out before he made the race car weights. I melted the range lead first since I was 99.9% sure there would be no zinc in it. It was very nasty when it melted it had a lot of dirt in it but I fluxed it and cleaned it and made some muffin pan ingots. I kept all of them in seperate batches so I would know what is what. When I get my molds I will see what happens.

[Czech_too]

I agree with your keeping the respective 'alloys' seperate. While I do have a stash of WW ingots, linotype and soft lead, I'm holding all of it in reserve should I feel the need to cast some boolit(s) that I feel needs to be something other than range lead.

I recall seeing a post, or posts, from a member offering to do a analysis of lead alloys to properly determine the composition. That might be an option to look into.

[WILCO]

I am open to suggestions.

Pick up a LEE Lead Hardness Tester.

[Ole]

What I normally do if I'm casting with range lead is treat them as clip on wheel weights, but if I'm water quenching and need a harder bullet, I add around a lb (sometimes two) of lino to a full pot and that usually brings whatever tin and antimony up to pretty close to WW alloy.

Keep in mind all range lead isn't created equal and it will have different levels of SN and SB to add to the alloy.

Once I get to the point where I'm making "keepers" water drop a couple of them then I test with my hardness tester and add as much lino as I need to get the hardness that I'm after.

Edit to add: never mix unknown alloys with known alloys until you're making the alloy you need for that batch of bullets.

[btroj]

I wouldn't worry the wheel weights too much. Chances are they are old wheel weights melted down long ago, little chance of zinc being an issue.