score WW

[bobthenailer]

i went to the local small gunshop today where they allways have bargins on used stuff & bought 56 lbs of smelted ww in one pound ingots for 50 cents a pound & no tax with all the zinc/steel/ in todays ww i think i got a bargin !

[Gswain]

As long as your batch of ingots hasn't been zinc'd. Im always cautious about buying smelted lead, just cause Im not sure who did the smelting, and at what temp.

[Stick_man]

Great snag, Bob. Hopefully it is exactly as advertised.

Happy Casting!

[leadman]

Zinc has been around in wheel-weights for along time. Phil Sharpe wrote about it in a magazine article. Maybe late 60's??

[bobthenailer]

after doing the drop test on cement! about 12 had the thud of lead and the other rang like ww and a few others had a lowder ring than ww .
i plan on resmelting this batch & checking for zinc and hardness when smelting season comes around.

[fredj338]

i went to the local small gunshop today where they allways have bargins on used stuff & bought 56 lbs of smelted ww in one pound ingots for 50 cents a pound & no tax with all the zinc/steel/ in todays ww i think i got a bargin !

Only if they are actually lead ingots. If there is any zinc in there, bad juju. Zinc tainted lead will make a fine ingot but a poor bullet. It doesn't take much & they still pass the ring test.

[cbrick]

Gswain, leadman & fredj338 are all correct. I hope your score of WW works out for the best but I would be very cautious of blending it with known good ingots until you know for sure.

I have wanted to do the acid test for zinc but since reading about that here quite some time ago I haven't had any lead to be concerned with zinc about. You would never believe how anal I am about the weights that go into my smelting pot.

Rick

[MikeS]

You would never believe how anal I am about the weights that go into my smelting pot.

Rick

After ruining a pot with about 40lbs of lead with zinc, and another pot of linotype that had some zinc pieces in it, I fully understand being anal about what goes in the pot!

The only thing I have yet to figure out is how to control the temp of my smelting using a propane fired turkey fryer. The regulator that connects to the propane bottle doesn't seem to have a fine enough adjustment to keep the temp down where it should be.

I haven't used WWs in a while now, instead I've been mixing up Lyman #2 using the lead bricks I've been selling, along with some stereotype I bought off a guy on eBay, and for tin I'm using some bar solder that has 99.3% tin, .7% copper, or bar solder that has both copper and silver in it. The eBay seller I got the bar solder from apparently didn't know what had as the bars with silver in them were cheaper than the ones with just tin & copper! The 99.3/.7 1 pound bars he sells for $15.00 each, and the ones with silver in them sold for $10.00 each. I bought all the bars he had with silver in them, as I figure having some silver in the alloy can't hurt it, and the price was right :)

[fredj338]

After ruining a pot with about 40lbs of lead with zinc, and another pot of linotype that had some zinc pieces in it, I fully understand being anal about what goes in the pot!

The only thing I have yet to figure out is how to control the temp of my smelting using a propane fired turkey fryer. The regulator that connects to the propane bottle doesn't seem to have a fine enough adjustment to keep the temp down where it should be.
:)
A casting therm is best & just watch it as it starts getting slushy. It's why I like to presort as much as possible. Range lead looks like more work up front, but you pretty much know that it is all useable.