Free Lead...now what? NOOB ALERT!

[exdxgxe4life]

As Michael Scott from the office would say...talk to me like I'm 5.

I've got a Marlin 1894 in .44 and have GREAT results for Ranch Dog 300 grain boolits using WW, H20 quenched, lee alox and gas checked using 2400 powder mid to high power loads.

BUT I have come upon about 300lbs of what I believe to be pretty close to pure lead. What do I do with it?

What I'm thinking (maybe the most expensive way) is to buy 1lb of 95/5 lead/antimony solder. I know the tin will fill it out, and the little bit of antimony can only help harden the lead.

Let's assume I buy this pound of solder. How much should I drop in my Lee 20lb pot? If I did my math right....a half pound of solder with 18-19 pounds of lead ingots should give me around 3% of tin.

Is it that simple? Just drop in half of the roll of solder and call it a day?

Any help is appreciated!!!

PS

One of these days I'll try pure lead with gas checked and lee alox. If those work fine then I'll be super happy and if I've done my math right that should give me about 7000 FREE (minus GC) 300 grain hassle free bullets. Any insight on pure lead gas checked lubed .44 magnums would also be greatly appreciated!!!

[lead chucker]

Pure lead even gas checked in a 44 mag at mag velocities will cause you more grief than good. It will lead your barrel and accuracy will be real bad.

[lead chucker]

I have lots of pure soft lead and tried real light loads in my 45 acp and I would get leading in the barrel. 44 mag likes hard bullets in my experience.

[TheBigBang]

If you're trying to duplicate WW using 95/5 tin/antimony solder, you're barking up the WRONG tree. WW have maybe 1/2% tin at most, what gives them their hardness & ability to harden by water quenching is ANTIMONY - THATS WHAT YOU NEED! There's probably at least a trace of arsenic in your WW as well, this helps with the hardening. Don't waste your money on 95% tin solder to try & make water quenchable WW alloy from pure lead, it wont work. Go to http://www.rotometals.com/ & get some of their antimonial lead it's available with up to 30% antimony already mixed with lead (they have PURE antimony, but you probably don't want to mess with it - it has a MUCH higher melting point than lead & would be difficult for you to try & alloy - better to get it already mixed with some lead). Get enough of the antimonial lead to give your final mix AT LEAST 4% antimony, 6% percent might be better, especially if you end up not having any arsenic in it - I could do the math to get you to that percentage for you, but it's about 3:45am here & I'm very tired & just don't f*****g feel like it.

[runfiverun]

easy on the swearing stuff.

purish lead is eaily converted into several good alloys.
the rotometals antimonial alloy is one way linotype is another 3 parts soft to one lino gives right close to 1% tin and 3% antimony [ think ww's with more tin]
or one to one gives 2/6/92 basically what commercial casters use.
i use this with 2% more tin added [for 4/6/90] in some of my target rifles and have pushed it to 2700+ in my 22 cal rifles
or two to one 1.5/4.5/94 a usefull alloy also.
any of these can be mixed with ww alloy for a different outcome also..
and don't overlook using it mixed with ww's at 1-1/1-2/1-3 ratios and waterdropping.
i use a lot of 3 parts ww's and one part soft air cooled in my handguns,and waterdropped in my rifles with gas checks at 1900 fps for just about everything else that the 4/6 don't get used for.

[Ziptar]

I would bet you would find lots of folks here interested in trading harder lead ingots for pure lead ingots.

[rockrat]

If I had 300 lbs of pure lead and didn't need it, first thing I would do , would be trade it for alloy I could use.

Second would be to alloy it myself, using the turkey fryer/dutch oven setup I have. I can do about 125lbs at a time. I would put in 100lbs of the lead, then 20 lbs of linotype and about 1.5 lbs of 95/5. That would give you not quite 2% tin, little over 2% antimony and have a hardness of about 11.

You can swap some of your lead for the lino/solder if you want to alloy it yourself, but the best thing would be trading.

[pmer]

Would another way to go be mixing pure with the WW? I think there are folks here gas checking 50/50 pure and COWW.

You'd be set muzzle loading with all that pure lead.

[Judan_454]

Ive mixed 50% ww and 50% lead and shot it out of both 45 acp 9 mm and reduced loads out of a 44 mag with no leading.

[Judan_454]

Oh, another thing if you dont want the lead you can send it my way. LOL

[paul h]

For your use where you want a harder bullet, tin is not the way to go, and it's also the most expensive metal to alloy with.

If you already have a good supply of ww's, I'd mix ww and pure lead 50/50 and water drop them. If you don't have ww's, then get some linotype and add as previously mentioned.

[TheBigBang]

runfiverun - If that "easy on the swearing" was directed at me, I DIDN'T "swear" I censored a certain word with the * - I have seen this & abbreviations like BS & S&G used on this forum & it appeared to be perfectly acceptable, if it is not, let me know & I will refrain in future. I realize outright UNCENSORED profanity is considered inappropriate.

exdxgxe4life - I didn't mean to suggest that adding antimonial lead was the ONLY thing you could or should do, as runfiverun pointed out, there are several useful alloys you can turn your lead into & there are many ways to do it. You might even find that some of these alloys work as well or better than your quenched WW. However, since you say you've had "GREAT" results with the quenched WW, I figured you were probably just looking to duplicate that as best you could, and I still say the antimonial lead or what rotometals calls "super hard alloy" with 30% antimony is probably the best way for you to do that. You can also use things like linotype to harden it up & make a good alloy, but know that while linotype has quite a bit of antimony, it's also about 4% tin. While tin in a bullet alloy can often be a very good thing, tin actually counteracts the ability to harden the alloy by quenching (like I said in the other post, your WW likely have no more than 0.5% tin), so if you do decide on making your lead into an alloy with a lot of tin in it, you may find that you are wasting your time quenching. Another thing, IF you want to continue the quench-hardening procedure, while tin hurts, arsenic HELPS - you may already have a significant trace in your "pure" lead, but if you want be sure you get some (doesn't take much, 0.25% is plenty)- magnum shot is probably a good source for you to go with, manufacturers have been known to change their alloy compositions however & you might want to contact a shot producer like Lawrence & see if they will give you the arsenic & antimony content at least approximately, of their current production. As several others have suggested, there is always the option of trading with someone for an alloy already usable to you, you probably want to think carefully about shipping costs of both the lead you trade & the alloy you receive vs. the shipping & materials cost of alloying the stuff yourself, also consider the amount of alloy you're trading for, make sure you're not getting less alloy than you can make yourself without taking that fact into account when deciding to do a particular trade. Actually this whole thing maybe more stressful for you than it's worth, in which case you could just send the stuff to me & not have to worry about it ever again! I wouldn't even charge you for taking it off your hands - 'cause I'm a nice guy & I'd be happy just knowing YOU wouldn't have to worry about it.

[RevGeo]

Ive mixed 50% ww and 50% lead and shot it out of both 45 acp 9 mm and reduced loads out of a 44 mag with no leading.

#1 on this. I have done the same thing with many pistol and rifle calibers and it has always worked well.
And like has been said, you could trade it for a harder alloy or sell it to a muzzle loader shooter. But if it were me I'd do the 50-50 ww/lead mix.

[exdxgxe4life]

WOW thanks for all the info!

I've already used up all of my WW a while back...Had I of waited I could have stretched those puppies out a little further.

I will definitely look into trading it locally.

I'll also looking into the Rotometals "super hard alloy." at $4.20 an lb that sounds pretty good to me!

If I choose to go that route...what do I do with the 1lb ingot? Drop it into my 20lb lee and hope that I get get results. Or would I need more ingots or less ingots???

THANKS!!!

[exdxgxe4life]

Never mind...I found my own answer....

There are these things called alloy calculators...maybe you've heard of them too (sarcasm).

Thanks for all your help!!! I've got some casting to do!!!!!

[paul h]

Coming across a pile of alloy is never a bad thing. Sometimes you just have to figure out the best way to put it to use for you. Sometimes that involves adding things to what you get, sometimes it's more effective to trade some or all of it off.

[pmer]

WOW thanks for all the info!

I've already used up all of my WW a while back...Had I of waited I could have stretched those puppies out a little further.

I will definitely look into trading it locally.

I'll also looking into the Rotometals "super hard alloy." at $4.20 an lb that sounds pretty good to me!

If I choose to go that route...what do I do with the 1lb ingot? Drop it into my 20lb lee and hope that I get get results. Or would I need more ingots or less ingots???

THANKS!!!

ex, if you aren't too far from east central Minn I have some raw wheel wieght for trading.

[TheBigBang]

Alloy calculators you say, hmmm, now that you mention it, I DO seem to recall hearing something about them. Actually, I was beginning to think YOU were planning to use ME as your own personal "alloy calculator"! Be advised however that the "super hard alloy" does not come in 1 lb. ingots, the whole ingot will weigh 4-5 lb.s. You'll want to break/cut it into fairly small pieces when you add it to the pot, which you'll want to already be holding the FULLY MELTED hot lead, this will allow the "super hard alloy" to melt much easier. Remember to flux & stir well & don't mistake the antimony for "junk" dross & remove it from the pot. Also, figure at least 4% antimony content for good quench hardening & you really might want to look into slipping a little arsenic laced magnum shot (confirm alloy composition with manufacturer) in the mix. A SMALL amount of tin won't hurt either, especially with the arsenic.

[runfiverun]

bumpo.. has an alloy calculator you can link to in his sig line.

BANG.
that wasn't just directed at you,i know you self edited the word [the sights thingy would have starred the whole thing out]
i see a lot of the acronyms around too, we try to self police the [family] web sight as it occasionally get's out of hand.
no problems.
just a reminder to everybody [myself included]

[John in WI]

I have a whopping 3 months of boolit casting experience and can only suggest one newbie mistake NOT to make.

I started my boolit making with a pile of wheel weight, some pure lead pipe, and some 5% tin solder. I melted down and fluxed the heck out of my wheel weight, then threw in every lead containing object I had. So then I didn't have pure WW and I also didn't have pure lead. I had a hundred pounds of something in between.

And at home it's a pretty hard to refine alloys back to there components.
I would suggest, whatever you do, don't melt down a huge amount of it and alloy it. I would keep most of it in it's pure form and alloy it as needed. And as stated, a lot of muzzle loader guys will trade you even up for WW pre-ingotized.

[lead chucker]

what John in WI said. Been there done that. Whatever ally I mess up goes for my 45 acp it doesnt seem to care what it is as long as it's harder than pure lead.

[rhouser]

Been down the same road as well. Threw everything I owned into one big pot and melted it down. All is not lost. Ended up that my metal was retrievable using pencil testing for hardness.

Testing hardness with pencils is a sticky in lead and alloys subforum on this site. Just do a search. The pencil testing may not be the best, but, it is the cheapest repeatable way to figure out your alloy, especially if you have some known metals to compare it to. Then you just keep adjusting till it matches what you want.

I use Magnum Shot to get my antimony with arsenic if I want it. Otherwise I use linotype, or rotometal lead antimony (super hard). I get tin from solder, pewter, or as a last resort rotometal.

Again, I keep a small block of Linotype, a small block of clipon wheel weight, and a small chip of super hard (rotometal) to use as check metals when I am wanting to see where my metal is. I guess some day I will buy a bit of commercial 20-1 etc for check metals. I just like having some idea of what is happening. You will find that making your own metal will make you crazy (must be the lead fumes). It is fascinating.

Glad you found a chart, I was going to attach mine, but, you don't need it now.
Good luck, have fun, and be a little cautious of the metal while it is hot. It can/may/will bite those who do not respect it. (I have these scars on my hands, feet etc that remind me to pay attention).

My 2 cents. rc

[packrat]

I would just keep the lead and use it up a little at a time, like has been said.
some nice soft lead is good to have around. I sold about 80# of pure lead one time
and now would like to have it back....

[Blammer]

Good deal!

Get your loader set up and go for it!

here is mine in action. (of course I'm having a little difficulty chambering them, but I'll work that out later.)

http://i54.photobucket.com/albums/g81/blammer8mm/DSCN7171.jpg

[exdxgxe4life]

That picture is awesome and my new desktop picture. Again thanks for everyone's info. I will refer to this often!!!

[David2011]

Blammer,

Great taste in calibers there!

David

[MikeS]

runfiverun - If that "easy on the swearing" was directed at me, I DIDN'T "swear" I censored a certain word with the * - I have seen this & abbreviations like BS & S&G used on this forum & it appeared to be perfectly acceptable, if it is not, let me know & I will refrain in future. I realize outright UNCENSORED profanity is considered inappropriate.


I believe the comment about not swearing is a valid one. Let me explain. You've seen swear words ***ed out not because of the poster doing it, but from the forum software doing it, so there's no way anyone reading it could know if YOU wrote it with *'s or if the forum software did the censoring for you. Also, in either case it was uncalled for, as I don't recall anyone asking you to do any calculations, nor try and pressure you into doing them right then. You could have just as easily said "I could do the calculations for you, but it's late, I'm tired, and just don't feel like doing them now". While I'm all for freedom of speech, uncalled for swearing (censored or not) is just not nice forum etiquette.

While I can & do swear 'like a sailor' at times, I think there are very few situations where swearing is called for in a written media (such as this forum).

Now, back on topic: Wheel weights used to be a free, or very very cheap way of getting a good casting alloy to make boolits from, but this isn't the case anymore. But, there are lots of other alloys out there, and mixing linotype with pure is one of them, I basically do that, but I add extra lead & tin to make an alloy that's very close to Lyman #2 (90/5/5) which I feel is a better alloy than 'Hardball' (92/2/6) as I think you get a boolit that's just as hard either way, but the #2 having more tin makes an alloy that isn't as brittle as Hardball. There's also something about having the antimony & tin percentages very close that changes the alloy's composition, something about the 2 becoming some other kind of compound (I think it's called an inter-metallic compound). Maybe another forum member that knows more about metallurgy could explain it better than I am.

[bumpo628]

Never mind...I found my own answer....
There are these things called alloy calculators...maybe you've heard of them too (sarcasm).
Thanks for all your help!!! I've got some casting to do!!!!!

Welcome to the forum.
Trading could be a cheaper option, but if you want to custom make your own alloy try one of these:

300 lbs pure lead + 100 lbs linotype = alloy with 1% tin and 3% antimony
Cost with free pure lead is about $0.40 to $0.75 per pound (depending on source)

or

300 lbs pure lead + 33 lbs superhard + 2 lbs 95/5 solder = alloy with 0.5% tin and 3% antimony
A smaller batch would be 18 lbs pure + 2 lbs superhard + 2 oz solder
Cost with free pure lead is about $0.50 per pound

[TheBigBang]

I believe the comment about not swearing is a valid one. Let me explain. You've seen swear words ***ed out not because of the poster doing it, but from the forum software doing it, so there's no way anyone reading it could know if YOU wrote it with *'s or if the forum software did the censoring for you. Also, in either case it was uncalled for, as I don't recall anyone asking you to do any calculations, nor try and pressure you into doing them right then. You could have just as easily said "I could do the calculations for you, but it's late, I'm tired, and just don't feel like doing them now". While I'm all for freedom of speech, uncalled for swearing (censored or not) is just not nice forum etiquette.

While I can & do swear 'like a sailor' at times, I think there are very few situations where swearing is called for in a written media (such as this forum).

MikeS -

Firstly, do not take this as me wanting to start some kind of you-know-what contest or flame war, just clarification. I actually never said runfiverun's comment was not valid, just explained that I didn't swear & sought clarification on what was acceptable. I did not at the time know about the forum having software to censor posts automatically, although if you read runfiverun's response, it seems there actually IS a way to tell (at least sometimes) if a poster has censored something themselves or if the forum software has done it. I have lurked around the forum long enough to know that given runfiverun's description of how the software works, many posters are censoring the words themselves & then there are the abbreviations/acronyms that are regularly used. As to it being "uncalled for", well, if you were hit by a truck & bleeding to death in the street & I, being the only other person around, came to your aid without being asked, technically my actions would be "uncalled for" so what does that mean? I didn't word the comment the way I did out of anger or exasperation at being asked or pressured to do something I did not want do, rather as an expression of the way I was feeling at the time. I will point out however that in a sense I WAS asked (but certainly NOT pressured) to do the calculations - the OP did ask for amounts, I realize he was at that time asking anyone/everyone, not me specifically but, since anyone/everyone includes me, from that standpoint, he was asking me & I had NO problem with that or I would not have responded to his post at all. As to it being "just not nice forum etiquette" whether or not it's censored - that is a generalization I frankly don't agree with. In the first place, while there are general "rules" that are applicable to pretty much any forum anywhere, a considerable amount of forum etiquette is dependent on the forum - there are forums out there on all kinds of things, some where uncensored profanity is the norm, even some that the nature of the forum itself might be considered by many of us here "unsavory" or even "degenerate". As far as I'm concerned, there is a very real, very clear difference between printing something outright & self-censoring it, as far as I'm concerned, if it's self-censored, abbreviated or acronymed, it ISN'T "swearing" - it's just not the same thing & personally, if this were my site, I'd have no problem with it at all. But, of course, this is NOT my site, it's someone else's & it's they who make the rules, not me. I, being new here, would appreciate some clarification, as to how the owner(s)/operator(s) of the site feel about the use of the self-censored words & also the abbreviations/acronyms that are quite commonly used all over the net, like the one for something that comes out of a bull, or the one for what the something or other. It might do for the admins to make a sticky entitled "profanity policy" or "language policy" & address what is acceptable. Lastly, let me say that, while I would like clarification & perhaps the input of other members, THIS thread is NOT the place for it, I have posted this here due to the circumstances, but any further discussion should take place elsewhere, start a new thread if you feel the need. THIS thread belongs to exdxgxe4life & is about something else entirely & I truly apologize on my part for the extent it's been "hijacked".

[alfloyd]

Quote by TheBigBang:
"as far as I'm concerned, if it's self-censored, abbreviated or acronymed, it ISN'T "swearing"

When you read the sentance that has a "stared" out word, does your mind fill in the word for you. If so, then it IS the same as swearing, IMHO.

Same as saying "flip", "fudge" or other words instead of the other 4 letter word, same thing to some people.

Just my 2 cents worth

Lafaun