Anyone but me using zinc checks?

[muskeg13]

I purchased a roll of zinc flashing to solve a moss problem on my chicken coop roof (which worked fantastically just as advertised) and I had a lot of material left over. It looked to be about the same thickness as Hornady checks, so I began to use this excess material instead of copper or aluminum in both my Freechex and Pat Marlin checkmakers. Thus far, I see no performance difference between copper, zinc or aluminum clecks. Although the zinc may be a bit thicker, it's soft and seems to seat firmer on bullet bases than aluminum checks, and sizes down in the dies just fine.

https://www.lowes.com/pd/Construction-Metals-Inc-Z-Stop-0-21-ft-W-x-50-ft-L-10-4-sq-ft-Silver-Roll-Roofing/4005455#preview-specifications

[Rcmaveric]

Interesting.

Sent from my SM-N970U using Tapatalk

[Rickf1985]

I wouldn't want to be the guy getting lead from your range!:roll:

[GARD72977]

I recover a good bit of my own lead from the bearm.......

[imashooter2]

That was my first thought... poisoning the berm.

[slim1836]

Lead contamination.

Slim

[perotter]

Thanks for the post. I've been wanting some zinc sheet for a while, but never knew that it is sold in local DIY stores. I'll have to pick some up.

[Conditor22]

Interesting idea

You are supposed to use dead soft copper or soft aluminum. Zinc is harder and I'd be afraid of the extra wear/strain it would put on the GC dies.

[Rickf1985]

Not to mention poisoning the lead supply from the berms for all those who get their lead there. I am thinking that will make you a very unpopular person at the range! Makes me think now about buying lead from suppliers that get it from the ranges!

[John Wayne]

Aw, he's in Alaska. Those berms may never be scavenged. As long as you keep the temp of the melt right those zinc checks should float right up.

[Agarbers]

Zinc is the metal used in conduit fittings and is not soft. It can hold up to having screws threaded into it as tight as I care to go. I would not consider it the same as copper in any way. I would not expect aluminum to hold up the same either. I don't know what to think about it as a gas check.

[dimaprok]

Interesting idea

You are supposed to use dead soft copper or soft aluminum. Zinc is harder and I'd be afraid of the extra wear/strain it would put on the GC dies.Zinc is softer than copper and factory uses copper gas checks plus Zinc is known to have self lubricating properties. I doubt our gun range allows anyone to mine lead in WA. I don't go to our gun ranges as they don't allow chronographs, I prefer to go to the gun pit in the forest.

Sent from my SM-G950U1 using Tapatalk

[smithnframe]

I use pure zinc washers in my Harvey protex-bore 38 caliber mold.

[muskeg13]

I use pure zinc washers in my Harvey protex-bore 38 caliber mold.

Reading about the use of zinc washers in pre-check days in old gun articles is what gave me the idea in the first place. I also don't believe trace amounts of zinc are going to contaminate dirty range lead for you "sky is falling" types. I think a very small amount of zinc will mix in the resulting alloy and be unnoticeable, except to possibly provide hardening. Excess zinc will be skimmed off with the massive amount of dross you're going to get with smelting range lead anyway. I've missed culling every zinc WW out of large batches of wheel weights on occasion, and had no problem with the casting characteristics of the resulting alloy. I think there's a zinc saturation point that has to be reached in the alloy before you begin to get the oatmeal consistency clumping, but I don't know what that percentage is. The few pots of alloy I suspected contained some zinc produced a much harder alloy than normal clip on ww, but cast fine w/o any problems with molds filling out. It was much harder than 1/20 or #2, ingots dropped on a concrete floor would go "ping" not "ckunk", and I couldn't leave an impression with a thumbnail. Not very scientific, but I had no use for such a hard alloy and mixed it with pure lead to bring it down to #2 hardness with a Saeco tester.

[idsubgun]

Here's an old Ideal 357514 mold that was in my dad's stash of molds I inherited. It uses a zinc washer for the gas check.

http://i.imgur.com/bDAiSegm.jpg (https://imgur.com/bDAiSeg)

http://i.imgur.com/QzYgx54m.jpg (https://imgur.com/QzYgx54)

[FLINTNFIRE]

Zinc is softer than copper and factory uses copper gas checks plus Zinc is known to have self lubricating properties. I doubt our gun range allows anyone to mine lead in WA. I don't go to our gun ranges as they don't allow chronographs, I prefer to go to the gun pit in the forest.

Sent from my SM-G950U1 using Tapatalk

Range I belong to allows us to mine berms , here is southwest Wa . and they even put a platform to set your chronograph up on some years ago .

However I prefer to go out to the woods also , rock pits were great but Weyco shut off those areas and does not allow target shooting on their property , so state land and forest service is where I go when I am not interested in using the bench or I want longer ranges then the 50 yards at pistol and 400 yards on rifle range .

Besides I can go camp for a few days and have some informal shooting with friends .

[rbuck351]

I have my own range where I recover most of my boolits. It seems like it would be easy to see the difference between a copper, zinc or aluminum check before remelting them. I have found zinc WWs floating in my clean up melting pot after all the lead has melted as they melt at somewhat higher temps. I think I will try some when I can find a roll of zinc.

[gwpercle]

I keep waiting for the day when someone will come up with a use for all the zinc wheel weights I keep getting . Being a Pack-Rat I know someone will develop a mould to cast the washers to use as gas checks on the Harvey like boolits . Maybe make a pair of moulds ...one for casting the zinc washer and the other for casting the boolit with the washer on it .

Put me down on the group buy .
Gary

[Scrounge]

I keep waiting for the day when someone will come up with a use for all the zinc wheel weights I keep getting . Being a Pack-Rat I know someone will develop a mould to cast the washers to use as gas checks on the Harvey like boolits . Maybe make a pair of moulds ...one for casting the zinc washer and the other for casting the boolit with the washer on it .

Put me down on the group buy .
Gary

Alloy zinc and aluminum with a bit of copper and a bit of magnesium, and you have an alloy called ZAMAC. Which one and what it's properies are depends on the percentages just as much as the differences between COWW, Linotype, Lyman #2, etc. Many of the Atlas lathe internal parts are cast from ZAMAC. With the right mix, it's about 2/3rds the weight of cast iron, and nearly as strong. You can melt the stuff in a propane or waste oil fired forced air draft furnace.

If you get some of the parts that were made with just a bit of lead in them to make the melt flow better, you can develop what they call zinc pest. The lead doesn't alloy properly with the rest of the mix, and you get intergranular corrosion. Used to happen to pot metal castings, too. Carburator bodies, and such things, made in small shops instead of using standard alloys. Seems to be more likely in places with high humidity, but not a lot of that stuff is still around.

I think I'd want to seperate them out, or skim them from the mix, rather than getting it a little hotter so they melt. It is not going to be the end of the world, though.

[frkelly74]

If you don't mind, What is the thickness of the sheet? This looks interesting.

[GregLaROCHE]

I wouldn't want to be the guy getting lead from your range!:roll:

The worst is going to be guys shooting all zinc boolits.

[gpidaho]

Just came across this thread this evening and don't mean to be too negative and believe me , I'm not above mining a berm myself. I just have to say that it's a little over the top to expect a shooter that's found a use for some left over scrap, zinc for gas checks in this instance, to worry about the berm miners. Berm mining is somewhat like dumpster diving in that you need to sort the rotten fruit from the beer cans. This seems to me to be the job of the diver and not that of the trash depositor. Beside this ,the amount of zinc in a few gas checks would just add a little hardness to the alloy and be no big deal. This is just my take on this and not in any way meant to discourage mining. Gp

[muskeg13]

If you don't mind, What is the thickness of the sheet? This looks interesting.

The best I can measure is 0.008". It comes in a 2 1/2" x 50 feet roll. Z Stop Moss Control @ $30 from Lowes or Home Depot. That makes for a lot of checks, even after installing a roof peak strip on the chicken coop. It's softer than the aluminum flashing I have that measures 0.009, and works with both Freecheck and PatMarlin dies.

[GregLaROCHE]

Is the melting point of zinc high enough to be as effective as copper or aluminum?

[muskeg13]

It's a lot higher than the melting point of powder coating or the combustion temperature of paper (for paper patching), or the melting point of a poly-wad or sabot. I doubt the melting point of the check has much to do with anything. Ever seen a fired boolit with lube still in the grooves? The following gives good reasons for using zinc checks:

https://hawkbullets.com/prot-x-bore.html

[GregLaROCHE]

It's a lot higher than the melting point of powder coating or the combustion temperature of paper (for paper patching), or the melting point of a poly-wad or sabot. I doubt the melting point of the check has much to do with anything. Ever seen a fired boolit with lube still in the grooves? The following gives good reasons for using zinc checks:

https://hawkbullets.com/prot-x-bore.html

That was interesting reading. Sounds like zinc gas checks could be a good way to go. Especially, for hunting boolits. Also the article points out how a barrel needs to be seasoned SHERARDIZED for optimal performance. Does anything like this occur with aluminum checks?

[frkelly74]

Menards has it too . I just looked. And they had a 6"x 10' roll of copper for $43 but that looked pretty thick. I will have to measure it one of these days. The zinc was soft and looks like it would form very easily.