Newbie questions

[kooz]

Hello all, I have decided to start casting my own due to the rising cost of bullets. I am not new to shooting/reloading been at it about 25 years now. But I don't know squat about casting, I have a couple questions that I could use some help with. I have a good amount of WW, mostly the clip-on style and would like to know if they need to be sorted before melting into ingots, not sure if they are all made out of the same material or if some should be discarded due to their composition. If so, can someone explain the process ? Also, I will be casting for .44spl/mag and .45 Colt Keith bullets in the 800-1200 fps range and probabley using the Lee sizer and Alox for now, how do you think the WW will do using them as is with no additional alloying ? Thanks for the help, I am sure I will have many more questions.

[Wayne Smith]

First, welcome to a new addiction!

If you don't have a lead thermometer, get one. Keep your first melt of the ww's to 700-750 degrees and skim off anything that doesn't melt, including complete ww's. These will be zinc or steel.

Yes, ww is adequate for 800-1200fps in the .44/.45's. If you want to go harder for some reason drop your bullets into a bucket of water and they will be much harder. Should not be necessary and may become a problem if you do, though. Hard bullets do not obdurate (expand to fit the bore) and will cause problems if they are too small.

[kooz]

Thanks. Do the zink WWs look any different ? just wondering if I could pick them out before they even get to the pot.

[Blammer]

yes they look different, and if you drop them on a concrete floor they go "TING" not "thud" like lead.

I might add, when he said drop your bullets in a bucket of water. HE meant after you melt the lead, and pour it into the mould and when you open the mould to let the boolits out, then they should drop into a bucket of cold water directly from the hot mould. IF you do it later when they are cool, you're just getting your booilts wet. :)

Here is a pic of my set up. I have a dipper pot, Lyman Mini Mag, ladle, mould and wooden smacker to open the mould, and a pair of gloves. The yellow stuff is flux, (candle wax will do to start) and the other little bottles are Mould Prep (helps boolits fall out of the mould easier) and a place to dump the boolits. I also have out of sight, a trash bucket where I put my scum I scrape off the top of the melt after fluxing. And that spoon is to stir the pot with flux and scoop out the trash.

http://i54.photobucket.com/albums/g81/blammer8mm/Cast%20boolits/DSCN6158.jpg

[Blammer]

That's about all you need.

Now when I started I didn't have a seperate place to melt my WW's I just used my dipper pot. Worked fine.

This Lyman Mini mag only has one temp, and it's not changeable. Great for rookies like me at the time cause if it didn't melt I trashed it, one less thing to worry about.

[kooz]

Thanks for the info, I am still in the process of getting all my stuff together. I have managed to scrounge about 800lbs of WW and about 800 lbs of bullet pieces from the water trap of an indoor range. Now I am at the point where I would like to melt and pour into ingots. I have a 6qt cast iron pot and a turkey cooker base to do the melt and a cast iron muffin pan that I was going to try and use it for an ingot mould. What would you guys recommend as a flux ?

[StrawHat]

For flux some of us use beeswax or bullet lube.

Somewhere is a thread about using a piece of a dry pine board as a stir stick without flux. Never tried it and can't find the thread in my bookmarks.

Wait a bit and more will answer this thread with good advice.

The problem will be finding the time to read it all!

Good luck and have fun.

[WHITETAIL]

Kooz, Welcome to the forum!:-D
As far as flux goes I use old candle wax. My daughter loves to burn sented candles. So when she is done with it I get the leftovers. :castmine:

[WHITETAIL]

Kooz, Cast iron pans are great![smilie=s:
Go to all the yard sales you can and you will find these pans.

[HORNET]

Kooz, Welcome to the asylum. You might want to read through some of the posts in the Classics & Stickies Forum. Lots of good info there for the beginning caster and quite a bit there for those who think they already know everything. Also some links to other neat places (Goatlips has a good site as does Junior1942) with helpful information (and some wierd stuff).
Look around, ask questions. Sawdust supposedly makes good flux (if you can handle the smoke) as do most other things that contain carbon, like used walnut shell tumbling media.
This is fun stuff if you don't take it too seriously, Enjoy yourself.

[pumpguy]

Welcome Kooz. I use a hardwood stick for fluxing. I use a small one in my 20# Lee pot. I ladle cast, so I have to flux every half hour or so. The stick allows me to scrape the sides and bottom of the pot. Even though the stuff you are getting rid of is lighter than lead, you have to scrape it because the lead actually holds that stuff down. You would be surprised how much you get. If you are bottom pouring, some of the guys here put a layer of unused kitty litter on top of the melt to act as an oxygen barrier. Whatever you do, don't put raw WWs in your casting pot. There is too much crud on them and it is hard to get rid of all of it. This is especially true if you bottom pour because the crud can get in your valve and either stop the flow or make it drip. One last word about safety. Never put wet lead in a hot pot. Really bad things happen!!

[Bad Water Bill]

BELIEVE it about NO moisture in a pot. I didnt when I was a kid making soldiers and indians. Somehow a little moisture got in the pot Did the Tinsel Fairy ever get mad. I think it was 20 years later when I finally got the last tiny bits of that stuff out of my forehead. NO you can not move fast enough to avoid her wrath. BWB :castmine: