How much is pure lead worth in trade for WW?

[John C]

It's been 5 years or so since I've cast. A couple of buddies of mine want to start. One of them is a piano tuner, and I've told him to stop throwing away the pure lead key weights of the pianos that he ends up taking to the dump. So, he now has about 47 pounds of pure lead, all in small ingots (1 inch by 1/2 inch by 1/2 inch). He gets more all the time.

The thing is that we need wheelweights or a similarly hard metal. We're casting for .38 spl or light .357 magnum loads.

Our options are to get some tin or antimony to harden our metal, or trade it for clean wheelweight ingots. The question is, what's the going rate for trade? 1:2? 1:1.5?

Or is this too much of a hassle? Should I just add tin?

Thanks,

-John

[DrB]

I'd just add tin for light plinking loads. For minimal cost I might cast around 30:1 or 25:1. You should plan on keeping them slow because they wil be quite soft.

You can get tin from rotometals by the pound in ingot form, or you could probably save a few bucks by scrounging pewter from a local second hand store or such. Alternately you could use lead tin solder.

[grullaguy]

Tin will not alloy well with pure lead unless you have a percentage of antimony. More experienced people than I could probably say the percentages. I use a harder alloy such as recovered cast bullets or bird shot mixed with a small amount of pewter to harden soft lead. Without a hardness tester I just go by look and feel and watch for performance out of my guns.

I have considered trading soft lead ingots pound for pound for clip on wheel weights at some of the tire shops. I am sure the tire shops would be happy with the trade and the recyclers should have no reason to complain either. With the wheel weights, I should be able to make my other stocks of pure lead go even further.

[MBTcustom]

check out rotometals at the top of the home page and you can easily see what the ratios are.

[DrB]

Tin will not alloy well with pure lead unless you have a percentage of antimony. More experienced people than I could probably say the percentages. I use a harder alloy such as recovered cast bullets or bird shot mixed with a small amount of pewter to harden soft lead. Without a hardness tester I just go by look and feel and watch for performance out of my guns.

I have considered trading soft lead ingots pound for pound for clip on wheel weights at some of the tire shops. I am sure the tire shops would be happy with the trade and the recyclers should have no reason to complain either. With the wheel weights, I should be able to make my other stocks of pure lead go even further.


Huh?! I use isotope lead (I'm siting on half a ton in brick from a biology lab) and pure elemental tin all the time. As a matter of fact that's what I was doing last night.

[grullaguy]

Huh?! I use isotope lead (I'm siting on half a ton in brick from a biology lab) and pure elemental tin all the time. As a matter of fact that's what I was doing last night.

This is a case where I am repeating what I have read elsewhere. Do you have an accurate measure of how much harness you get out of adding tin?
Now that I think further about what I read, the lack of antimony was supposed to have a negative effect on the usefulness of water quenching. I quench all my bullets at casting to harden them further.

Any cast lead alchemists reading this that would like to wade into this discussion?

[DrB]

This is a case where I am repeating what I have read elsewhere. Do you have an accurate measure of how much harness you get out of adding tin?
Now that I think further about what I read, the lack of antimony was supposed to have a negative effect on the usefulness of water quenching. I quench all my bullets at casting to harden them further.

Any cast lead alchemists reading this that would like to wade into this discussion?


Ok. So pure ANTIMONY supposedly can be difficult to alloy with lead. Rotometals sells their super hard alloy (~30% antimony) that's already alloyed with lead to help with this. I've never tried alloying pure antimony but expect it would be difficult due to respective melting points.

Tin hardens lead less than antimony. Rotometals also has a formula for estimating hardening for both lead and tin... Just search it.

Also, re quenching, think you're referring to arsenic.

There are some good articles out there... search these pages, or a google search will find them for you.

[DrB]

http://www.rotometals.com/Bullet-Casting-Alloys-s/5.htm

Brinnell = 8.60 +.29*%tin+.92*%antimony

I also suggest the lasc site for a primer on lead alloys.

[2wheelDuke]

Just get a hold of some linotype or rotometals superhard to "sweeten" the pure lead up. That'd be all you really need for .38's.

[grullaguy]

Yes I stand corrected. With DrB's explanation, I went back and re-read this article, which clarifies things quite a bit.

http://www.sixguns.com/crew/castbullet.htm

My apologies for my inexperienced comments. I have read a lot of literature of late, but obviously it all didn't stick.

[John C]

Thanks, Fellas, for all the info! That formula is great! I guess I'm going to spend about $50 and get enough 50/50 bar solder and super hard alloy to get this stuff to a BHN of about 12.

Thanks,

-John

[Longwood]

Thanks, Fellas, for all the info! That formula is great! I guess I'm going to spend about $50 and get enough 50/50 bar solder and super hard alloy to get this stuff to a BHN of about 12.

Thanks,

-John

I check the scrap/recycling yard here now and then.
I have found a bunch (around 200 lbs) of pure lead, lots of solder and about 35 lbs of Linotype there in the last few months for 40 cents a lb.
I am still getting wheel weights for free but more and more zinc is appearing in the buckets because the power that be, outlawed the lead weights as of Jan 2011.
More and more people are experimenting with casting with zinc so I may try that If I live long enough to use up my stash of lead.
Don't tell anyone please or people will start hoarding that too which of course will result in the price skyrocketing.

[jsizemore]

John,

Another option is to trade your soft lead for clip-on ww with someone here. There's a Swappin' and Sellin' page just for such an endeavor. Your trade rate should be even up and you should easily get 50 lbs in a double boxed medium flat rate box from the post office for $10.95 + $.80 for delivery confirmation.

Straight clip-on ww air cooled should give you a bhn of about 11-12. 50/50 soft and clip-on ww air cooled shoud be bhn 8-9.

[Armorer]

Maybe do a swap with someone for some monotype or linotype.

[DrB]

Jsizemore, thanks for the info from me, too. An even swap for ww sounds like a pretty good deal to me given the labor in processing ww.

Might have to do that before ww get too scarce.