composition of stick on wheel weights (SOWW's)

[fortrenokid]

Think I have an answer to this query based on reading several posts but would appreciate some feedback.

Found about 1/3rd bucket of ww's that had been "hiding" in my shed for some bit of time and went thru the laborious task of sorting out the Pb and non-Pb. About 1/4th of the batch was non-Pb and , based on more recent batches of WW's that I've sorted ... that ain't too bad.

I sort and melt the clip-ons and the soww's separately thinking that the soww's are softer and will (1) be more suited for muzzle-loaders (2) will need more alloy hardeners for regular bullet casting for rifle and pistol shooting.

Am I correct in my assumption that the soww's have less hardening alloys (tin, antimony, arsenic, etc) than the clip-ons? Or am I just adding an unnecessary step and should combine them in the melt?

Any thots or perspectives you guys have on the matter would be appreciated.

Thanks

Fort Reno Kid

[AggieEE]

The opinion here is treat soww like pure lead. There's been several threads about wws. Not a hit but search can be your friend.

[jsizemore]

The painted SOWW's are about like COWW alloy. Unpainted SOWW's are close to pure Pb.

[bangerjim]

All plain ones I have found are darned near pure.

I prefer to buy clean roof lead to SOWW's......no mess, gunk, and dirt to clean out! And that tape is just horrible when it burns.

[fortrenokid]

Thanks , Pards.

Excellent feedback. Virtually all of my soww's are the plain, unpainted variety. Come to think of it, most are stamped 1/4 ounce. I use a box cutter knife (carefully!) to scratch the surface of ww's to separate the Pb from the others. Most of the soww's scratch very deeply with even slight effort.

Based on this good info and my own observations, think I'll continue to melt soww's separately and consider them to be very soft, if not pure, lead.

Thanks again

[lightman]

There is a good sticky at the top of this thread where a member tested soww's. Check it out!

[RogerDat]

They add a bit of arsenic which supports water quenching / heat treating. It takes a very tiny amount to act as the catalyst so I keep my SOWW ingots aside in case I build an alloy from materials without arsenic I can use the SOWW's as some of the "plain" in the recipe to allow heat treating and water dropping.

[Yodogsandman]

http://castboolits.gunloads.com/showthread.php?229666-Stick-On-WW-XrF-Data

[LAGS]

In my experience, SOWW are just like Pure lead, and only have a BHN of 6 to 8 if you are lucky.
But they do have some Arsenic in them same as roof flashing, and MIGHT water drop a little harder.
But not above a 10
But adding 1 to 2 % tin makes them cast better unless you are using them for ML's where the Tin is not required for a Round Ball.