End of one era, and the zinc invasion begins...

[Typecaster]

Late last week I made my pickup of linotype from a local printer for the last time. They're "downsizing," and moving to smaller quarters...escrow closes on the 15th. The new shop will be offset only, no more letterpress at all. I guess from now on the only linotype we'll see in Southern California will be at the scrapyards.

On the same loop I stopped at a scrapyard and bought about 150 lb. of WWs, which I segregated this morning. One of the small buckets had about 20 zinc clip-ons, and probably 30-40 stick-on zincs...even clearly stamped "Zn." These were the first zincs I've run into here.

So I decided to be obsessive-compulsive about it: I "super-segregated" the batch. One pile of lead-based WWs (about 3/4 were almost new) with cast-in clips; lead-based but painted, with cast-in clips; stick-on lead; and the zincs. Following Old Ironsides' excellent criteria, I stripped out anything with rivets—that really is the key. The zinc ones make a different sound when dropped on the bench—more of a "tink" than a "thunk."

I then decided to do a small-scale controlled smelt. First the clean, lead-based WWs, with the temperature held around 650ºF. No problems, nice clean ingots. Next, the painted lead ones, same temperature. No problems, but they sure smell worse when you're burning off the paint. Ingots seemed to have a little more crap on the top surface than the first batch, even though I fluxed like always.

Then I thought I'd check the conventional wisdom of just skimming off any floaters rather than separating the riveted WWs. I left about 3/4" of alloy in the pot, steady at 620º, and added one lead-based and one zinc WW at the same time. The lead-based one melted in about 5 seconds; the zinc one was a floater. IT WORKS! At least for now.

But there is still a lingering question:
If the wheelweight manufacturers are indeed recycling WWs, and if boolet casters are overheating their alloy enough to melt zinc WWs—then scrap the contaminated metal, or if other zinc-lead alloys become widespread, won't we end up with WWs that are already a zinc-lead-arsenic-antimony mix? One that won't necessarily be obvious by a high melting temperature? Remember, zinc may melt at 787ºF, but that's pure zinc—not an alloy. Tin melts at 449º, lead at 621º, but alloy them together 60/40 (as in solder) and they melt at about 370º.

Anybody have a phase diagram that will show us what to expect in a lead, antimony, arsenic, and zinc mix?

Maybe I'm over-thinking this one...

[Lloyd Smale]

your probably right. Firgure ive got about 20 years more to cast and hopefully ill get by but eventually this hobby is going to die.

[Ricochet]

Don't have a full phase diagram, but if you slowly heat the alloy to just above the melting point, let it sit undisturbed a while and skim the solid off the top, you'll remove the zinc. Tin, arsenic and antimony go into solid solution in lead below the melting point in the amounts we're used to, so won't segregate out of the melt as free metals. That's just another old myth we've been fed.

[randyrat]

Yeh, kinda scary zink is cheaper on the 24 hr market than lead (the high just over $1.36 today) But, at what level of zink in the mix does energy cost out weigh using lead,tin,antimony and arsinic. If zink takes more energy to melt (787) than lead alloys i doubt industry will give in to the GREENIES something will break. Not only that, i'm a firm beleiver we will figure how to seperate zink economically to keep our hobby going if needed.
I may have read this wrong, i hope it didn't take only 370 degs to melt zink,lead,antimony,tin and arsinic all together or my energy theory is all washed up.

[Ohio Rusty]

Funny you should mention that. A while back I asked a fellow that picks up WW's from garages what happens to them after he turns them in. he said they just all get melted down together and new WW's made. That means the potential for WW's contaminated with a trace of zinc is very real based on his information.
Ohio Rusty

[AZ-Stew]

Percentages, gents. Percentages.

What percentage of zinc is required to screw up our casting alloys and what percentage of zinc is getting into the recycled scrap?

On the other hand, the new WW are manufactured by casting, as well, so how much zinc can the WW manufacturere tolerate in the mix before HE has problems casting?

I'm guessing they have their own ways of sorting it out and that it doesn't come back to us in the next generation of WW. If it does, I'll wager it's in micro-percentages.

Regards,

Stew

[Lloyd Smale]

I know that a single ww made of zinc in a 5 gallon pail if left to melt with the rest will effect the castability of the lead. Lately i will pull 2-10 zinc wws out of a bucket so theres plenty in there to ruin the castability of the recyled lead. Keep in mind that we need alot better casting then they do with a ww. A few tenths of a grain to a ww in nothing when it comes to balancing a tire. The most it means is that that ww needs to be moved just a touch on the rim. Im about sure if there allready casting zinc wws there using a pressurized casting system anyway and thats probably why they cant cast the wieght with the clip on it and rivit them on anyway. So if they can pressure cast them some contamination of there alloy isnt going to effect the final product much. So as the ww manufactures swing over to equipment needed to cast zinc they will allready be set up for ohter crappy casting alloys

Im not a chemist. Im not even a smart caster but to me what needs to be done is one of two things. Either someone has to come up with a way to flux the zinc into the melt or flux it out. Bill Ferguson came up with a decent way to flux in antimony and i cant see why some scientist cant come up with a compomd to flux in zinc with. If someone came up with something like that it was sure be a God sent. It would allow us to run alloys alot harder then we can with lineotype and alot cheaper. For now a contaminated batch can be saved. Ive used Ricochets method of heating cooling and skimming and it helps. It wont take all the zinc out but it will reduce it to the point that a guy can add about 6-10 percent tin to the melt and get an alloy that will cast well. Its expensive using that much tin but lead is just getting to hard to find to throw out anymore. Ive had a few contaminated batches and used the skimming/adding tin to save them. Ive got a couple more in 5 gallon pails that i keep in the back of the barn for if the need for alloy overcomes then cost of adding tin and the work. Ive actually pitched whole batches because of it but at that time i thought my supply of lead was endless and it wasnt worth the bother. Bottom line is if someone doesnt come to our rescue and figure a way we can easily get rid of it or flux it in and use it to our benifit our hobby is about doomed as most of the lead used for about everything lead is used for is recycled and it eventually going to find its way into everything.

[Ricochet]

Fluxing it in is no problem. Just turn up the heat, and it's mixed in thoroughly. Problem is, it crystallizes out of the melt (which no flux or treatment can ever help) while the rest of the alloy's still liquid. That makes a slush that will unbalance your bullets. A way of suddenly quenching the molten lead through the solidification process could keep it distributed, but that's not going to work with our moulds. They'd have to be reheated before the next filling.

But skimming the melt is the way the commercial lead refiners make pure chemical lead from ore that contains lots of zinc and silver. It's not done with some special flux.

[NVcurmudgeon]

your probably right. Firgure ive got about 20 years more to cast and hopefully ill get by but eventually this hobby is going to die.

Maybe it won't die off, but casters may well become an even tinier minority than they are today. Have you noticed that most of us seem to be between middle age and geezerdom? Also, I see a lot of young shooters at the range, mostly with black rifles and plenty of cheap steel cased ammo for their spray and pray shooting style.

Lord willing, and family demographics indicate, I may have ten more shooting years left, so I can face the impending dwindling supply of lead WW cheerfully. Younger casters may have to BUY alloy. I know that is blasphemy to all of us dedicated scroungers, but the lead wheelweight has been doomed for a long time. Big government, in an unholy alliance with environmental extremists, will get the lead out. No, it's not a big antigun conspiracy. Government is always looking for more ways to "help." Politicians and civil servants call it "empire building" in their unguarded moments.

[Typecaster]

Randyrat, the 370º reference was to the 60/40 tin/lead solder, not the WW mix.

[Freightman]

If we have 20 more years I my self will not have any worries, if I am still alive do not see casting anything but a fishing line at nearley 90.

[Texasflyboy]

I politely disagree with the idea that lead will become a scarce resource for our hobby.

Lead, in its innumerable forms, has been a mainstay of industrial use for well over 1,000 years, and its not likely to disappear anytime soon. Nothing replaces it for cost effective radiation shielding, and as Baby Boomers age, more and more hospitals will be built, and more and more will be renovated.

While the uses and applications have changed over the years, supplementing its need from time to time, it remains a staple in industrial applications.

Lead Wheel weights have been around as long as wheels needing high speed balancing, mainly post WWII. The popularity of Wheel weights, and their introduction into mass use coincided nicely with the surge in the popularity of casting in the 1950's. It was a fortunate coincidence...or was it? (Maybe wheel weights is what our fathers and grandfathers think caused the casting notion....)

Times change, as lead wheel weights are replaced with zinc, other uses for lead and opportunities for lead surplus will arise. Lead remains the cheapest most effective form of ships ballast for small to medium size craft, as one example.

I found a 650lb block of lead for free by hanging around one sailboat repair shop. It had been lying in the dirt for 20 years and folks were using it as a improvised bench. I replaced it with a homemade wood bench that I made out of construction scrap and traded it to the shop straight up for the bench. They were happy, I was happy. I had 650lbs of pure lead for free.

Lead is plentiful, and while the price may float up and down, a good scrounger can always find lead cheap if you look hard enough.

Trust me, life is strange that way. 10 years ago I had to scrounge weekly to barely keep my pot full and I was shooting every single weekend.

Now, I haven't shot in months, or cast in even longer. And I am sitting on well over 20 tons (yes 40K) of pure lead that a contractor gave me from a recent demolition. Life is weird, let me tell you.

Lead will always be around....it just may take extra effort to get it at a reasonable cost. And on that note, while I have seen many a complaint about the availability of inexpensive or cheap wheel weights, I rarely see posts from folks who have contacted a local foundry to see how much lead actually costs. Locally, where I live, there are two foundries, that will supply you will 5lb or 10 lb ingots as Lyman #2 mix for a VERY reasonable price. You just have to buy at least 4,000 lbs. The cost per lb last time I checked was well under .30/lb FOB their dock.

That's my opinion...

[Lloyd Smale]

Problem is the nearest foundry to me is over 400 miles and if you factor in that you need to rent a truck big enough to haul 4000 lbs as your not going to haul it 400 miles in a pickup the 30cents a lb it cost is a minor part of the entire expense and even if a guy could figure a way to get it home for 50cents a lb to come up with 2 grand at one crack to buy lead isnt in most peoples budget. not everyone lucks into 40ooo lbs of lead. As a matter of fact id about bet your the only one here that has. By the way where did that much lead come from?

[ktw]

Problem is the nearest foundry to me is over 400 miles...

Steve Koski in L'anse has a huge stash he's been selling for 35c/lb or 25c/lb in lots larger than 1000lb. BHN 11, very clean, suspect it has more tin than regular wheelweights, heat treats to BHN 27. He got it from a brother (brother-in-law?) who was doing remodeling work at the Hospital in Marquette.

The deals are still out there, even in the UP. We just need to start looking into non-traditional sources.

I'd be more concerned over how much of the industrial lead supply ends up going into batteries as alternative energy homes and automobiles become more popular than I would be over how much zinc ends up in wheelweights.

-ktw

[Typecaster]

casters may well become an even tinier minority than they are

The few...the proud...(no, I think somebody's using that already).

I like to think we're the elite.

[UweJ]

I don´t know about exactly about the laws in the States,but over here in Germany lead WW are still allowed on buses and trucks.Might want to check into that.Truck repair and such.
We have a fellow over here who is an expert on lead and he is experimenting with zinc now.On moderate velocities he has succesfully made boolits for 30-30. At 300 m he is shooting 4 inch groups but is still in the experimental stage.
He will let us know how he is coming along. We´ll see what happens.
But look into the truck and bus business.

[Texasflyboy]

or 50cents a lb to come up with 2 grand at one crack to buy lead isnt in most peoples budget.

Lloyd,

As I posted here in earlier posts on other topics, I am in the same boat as the majority here. I'm not rich. I can barely afford my hobby most days, but what I did years ago was to try and find partners locally that would help cut the cost of lead, powder, and primers by putting together group buys. Three years ago we bought a million Winchester Pistol Primers, 500K ea. of Small and Large. Over 500lbs of powder. Lead by the ton. I had to save for months to come up with my share of the costs.

The primers were split among 20 folks. The Powder over more than 25. The lead was split among 10 or so, with the bulk going to the guy that put the deal together, a local commercial caster. We just piggybacked on his lead order, as it drove his price down, and he knew we were not competitors. He knew we would never buy his bullets, and we wouldn't sell ours. But we both needed the raw materials.

It takes work, now more than ever, to get reloading cheap. I refuse to pay more than $15 lb for powder. Same goes for primers. The primers took almost 4 months to arrive, since one of the participants was a long haul driver and he transported the pallet in his rig space available. Distribution of the "harvest" took more than 5 months to complete. One guy lost all, and I mean all his powder and primers with Hurricane Rita. We dug deep and replaced his losses from our own stockpiles. We try to help each other.

It is worth the effort to put together group buys if you can find friends who can and will put up the cash to make the deals work.

It took us over 10 years to get the base group formed, and to this day, no deal has ever had the same participation, it changes every time as folks fortunes and interests changes.

The lead I got I got by asking every single general contractor that I met in working construction jobs. I went to Office Depot and had a batch of business cards made ($20) with my name, phone number, and the words "I need lead". I handed them out to every GC I hired, or met in my line of work. I started doing that in 1996.

One of those cards paid off, and he called me and said that there was a warehouse he was tearing down and there was a gigantic counterweight sitting on the floor from some contraption that was long obsolete. So I went there, and yep, it was lead. Took 7 days of work to get it out of there in chunks.

The point of my post, and all the others where I trumpet the benefits of group purchases, is that its worth it if you can get the volume high enough, and you have enough pals around to make it work. The goal of my post is to educate our brethren of the benefits of group buys.

I don't mean to come off sounding preachy, but I have religion when it comes to being a tighwad as far as reloading goes. I am one cheap B@$tard when it comes to laying out cash for reloading supplies, but I force myself to acknowledge a good deal when I see one.

Last example, three years ago Graf and Sons was surplusing out all of their Nobel Sport/Vectan powders. Hardly anyone was buying it, mainly because so little reloading info was available. Most of the reloading manuals were in French for Novel Sport/Vectan, and they didn't list some of the powder's that Graf's was selling. So I drove down to the Houston French Consulate and rang the doorbell and a nice lady there translated the manual for me. Which is how I found out that two of the powders that Graf was selling were for pistols, and optimized for 9mm and .45acp.

Bingo, as they say. In 24 hours, we cleaned them out. We bought it all. It took me over a year to pay back the bank loan I took out to come up with the cash on short notice. But, it was worth every penny. My delivered cost was right about $12/lb as I recall, maybe less.

Which is why today, my favorite 9mm load is a Hensley & Gibbs #115 120gr. LRN over 4.1 grs. of Nobel Sport/Vectan AO powder. I have enough to load at least 100,000 rounds in 9mm.

I'm fortunate to live in SE Texas where there is no shortage of casters and reloaders.

I wish for you the same....:-D

[Lloyd Smale]

cool story flyboy. I wish we lived closer!!

[Lloyd Smale]

ktw sent you a pm

[Ricochet]

I appreciate Texasflyboy's thoughts about the changing availability of lead and how we will need to adapt.

Increasing availability of zinc wheelweights suggests we might want to do more experimenting with zinc cast bullets. Just keep a separate pot for zinc. It won't contaminate your moulds.

[MN91311]

The answer there is whether the wheelweight recycler will take the same precautions we do to keep the zinc weights from melting in the mix. It depends on how the contaminated alloy will cast up in their product. Maybe for new WW, good fillout is not so important.


<<But there is still a lingering question:
If the wheelweight manufacturers are indeed recycling WWs, and if boolet casters are overheating their alloy enough to melt zinc WWs—then scrap the contaminated metal, or if other zinc-lead alloys become widespread, won't we end up with WWs that are already a zinc-lead-arsenic-antimony mix? One that won't necessarily be obvious by a high melting temperature? Remember, zinc may melt at 787ºF, but that's pure zinc—not an alloy. Tin melts at 449º, lead at 621º, but alloy them together 60/40 (as in solder) and they melt at about 370º. >>

[charger 1]

your probably right. Firgure ive got about 20 years more to cast and hopefully ill get by but eventually this hobby is going to die.


Not for this puppy. There was a fella that tore down an old garage/tire shop and the guy that owned was religious about throwing out nothin. When I found out I did 3 trips with my one ton short box full to add to the 13 5 gallon pails I had and there isnt a weight out there newer than 20 yrs. Everybody thought I was nuts....Nuts like he11

[Lloyd Smale]

Ive played with it some and got where i was producing some decent looking bullets. Problem is for a hunting bullet though they were to light and to brittle. Theyd probably make a hell of a varmit bullet though. Another problem woud be the need to maintain another complete casting setup (pot molds ect) just for the zinc.

[looseprojectile]

I have recently been running low on lead and have been using the last remaining unknown content small ingots I had.
When casting I put all I can get in the pot and heat with a propane torch to speed up the melt. I use a bottom pour pot, Lyman I think.
As I was casting very small boolits I only needed one pot full.
I noticed this grainy looking slush on the melt. As I drossed off this stuff, a couple of ounces, I noticed it was very light weight. I lowered the temperature from 750 to about 650 deg.

I don't know what this dross was, though I suspect it was zinc. I drossed and fluxed a couple of times and proceeded to cast a few hundred, 65 and 86 grain boolits . With careful attention to getting all the stuff that comes to the top of the melt out, I had no problem with fillout and made perfect boolits.

As a matter of fact, I have never had any trouble with fillout in all the years I have been casting with free alloy of unknown content. I Just get softer and harder alloys which I can adjust with the appropriate addition of more lino or pure.
Drossing and fluxing is something you have to do automatically when indicated.
I for one, don't see zinc or calcium or aluminum or any other metal being any problem at all when casting. ------------------ Am I all alone here?

[Typecaster]

Going..going...gone!

Stopped by yesterday afternoon, ready to "bite the boolit" and buy 100 of the ingots to check out, and every bit of lead in the place was gone—soft lead, WWs, linotype pigs—all gone.

All I ended up getting was 6 lb. of .303 brass...