1st Attempt At Melting WW

[matchlite]

Howdy gang, been lurking for a week or two, and registered today. I've had intentions of trying my hand at casting bullets and dropping shot for quote a while, but have never found the time in the last 10 years or so to get started. Having a young family can really cut your free time ! I've been collecting some WW here and there for the last 8-10 years, and finally decided to get started melting them down and casting ingots last night. Everything went pretty well, but one of my ingots has a crater in the top and looks weird. I'll try to post a pic. I just want to make sure this wasn't caused by zinc inclusion into my melt. The pot looked good while melting, no strange foamy, wavy stuff coming up to the top. I was using a turkey burner and a cast iron dutch oven for the melt. Fluxed with pine sawdust and scraped all the clips and iron / zinc WW from the top. I don't have a lead thermometer, but I had the fire turned down quite a bit for a slow melt as to catch the zinc before it all melted. Took about 25-30 min to get a good melt. Anyways, just was looking for opinions and ideas as to why this particular ingot looks like it does. I was using a ladle to fill the muffin pans, and was adding 2 ladles full to each hole. maybe I poured too fast on the second ladle and the outside splash cooled quicker than usual ? Thanks for any replies !
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I was using the shallow muffin pans from Cracker Barrel for my ingots.

[Mitch]

welcome to the cast boolits.And to the addiction

looks pretty good for the first try.I am not a big fan of depending on the temp to keep out zinc.i sort by hand to be sure there is no zn weights in the mix.if you are unsure aboiut the zn try the acid test and see if you get any foaming or fizz.just from the pic it looks like you were moveing the ingot molds while they were cooling or your melting temp was a bit low.the ingot with the crater loks like yoy poured more lead on top of that one and the lead move to the putside and cooled befor it could run back to the center.But eveing if things are not prefect the lead will be just fine.

[Oklahoma Rebel]

that's what they look like when the muffin pan is still cool, also the fact that you used 2 ladefulls, the 1st develops a skin , then you pour the 2nd melting only the middle, and splashing some ontop of the cooler ring around the outside. once the pan warms up they will look better and also a bigger ladle would be cool but unnecessary. I bet the better looking ingots you have were the last you poured after everything warmed up. also your lead was cool to begin with, so that didn't help. I ALWAYS sort out the teel and esecuially the zinc wheelweights before I melt. don't worry you are doing fine and there isn't anything wrong wiith your ingots, other than cosmetic flaws. now if you begin to pour your boolits and the molds do not fill out, round edges, no sharp lines,corners then you have zinc in your alloy. hopefully that isn't the case, sounds like you were careful and got them out, but in the future, I would start sorting before you smelt. once you get used to it you can go through them very quickly. good luck, Travis

[Yodogsandman]

You did great! Welcome to the site!

[lightman]

I'm also not a fan of letting the temp sort my weights. Its hard enough to do with a thermometer, and really hard to trust without one. I think your ingot is the result of 2 pours into a cold mold. I say cast them and shoot them.

[Nick Quick]

I smelted for the very first time two days ago and ended all my WW reserves this morning. Congratulation for your production.
I used the same equipment as you: turkey fryer and cast iron pot. I used as molds muffin pans from the dollar store and a Lyman pan I bough many years ago and never used it.
Even tho I sorted every single WW by hand I still got two of them in the pot at a certain point. They were floating and I had no problem seeing and removing them. Probably I was sorting and talking on the phone or doing multiple things in the same time. Fortunately I bought a thermometer from Rotometals and using the advices I've got from many here on this forum I kept the temp no more than 700F, mostly 650F. Fluxed like you did with saw dust and follow the procedure you described above almost the same.
I liked the fact that you posted a picture sharing your production.
Here is mine:
http://i68.tinypic.com/2aaby9v.jpg

[bangerjim]

Just melt 'em and pour 'em. Not rocket science......just simply re-melting lead from one form to another.

Do not worry about what the ingots look like. Even ugly ingots make excellent boolits when cast properly!!!!

Have fun! And welcome to the madness.

[Hardcast416taylor]

I also sort ALL my gotten WW`s by hand and use a pair of 10" end nippers to verify some weights. Then again I must add that I am finally fully retired and as people are wont to say `You have SO much free time now`. Actually that is funny as I`ve hand sorted my WW`s for the past 25+/- years! Now days the pails of weights I am getting are close to 70% zinc or iron and are getting not worth while getting.Robert

[OS OK]

"How sweet it is!" Love those pic.'s…they give you a feeling of satisfaction in more than one way.

Now…let's see those piles of cast boolits too…OS OK

[mazo kid]

Now you are on your way to casting fine boolits! I sort my WWs before smelting, but my last buy was 6-8 years ago and I still have weights stored from 20 years ago. Yep, I need to smelt those down! My heat source on the smelter I am using won't get the melt over 675 degrees so any zinc is easily plucked out of the melt.

[matchlite]

Thanks for the input and the kind words ! I kinda ran short on time and patience on the second pot of lead after spending a lot of time sorting out the zinc weights. The long weights were easy to sort by tapping them on the concrete. I also used a pair of end cutters to test weights. It's when I got down to the little bitty weights, that I decided to throw it all into the pot....
this was just a trial run of sorts, as I have approximately 800 lbs of mixed wheel weights to melt into ingots. Also, I haven't bought any bullet casting equipment as of yet. Please feel free to suggest what a good starting setup might be. I'm primarily looking at casting 200gn SWC for 45 ACP at first. My budget will be around $800 or so for lead pot, molds, and sizing / lube equipment. I'm of the "buy once, cry once" camp, so I don't mind spending more up front to get say an RCBS bottom pour pot, if that's what you guys recommend. I'm considering the Lee 6 cavity molds, and don't have enough info as to which sizer / luber to consider. Thanks again for the welcome, and any input is much appreciated !

[triggerhappy243]

matchlite, I started with a Lee 200 gr. semi-wadcutter 2 hole mold. It heats up faster and easier to learn with. I just bought a second lee of the same shape and I will try running both molds together. As for my melter, I use a cast iron dutch oven over a turkey fryer burner. I use an RCBS lube-o-matic for sizer/lube. I also would look at a larger capacity ladle to fill the ingot mold. GOOD JOB, GOOD JOB!

[lightman]

There are lots of good choices. If you know any casters in your area check out their gear. With that budget you could go with a RCBS Pro Melt pot, RCBS sizer and they make good molds. I wish they made larger than 2 cavities though. Lyman and Lee offer their versions as well. You could even jump up to an Accurate mold and have money left over.

[Bookworm]

Just did my first melt a few weeks ago. It's fun, but dirty and smelly. The learning curve is really pretty easy - just get in there and do it. Ingotize-ing is not really critical, just get the lead clean and in some form that is easier to handle than a bucket full of ****.

Good show !

[matchlite]

Here's an update from this mornings melting.
Can't wait for all my casting equipment to get here !!
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I still have about 4 - 5 gallon buckets left to do when I get the chance.

[Chris24]

Great job, Matchlite and Nick Quick! Reminds me of when I first started. I remember the odd-shaped ingots I made. The best thing about casting is that you can melt your mistakes. :grin: