Alan in Vermont
10-15-2012, 09:13 PM
I put together a mess of Pb based metals today. Primarily range scrap from two sources, a few pounds of reject boolits and a little pure lead. Some of the range scrap was quite hard, all of it "tinked" a little. All I want is something that cast decent and doesn't lead at handgun velocities. If I had had more pure I would have added a lot more of it but this was strictly "melt what ya got" day.
When I smelt I cast into whatever moulds come handy. The result is wedges, half rounds, muffins and corn ears, not that it matters much when it hits 700°.
I make up my alloy with my electric pot and use only the wedge pan for the alloy ingots. One pot load fills the pan, making eight, 2.5# ingots which nest good on the shelf and go back in the pot nicely. Today I had the luxury of having a scavenged two element hot plate to preheat on. Sure saved time not having to wait so long for pot to heat back up.
As I get the ingots cooled and out of the mold I stamp each one with a number, first batch gets "1", the second gets "2", etc. This time I also spray painted the outside of the stack. Blue was first to hand today, the next batch will get a different color.
Ended up with 180# of ingots, 9 layers of eight.
Drawing 20# off the pot leaves an inch or so in it. That works well for the next heat as the liquid helps get the new metal heated faster than if it went into a bare pot. Since there was already metal from the 9th heat I added ingots in order, starting with 1. Shut the pot off and it will be ready to turn on when I go to cast next.
By using the ingots in sequence I figure it evens out any variation that might not have been there if I had used my plumbers pot for this. Problem is that I don't have anywhere near enough ingot molds to let me make up a whole pot load at one time. My "technique", using that term lightly, is that I will cast with the metal as is first. If it gives good fillout I use it just like that. If it needs tin I know how much I need to add X% for each ingot. That is why I want the final ingots to all be the same, as close as possible. I have a pretty big stash of 50-50 bar solder. Half a bar adds 2.5% tin to two of the ingots. A quarter of a bar is, of course, half that. I add ingots two at a time so I'm not varying the level in the pot too radically.
Not real scientific but the boolits I get from alloy put together this way shoot way better than I can now.
When I smelt I cast into whatever moulds come handy. The result is wedges, half rounds, muffins and corn ears, not that it matters much when it hits 700°.
I make up my alloy with my electric pot and use only the wedge pan for the alloy ingots. One pot load fills the pan, making eight, 2.5# ingots which nest good on the shelf and go back in the pot nicely. Today I had the luxury of having a scavenged two element hot plate to preheat on. Sure saved time not having to wait so long for pot to heat back up.
As I get the ingots cooled and out of the mold I stamp each one with a number, first batch gets "1", the second gets "2", etc. This time I also spray painted the outside of the stack. Blue was first to hand today, the next batch will get a different color.
Ended up with 180# of ingots, 9 layers of eight.
Drawing 20# off the pot leaves an inch or so in it. That works well for the next heat as the liquid helps get the new metal heated faster than if it went into a bare pot. Since there was already metal from the 9th heat I added ingots in order, starting with 1. Shut the pot off and it will be ready to turn on when I go to cast next.
By using the ingots in sequence I figure it evens out any variation that might not have been there if I had used my plumbers pot for this. Problem is that I don't have anywhere near enough ingot molds to let me make up a whole pot load at one time. My "technique", using that term lightly, is that I will cast with the metal as is first. If it gives good fillout I use it just like that. If it needs tin I know how much I need to add X% for each ingot. That is why I want the final ingots to all be the same, as close as possible. I have a pretty big stash of 50-50 bar solder. Half a bar adds 2.5% tin to two of the ingots. A quarter of a bar is, of course, half that. I add ingots two at a time so I'm not varying the level in the pot too radically.
Not real scientific but the boolits I get from alloy put together this way shoot way better than I can now.