new hazard while casting

[troy_mclure]

i just received 6lbs of rainier ballistics plated 9mm bullets.

my buddy had gotten a bunch of ammo from a friend and it was loaded way(bulging case) hot.

he pulled the bullets and gave them to me.

i tossed them in my 10lb lee pot and put it on hi.

after 10 mins or so i came back to see "steel wool" all over everything.

as i was thinking *** a bullet popped shooting out a hair thin stream of lead.

as i mixed them i noticed that the copper shells were gone.

i checked the temp, it was over 1000f !!!

the copper shells had dissolved into the lead.

when it cooled (800-900) most of the copper solidified up top into real hard chunks that floated.

but there were still chunks THAT SANK in the liquid lead.

it blocked up my spout so i dumped it sideways into my pan.

there are still goldish colored hunks in the ingots.

what could the hunks be?

[runfiverun]

its copper.
the rainers are copper plated, you can melt copper into your alloy.
but you need a binder to keep it in solution.
tin works well.
however your copper to tin ratio is very high.
tin is soluble to 100%, copper won't remain in solution much over 3-5%.
and much over 1% need the binding agent.
don't throw away what you have it is a good hardener it just needs to be alloyed properly.

[higgins]

I had some plated bullets in range scrap squirt lead. Closer examination revealed that the plated jacket was intact on some of them even after being bent all out of shape, hitting gravel, etc. After that, I smashed the ones with intact jackets on a piece of rail with a heavy hammer to make sure there were plenty of splits in the jacket to let lead and expanded air out before the pressure inside the jacket reached the point of squirting lead. It's extra work but I think worth it to keep from getting squirted with molten lead.