Casting ZINC bullets is tedious

[Recycled bullet]

Zinc is no fun to cast with. I just made a couple of handfuls of ZINC Noe 225 grain 30 cal blackout bullets. First I had to render the ZN wheel weights -this took hours. I take the ZN wheel weights and put them in a cast iron pot then scoop out the clips which irritatingly end up at the bottom of the pot. I scooped some out with a big metal soup ladle and pour it into this little frying pan and a smaller pot so I can make some ingots. Eventually I just got tired of it so I ended up where I stopped. There was a whole bunch of metal still stuck to the wheel weight clips so I put those back in the pot but after 20 plus minutes there was not enough Heat to separate it so I just pulled it out as one big ugly chunk with needle nose pliers. Then I took the ingots and put them in the pot to cast with and it took almost 40 minutes for the ingots to melt. Finally when I got to Casting I had to maintain a mold temperature close to 600°F and melt temperature close to 900°F in order to get even barely acceptable bullets and to get them to let go from the mold. I don't think I'm going to do this again. In the same amount of time that it took me to render these zinc wheel weights, remove the clips, make clean ingots and then melt it again to cast I could have made several hundred excellent bullets from this two cavity mold casting from the 40 pounds of scrap lead I have in the ammo can behind my toolbox. I guess I'm going to find out how they feel going through the sizer. This might be a problematic because I size bullets with a Lee hand press. Who knows- life is a learning process.

I'm going to have to scale them and then come up with some ideas for load data.

[Recycled bullet]

Wow the bullets are averaging 135 G

[armoredman]

Fascinating - I was JUST talking to a buddy about casting with zinc yesterday...and he said it was a horrific pain in the patootie.

[shaggybull]

Glad I have plenty of lead!! Have no desire to try cast zinc,......

[Recycled bullet]

Pictures of ZINC casting and ZINC bullets. They are so light they feel like aluminum. https://uploads.tapatalk-cdn.com/20240203/24650853e61a38c4a97009f8d865c5b7.jpghttps://uploads.tapatalk-cdn.com/20240203/87bf874d6f4a39519ceeef75e9f56ac4.jpghttps://uploads.tapatalk-cdn.com/20240203/1f982eca7e80ea2b101c21dacf1a52cf.jpghttps://uploads.tapatalk-cdn.com/20240203/77184d1de73bc04e1b50f91427b94e49.jpg

[dverna]

Thanks for sharing your experience. I like seeing "real life" reviews and not some guy on YouTube who spends 20 minutes yapping for 2 minutes of content.

I have stopped buying alloy as I have enough to last my lifetime. But if I was younger or shooting more I would be stocking up on lead alloys.

Zinc has a higher value than lead in the spot market. It is cheap if you can get it for free, but they said that about lead wheel weights 20 years ago. Now most tire shops will not sell them. That could happen to zinc wheel weights too.

[Rickf1985]

I think sizing is going to be an impossible endeavor ending in broken equipment. Lead sizing equipment was never designed to try to size something as hard as zinc. Which brings up another question, what do you size to? I would not think you still go .002 oversize like you do with lead. I think that is asking for a destroyed barrel or even bore obstruction.

[Recycled bullet]

I am shoving them through a 309 bushing in my lee hand press. It requires a significant amount of force. I would estimate 75 lb or greater.

[Rickf1985]

Are they actually ending up at .309?

[Recycled bullet]

They fit correctly in the case mouth of the 300 Blackout brass that I have expanded with the noe 309 m style expander. I am frustrated enough with the inefficiency of casting zinc last night that if they did not fit the brass today I would not care and probably throw these bullets away :-)

Just to put it in perspective... normal lead dipper casting the Ness safety bullet with the deepest hollow point pins with 96%lead/3%antimony/1%tin alloy is pretty easy for me to do:-) The Ness bullets did not frustrate me at all.

Last night I think I chose incorrectly and I should have made more Ness safety bullets. I cast these Ness bullets several weeks ago when I made a thread about them, these are from then, I am interested in testing these out in my 300 Blackout single shot pistol.https://uploads.tapatalk-cdn.com/20240203/34a624445ac13d174edf9a61de5a0a89.jpghttps://uploads.tapatalk-cdn.com/20240203/0c083df62d6312cc31d6c6fc48bc06ee.jpghttps://uploads.tapatalk-cdn.com/20240203/58a02f0f3e5ec5717d7c29e81898ee07.jpghttps://uploads.tapatalk-cdn.com/20240203/38e86ec9289d425a3b92c12f59cc2a3f.jpg

[Recycled bullet]

In summary zinc is terrible to cast bullets from.

[Recycled bullet]

Thanks for sharing your experience. I like seeing "real life" reviews and not some guy on YouTube who spends 20 minutes yapping for 2 minutes of content.

I have stopped buying alloy as I have enough to last my lifetime. But if I was younger or shooting more I would be stocking up on lead alloys.

Zinc has a higher value than lead in the spot market. It is cheap if you can get it for free, but they said that about lead wheel weights 20 years ago. Now most tire shops will not sell them. That could happen to zinc wheel weights too.I hear that! The worst thing about those fake YouTube reviews is some guy reviewing an unboxing. That is absolutely useless. I want the opinion of somebody who is actually used the tool for hours, not somebody who is being paid to describe how the packaging made them feel.

I was intensely curious about zinc bullets. I think I've satisfied the depth of zinc bullet knowledge that I'm willing to develop for the place where I am.

[contender1]

I'll stay with lead alloy's for my bullets until I can't get anymore lead.

But I'm saving my zinc WW's for a different purpose. I could use a LOT of it for my intended purpose,, so it'll be a while before I can test my thoughts. And when I do,, I'll be stirring & all to allow the clips to sink,, and skim & pour off the zinc w/o the clips. I know I'll still have issues with the zinc & clip mix.

[JonB_in_Glencoe]

I have rendered Zinc WW before, but never poured any into a boolit mold though.

What did I learn from my experience and from reading this thread?

1. Heat is your friend during rendering.
2. Don't worry about a thin layer of zinc remaining on clips.
3. A slotted spoon is your friend.
4. If I were to cast some zinc boolits, I wouldn't cast them in a aluminum mold and I wouldn't use a Lee bottom pour pot, I'd use a ladle and the same stainless steel soup pot and heat source that I rendered them in.

[Randy Bohannon]

The bases on the flat based bullets look terrible I wouldn’t expect much in the accuracy department much past 50 yards.

[Finster101]

One of these days I am going to try some in my 90 grain .243 mould. I have the ingots already to go. I just need to empty my pot and clean it first. Not in a real rush to do it. Just something to play with.

[JonB_in_Glencoe]

One of these days I am going to try some in my 90 grain .243 mould. I have the ingots already to go. I just need to empty my pot and clean it first. Not in a real rush to do it. Just something to play with.

read post #19 and following posts before you melt your zinc ingots in your Lee Pot.

https://castboolits.gunloads.com/showthread.php?87911-What-to-do-with-zinc-ingots