Smelting mess.

[Dadswickedammo]

Merry Christmas.
From the recycler got 50lb on never fired cast sized and lived boolits.
So put about 10lb in the pot got an oil slick. Ton of smoke pot turned black spoon black round ball and semi was cutters that took far more heat to melt. I set those aside and melted and made separate ingots.
The amount of bullet lube floating and smoking made me a bit nervous so just slowed things down 5lb batches. Once done had to take a blow torch to the spoon and pot to remove all the tar like muck from the spoon and pot.

[Skunk1]

It definitely smokes. Not my favorite.

[runfiverun]

well you ain't the first to make that mistake.
next time boil the boolits with the lube then turn the heat off and wait for things to cool down.
you can take the wax chunk off the top of the water and dry the boolits out.
then start them from a cold pot to cook the water out before the boolits melt.

[Dadswickedammo]

Sure wish I'd known that!!!
Second question???????
Harder lead higher temp? I mean I think so but.. I had several maybe 100 boolits that took way more heat.

[Yodogsandman]

Here's some good reading about alloys. Page 11 has a list of alloys and their solidus and liquidus temperatures.

http://www.lasc.us/Kelter_Cast_Bullet_Alloys2.pdf

[RogerDat]

Sure wish I'd known that!!!
Second question???????
Harder lead higher temp? I mean I think so but.. I had several maybe 100 boolits that took way more heat.

Plain soft lead requires higher temps to melt than alloys with any tin in them and I'm not sure about antimony impact on melt temp since almost all my lead alloy has at least some of both, other than plain. Round ball is generally plain soft lead.

Since they were already bullets it probably doesn't apply but zinc melts at a much higher temperature. One of the ways folks "sort" COWW's they just keep the melt temperature low enough that the lead melts and the zinc doesn't.

[runfiverun]

antimony in the alloy will lower the melt temp also.
it has a longer slush stage before a complete melt though.
just remember that lead melts at 630-f and tin is @ 450-f.
it translates into a lower melt temp ='s a larger boolit diameter.
it also means you can use a lower pot temp when casting with alloys that have tin/antimony in them.
ww's will melt at about 550-570 f and they hardly have any tin in them, but if you look closely you can read the little letters in them clearly.
this tells us we can pour good boolits by using a good melt temp and keeping our mold temp in a proper range. [without adding a bunch of tin to do so]