BHN of zinc

[melloairman]

Any one tested the bhn of zinc wheel weights ? Marvin

[Stick_man]

From what I have heard, zinc is very hard, probably upwards of 40 bhn (WAG) and not very conducive to boolit casting. A little bit of zinc in a pot will ruin an otherwise great pot of boolit alloy. Only casting uses of Zn that I have seen recently have been for making cannonballs. Since I don't have any cannons, I just swap the Zn and Fe weights for lead weights.

[melloairman]

Thanks for the quess . I know zinc and lead can not be mixed . And I know it is a hard metal compared to lead . But if someone has some zinc weights that could test a couple for me I would appreciate it .Marvin

[sabot_round]

Thanks for the quess . I know zinc and lead can not be mixed . And I know it is a hard metal compared to lead . But if someone has some zinc weights that could test a couple for me I would appreciate it .Marvin

Well, I just put a couple thru my Lee BHT kit and it didn't even make a dent on 'em. The chart provided by Lee goes as high as 36.6 BHN. I hope this helps answer your question.

[badbob454]

i cast a few ingots tried to stamp zn on them with metal letter stamps , hardly made a mark , now i put zn on them , with a permanent marker ...hard stuff

[Thompsoncustom]

I know zinc and lead can not be mixed well the truth is they do mix and they mix well but it needs to be pure zinc and pure lead, zinc WW and lead WW don't mix at all.

I've been doing a lot of playing around with casting zinc bullets and I'm surprised more people don't cast them it's not to hard to do just need a little more heat.

[melloairman]

Do you know how hard zinc wheel weights are? Know some casters in lead free hunting area . I have suggested a paper patch zinc bullet since I have heard they drop small and light . Tin is expensive but zinc wheel weights are not .Marvin

[Thompsoncustom]

No I do not know the hardness of zinc wheel weights tho I have never been able to cast any bullet out of zinc WW either. Pure zinc can be cast pretty easy and I don't even own a sizer most of them drop at the same as my lead bullets do tho it would probably be good to size them to .5 over your bore size tho they run just fine oversized. I'm not sure you could even size some of the zinc alloys 50%zinc50%lead would probably be the easiest.

[John Boy]

Brinell hardness, 500 kg load :
- for 30 sec. : 30
http://www.engineershandbook.com/Materials/zinc.htm

[melloairman]

What took place when you used zinc wheel weights or have you tried .Marvin

[melloairman]

No I do not know the hardness of zinc wheel weights tho I have never been able to cast any bullet out of zinc WW either. Pure zinc can be cast pretty easy and I don't even own a sizer most of them drop at the same as my lead bullets do tho it would probably be good to size them to .5 over your bore size tho they run just fine oversized. I'm not sure you could even size some of the zinc alloys 50%zinc50%lead would probably be the easiest.

What took place when you used zinc wheel weights or have you tried .Marvin

[melloairman]

Brinell hardness, 500 kg load :
- for 30 sec. : 30
http://www.engineershandbook.com/Materials/zinc.htm
My understanding is the weights are not pure but mix with other metals .Marvin

[Thompsoncustom]

The problem I always got using any form of WW and Zinc was the oatmeal affect, I'm not saying that it can't be cast I'm just saying that I never had good luck with it as to was the problem other the the oatmeal I don't really remember probably fill out as once I had problems with it I stayed away from zinc WW.

[melloairman]

Thanks . I looked at Roto and they sell Zamak 3 .Then I pulled up Zamak and they state that it is about 80 bhn . Some day some one might play with a paper patch . Marvin

[Thompsoncustom]

Ya I do most of my zinc casting with zamak3 which is a zinc/alum alloy and seems to cast pretty good I have read different BHN at different places on it so I'm guessing it's around that 80-100 area.

[brad925]

I am planning on casting some round ball for my smoke pole. Probably too light for hunting and no expansion but want to try try them just for plinking.