Reclaiming Alox coated bullets - What a Mess

[Rich/WIS]

Years ago had cast some 45 TL Lee bullets and used Lee's LA on them. Had no use for them so decided to melted them down to cast a different bullet. Melted fine but the lube was like tar on top of the melt and the sides of the pot, even stuck to my stirring spoon. Tried lighting it off but it wouldn't burn, looked like a bubbling tar pit on top of the melt. Skimmed off what I could and when I was done had to scrape it off the pot and the spoon was so bad I held it with pliers and used a propane torch to burn it off. Don't know what is in the lube but it sure holds up well to heat.

[GaryN]

When I am melting a big pot of wheel weights I use a lot of sawdust. It cleans the melt up the best. I have even used it when melting acid core solder. That stuff is toxic. I never put anything but clean lead in my furnace.

[nagantguy]

Alox is ment to stay on, I was told a while ago to wash it off with acetone, what a mess, evaporated before it touched the stuff, lesson learned for us both, Alox em, shoot em, cause anything else is a stinky mess. I did pc over some Alox boolits just to see, made them look speckled, a few thousandths over, but once sized shot just fine. I'm saying that old lee add with the blow touch and the boolit melts before the Alox is the real deal.

[melloairman]

Have you tried a pot of boiling water . I have used it on some lubes but not Alox ? Marvin

[sandman228]

ive done this before, theres been times ive sold or traded a gun that I have bullets casted for (coated with alox) and no longer have need for the bullets . ive handled it 2 different ways ,1 soak the bullets in mineral spirits to dissolve the alox let dry then throw them in the casting furnace ,or 2 just throw them in your melting pot and re melt them into ingots yes it still makes a little bit of a mess but its in your melting pot not your casting furnace .

[Big Dangle]

I also did that, after a little while and saw dust I just keep the rest in a jar by the pot and drop a couple in once in a while, there going away. slowly,

[Yodogsandman]

I once took about 400 30 cal boolits that I had coated with LLA and first soaked them in gasoline using a glass mayonnaise jar. Kept tipping the jar back and forth to agitate the boolits. After drying, I then boiled them in water using an old whole tomato can and my outside hot plate. I then HT'd them in a convection oven at 465*F and quenched. Worked good, I'm still shooting them using different lubes.

[RogerDat]

Believe I once saw an old Lee advertisement or photo from manual where bullet was being melted and the caption was pointing out how the LLA was staying in the lube grooves and on the bullet even as the lead melted.

Sounds like a job for smelting pot and some sawdust.

[Geezer in NH]

Obviously you will hate roof flashing and some kind of the usual tar coating it seems. :kidding:

[shoot-n-lead]

I have washed alox based lube off of bullets with acetone and no such issues as mentioned above. Just put the bullets in a small bucket, poured acetone until it covered the bullets, left it overnight. Next day, poured it off and pc'd them...with no problem.

[rsrocket1]

Yup, did the same with oderless mineral spirits. The bullets came out so clean that I was able to powder coat them without having to melt and recast them.