JohnH
01-16-2015, 01:12 AM
After reading a post further don about oxide colors on the melt, and another on PIN controllers for the Lee Pro-4, I've decided there is something wrong with me. I cast using either COWW or lead lino mixed at 2 to 1 for an alloy that is about the same as WW. I run the thermostat setting between 7-8 (always have even on the smaller Lee unit) I've never had colors form on top of my melt. Nor do I as a rule spend lots of energy fluxing the melt. I normally use ingots made in cast iron cornbread pans, weigh about a pound each, I preheat them by laying them atop the furnace, adding them as the melt level drops 1/2-3/4 inches or so, its an eyeball, experience thingy no hard fast rule about it, but the ingot will burn your fingers. I've actually had them melt before I could drop 'em in. I get some crude on top, but normally don't flux for to or three casting sessions, and when I do I'm as likely to use a wee tad of burnt motor oil as anything. Occasionally I have a small stick of pine lighter on hand and use that to stir the pot up but again if I do, I do; if I don't, I don't. Only time I get lots of crd built up on the melt is when I begin to toss lots of sprues back in the melt. Usually happens when I'm too lazy to make ingots or don't have a spare gas bottle to run the turkey fryer for doing so. A tad of oil, and the problem disappears. Thirty years + into this I've found that it's easy to spend a bunch of time picking the flyspecks out of the horse doo for little to no gain in the quality of the boolits I shoot. I don't compete, I ain't looking for match grade accuracy, nor am I looking for the perfect boolit, lots of 'em find their way into sub 1-1/2" groups when fired off a bench at 75-100 yards and everyone of them has made me smile. I have spent literally hundreds of hours casting, loading and shooting and my friends and I have enjoyed every minute of it... Back to the problem at hand...
Am I missing something? I don't have the problems I've read about others having with their cast over the years. The only time I've seen colors on the melt is when I'm dealing pure lead. Antimony/tin alloy's have always, always been silver on the top, even the crud. Now the dross turns black... I was also taught that lead/tin/antimony don't separate, that the oxidized metal on top of the melt is the same as that in the melt. I know that the alloys can be forced out with heat, but not at the temperatures we cast at. Maybe my info is wrong, but I've never been able to prove it, and even if I am wrong I can't tell that it's caused me any great headache. 1/2 a percent of tin or antimony one way or the other just don't make enough difference between 600 and 1800 fps to make a cat's nap bit of difference. Flux all ya want, I ain't found it to be near the problem some make it out to be, unless you're ladle casting; and that my friend is a horse of a different color...
Some folks aint gonna like this, but the only time I've ever had leading is as a result of crappy lube, a crappy barrel or simply trying to drive a boolit too fast. Good lube goes a long way to relieve heartburn and when ya got good lube, the lube star will tell you when you are about to exceed the limits of the alloy hardness/lube/pressure/velocity curve. It's possible to exceed anyone of those without much trouble, but the more you exceed a combination of them the more heartburn you get. It's really a crappy alloy from what I learned years ago, but simply put, common wheel weight will do a yeoman's work. Linotype was all the rage in my youth, I've discovered that WW, FFWL and a gas check will go faster than my reconstructed shoulder cares for and in a handgun, even self feeders, it does a better than good job. If you are shooting WW in a handgun and having leading trouble, the alloy is likely NOT your problem...
And yes, I shoot jacketed. There I said it. Count me among the unwashed heathen. Drag my accursed body into the desert and let the sun bleach my bones... Don't get me wrong, I don't think that jacketed is superior to cast, it's just easier to get good results at high speed with, and I'm old enough that I don't like to be aggravated by things I can do something about. Shooting jacketed boolits at speeds greater than 2000 fps reduces a lot aggravation. I've hunted with cast, killed well over a dozen deer with cast, I loved it, got nothing to prove. I actually think that a 44 magnum rifle will do 90% of the deer killing I need done. But I've other rifles I like to bloody once in a while too and I'm not going to go through the trouble of working up a cast load for a rifle to hunt with it using cast one season. I've rifles I shoot cast in, rifles I shoot jacketed in, and it works for me. Same as my casting method.
Glad I got that off my chest. Feel better now. Now you know too, that if I read a post about some goop on top of a melt and I don't respond, it's because I figure it's easy to make mountains out of mole hills, and I prolly don't have the answer you need anyway. Only two things continue to irritate me about casting... I hate Lee furnaces. They drip constantly, even with springs and weights on the pour handles (although I did find that my 10 pounder stopped dripping when I used some 20-1 once go figure...) I've never had as much trouble out of the melt as I've had out of Lee moulds, but I use them, a couple of them are favorites, guess it's a love/hate relationship. So there you have it, the state of my casting union. I do some, I don't so some and I make what as do as aggravation free as I can. It's like life, if it gets tangled up, keep going, it'll straighten itself out.
Am I missing something? I don't have the problems I've read about others having with their cast over the years. The only time I've seen colors on the melt is when I'm dealing pure lead. Antimony/tin alloy's have always, always been silver on the top, even the crud. Now the dross turns black... I was also taught that lead/tin/antimony don't separate, that the oxidized metal on top of the melt is the same as that in the melt. I know that the alloys can be forced out with heat, but not at the temperatures we cast at. Maybe my info is wrong, but I've never been able to prove it, and even if I am wrong I can't tell that it's caused me any great headache. 1/2 a percent of tin or antimony one way or the other just don't make enough difference between 600 and 1800 fps to make a cat's nap bit of difference. Flux all ya want, I ain't found it to be near the problem some make it out to be, unless you're ladle casting; and that my friend is a horse of a different color...
Some folks aint gonna like this, but the only time I've ever had leading is as a result of crappy lube, a crappy barrel or simply trying to drive a boolit too fast. Good lube goes a long way to relieve heartburn and when ya got good lube, the lube star will tell you when you are about to exceed the limits of the alloy hardness/lube/pressure/velocity curve. It's possible to exceed anyone of those without much trouble, but the more you exceed a combination of them the more heartburn you get. It's really a crappy alloy from what I learned years ago, but simply put, common wheel weight will do a yeoman's work. Linotype was all the rage in my youth, I've discovered that WW, FFWL and a gas check will go faster than my reconstructed shoulder cares for and in a handgun, even self feeders, it does a better than good job. If you are shooting WW in a handgun and having leading trouble, the alloy is likely NOT your problem...
And yes, I shoot jacketed. There I said it. Count me among the unwashed heathen. Drag my accursed body into the desert and let the sun bleach my bones... Don't get me wrong, I don't think that jacketed is superior to cast, it's just easier to get good results at high speed with, and I'm old enough that I don't like to be aggravated by things I can do something about. Shooting jacketed boolits at speeds greater than 2000 fps reduces a lot aggravation. I've hunted with cast, killed well over a dozen deer with cast, I loved it, got nothing to prove. I actually think that a 44 magnum rifle will do 90% of the deer killing I need done. But I've other rifles I like to bloody once in a while too and I'm not going to go through the trouble of working up a cast load for a rifle to hunt with it using cast one season. I've rifles I shoot cast in, rifles I shoot jacketed in, and it works for me. Same as my casting method.
Glad I got that off my chest. Feel better now. Now you know too, that if I read a post about some goop on top of a melt and I don't respond, it's because I figure it's easy to make mountains out of mole hills, and I prolly don't have the answer you need anyway. Only two things continue to irritate me about casting... I hate Lee furnaces. They drip constantly, even with springs and weights on the pour handles (although I did find that my 10 pounder stopped dripping when I used some 20-1 once go figure...) I've never had as much trouble out of the melt as I've had out of Lee moulds, but I use them, a couple of them are favorites, guess it's a love/hate relationship. So there you have it, the state of my casting union. I do some, I don't so some and I make what as do as aggravation free as I can. It's like life, if it gets tangled up, keep going, it'll straighten itself out.