Loosing alloy after melting

[odfairfaxsub]

Was wondering after searching google to no avail if anyone has done a study of melting bullets over and over and studied the loss or potential loss of the leads alloys ?

[odfairfaxsub]

http://castboolits.gunloads.com/archive/index.php/t-15149.html

Closes thing I found to the subject. If you have adhd it might be too much for a sit through.

I’m asking the question because I ran my bullets through a bullet trap and I have a ton of lead dust now. I know I can fire her up and reduce it back to lead no issues no problems. Was curious to alloy loss especially since I might use copious amounts of heat to bring it back to life.

[Dusty Bannister]

Perhaps you could use a softer alloy that might not break up as easily? Or a different angle to decelerate the bullet and not just smash into a steel plate?

[RED BEAR]

This is getting deeper that i usually go into things. As someone that cast anything i get my hands on . I would say cast some and check the hardness . Ps i even save the zinc and dross remelt and cast for shotgun. Waste not want not.

[country gent]

I would recommend fluxing before skimming the dross off. This way any separated alloys should be worked back into the melt before skimming and it wont remove as much. It shouldn't take a lot more heat for dust or deformed bullets to melt and work back to useable material. I would recommend starting with some molten lead in the pot and adding the dust in to molten material ( as long as its dry) or using a large ladle to pre heat it in the pot before adding in, Sort of a pot inside the pot set up.

[Conditor22]

I feel that if I flux and scrape down the sides and bottom of the pot religiously I will limit any loss of alloy.

I also toss my dross in when I smelt anything but pure lead.

I've found that fluxing with pine sawdust and at least once with wax I get a grainy dross I leave on top of my pot for a vapor and splash barrier.

I also found that I can remove much of the grainy dross after each session and it will reoccur with the next pot fill up. IF the new dross is lumpy and not grainy, I dip a candle in the pot, torch it, mix it in with a potato masher then fully incorporate it with a wire whisk. This always gets me my grainy dross again.

Lately, I've been more concerned with hardness than alloy

[lightman]

I'm not sure I understand the question. If you're talking about melting your alloy over and over then yes you will eventually deplete the alloy. Print shops would buy rich alloy to replace what was lost by continuously melting linotype over and over. How long this would take for you to do it would depend on lots of things. How well you flux, how hot your melt gets, how long it stays that hot before you pour it, ect.

If you're talking about your loss from the bullet fragmenting, there is probably no way to know for sure.

[odfairfaxsub]

Was wondering as people shot the same bullets over and over, remelted them over and over if anyone ever checked hardness or even analysis each time and graphed it?

[fredj338]

i'm not sure i understand the question. If you're talking about melting your alloy over and over then yes you will eventually deplete the alloy. Print shops would buy rich alloy to replace what was lost by continuously melting linotype over and over. How long this would take for you to do it would depend on lots of things. How well you flux, how hot your melt gets, how long it stays that hot before you pour it, ect.

If you're talking about your loss from the bullet fragmenting, there is probably no way to know for sure.
^^this^^^ Most of the time exact alloy composition isn't important. I shoot mostly range scrap in my handguns, works fine. I rarely get into the minutia of exact alloy content, been working fine for 40y now.

[odfairfaxsub]

Yeah. I kinda agree w you fred and others. I was curious to how the lead depletes like if anyone did any tracking over time. All in all I can fire my alloy over and over and prob never know any different in my 357, 38-55, or 45 acp due to the fact they aren’t demanding calibers like my 30-06 or more so my 35 remington. It was really a case of curiosity.

The softer lead like someone mentioned handled the bullet trap way better than I could have imagined. Instead of a lot of particles and slivers it was about 50 percent intact

[majik]

you'll always lose a bit of the lead's weight to oxidation, as it melts and also, even as the bullets/ingots sit around. The latter loss is of course very slow and a coating of bullet lube virtuallly eliminates such loss.

[kevin c]

I'd guess the amount of lead converted to oxides is limited to the exposed surface, and would be a very small fraction of the total weight of lead. Unless the oxide separates from the surface, all the lead is still there, and, if anything, the ingot would weigh a tiny bit more since all the lead is there plus the bound oxygen. All the original weight of lead should still be in the pot if the ingot is melted, with the oxides floating on top, and all the lead will be recoverable if the oxides are reduced.

My main concern about oxidized ingots is the increased potential for lead absorption from handling.

[GregLaROCHE]

I have a lot of dust in my range scrap that I melt. I don’t use any wax to flux, only the pieces of target paper and wood chips mixed in with the scrap. I’ve tried melting for a long time and getting the alloy really hot to try and get tiny specs of lead to mix in with the alloy. Think there may be something with surface tension, that make it hard to mix them in.

I finally decided it wasn’t worth the time, extra propane and possibly burning off what tin might be in it. I aggressively remove the droth and a little lead gets mixed in. When I am done I screen the droth and remelt whatever doesn’t go through the screen. What has gone through the screen looks like fine black sand and tiny pieces of lead. I’m sure with more time and propane I could recuperate more, but don’t see it is worth it.

If you are shooting into your own bullet trap, you could calculate your loss pretty close. Keep track of weight you shot then subtract what you collect from it. Then after you melt it into ingots. That would be interesting to know.

[Bookworm]

I also get that fine, heavy, black sand. I toss it all in a coffee can. When the can gets filled, I transfer the contents to an iron pot.
Then I put the pot into the brush pile I'm fixing to burn.

When it's all over, and cool enough to dig the pot out of the ashes, I end up with a nice puck of reclaimed lead. This is lead that would have been lost. I use the 'free' heat of the burning brush pile to good effect.

I do have to recoat the iron pot with engine oil, the massive heat output pretty much sucks all the oils out. It'll rust quickly without the oil coating.