Zinc in my melt

[KirkD]

Okay. I've been scrounging wheel weights and melting them down an making 2-pound muffin ingots. I've found a few zinc wheel weights floating in my melt so I hauled them out. They were a variety of sizes, but look different from lead ones, so I figure I should be able to identify them now before I toss them in my melt.

Now for the question. My first melt, I wasn't really aware of zinc wheel weights. They are so rare that I may not have had any, but I don't know if my first set of ingots contain any zinc or not. Two questions:

1. When I melt the ingots down to make bullets, if I keep the temp below 780 degrees, if there is any zinc in the ingot, should it float to the top and I can skim it off?

2. What's wrong with a little zinc in my bullets?

As you can guess, I'm just learning.

[kooz]

You wont be able to skim the zink out if it has already been melted into your WWs. The key is to use a thermometer and keep the temp down around 650 degrees or less when melting the WWs, that way you can skim off the zink WWs when they float to the top.

If your pugs are contaminated with zink it will be impossible to get good bullets out of your melt, it will be kind of lumpy like oatmeal.

There is a very good chance that you are ok, unless you melted your WWs at a fairly high temp for a long time. Have you tried to cast any bullets yet ?

[badgeredd]

KirkD,

I would mark the questionable ingots and set them aside for now. I had some ingots that a friend melted wheel weight for and apparently he DID get some zink in them. I have been trying a little experimenting and I found that if I melt them with a thermometer in the pot and keep the temp close to 600 and let them stand for a while that it appears most of the zink will come to the surface after an hour or so. I skim it (as well as I can), then still the remaining really well and let it stand while I do other things for another hour and a little more rises. After 2 skimmings, it appears there is very little zink left and I have used the skimmed lead for plinking boolits, in larger claibers. Seems to worl for me. Also sinkers can be made from the suspect alloy. Just a thought.

Edd

[KirkD]

Thanks, kooz and badgeredd. Yes, I've cast some 500 grain .458's for my Springfield and some 188 grain .401's for my 38-40. So far the molten lead has been fine. I just read the zinc sticky and found it to be very helpful.