zinc in my lead

[toallmy]

The alloy flow filling the cavities can will cause wrinkles & smiles on your boollits .
Hot air not venting while the cavities are filling will drive you insane also .
It seems you are gaining a extreme casting course with your new adventure

[dearslayer]

The alloy flow filling the cavities can will cause wrinkles & smiles on your boollits .
Hot air not venting while the cavities are filling will drive you insane also .
It seems you are gaining a extreme casting course with your new adventure

I can't believe all the helpful folks on this forum. I am a member of a few other forums and I never get the number of responses that I get here and I'm new. I'm learning so much in a short amount of time. Many thanks to all thus far. As much as it is frustrating I'm still enjoying the new venture.

[ulk77more]

I am not an experienced caster, I have aquired a little over 10,500lbs of lead bricks that are 50lbs each, not ingots. these were "certified" 99.97% pure for use in an x-ray dept of an old hospital. These are grey with a little white oxide here and there. Checked to see if they had residual radiation contamination there was none. melted to make into ingots (cupcake pan) had a lot of dross that looked like oatmeal that I put to the side. and a blue color. never exceeded 650 deg as per the temp probe. checked for radiation again for the because of the blue color, there was none. took my saeco pot and put the probe in it along with a few of the new formed ingots. brought the heat up to 670. poured a few boolits. think I am going to frame them for being unique works of art. tried heating the iron molds, it helped a little. then I fluxed the heck out of it repeated the process had the same result.
got ticked off took the dross and put the dross in the main smelter, did not care about the heat, just wanted to see what happened, I had 150 lbs of dross. the dross started melting, so I made ingots and put an X on the top of each one with a sharpie
there was still some debris on the top of the pot and removed it.
interesting thing, the oxidided Lead that is on wheel weights and other types of of lead such as mine, need to be heated to the point that the lead does not just soak into the oxidized material and float looking like oatmeal. the oxidized material looks like ashes. had my lead tested the original pours that are bluish, and the ones made from the dross, all are 99.97% lead, put the saeco in a hood and brought it up to 750 deg and finally got a good pour. I definately have to add tin to bring the temps down as the 750 deg is getting a little to hot... to increase mold fill out does anyone know where I can find between 200-300 lbs of tin?

[AlHunt]

I can't believe all the helpful folks on this forum. I am a member of a few other forums and I never get the number of responses that I get here and I'm new. I'm learning so much in a short amount of time. Many thanks to all thus far. As much as it is frustrating I'm still enjoying the new venture.

You're definitely on track.

Here's a podcast I listened to today that might help you:

https://firearmsradio.tv/reloading-podcast/094

These guys are talking about casting for a new caster and talk about the things this thread has been about.

[JackQuest]

Try this link from this website:

http://castboolits.gunloads.com/show...opper+sulphate

Very comprehensive on the reasons and the how-to getting copper into lead. Short version is zinc can be exchanged for copper. You can't get more than about ½ of 1% copper by weight. You deliberately add zinc, about 1 US penny (new cheap zinc penny) per about 20-25 pounds of lead. Then you use the dry chemicals used in killing roots in your water pipes to pull the zinc out for copper. Your alloy may have a green sheen. The bullets will be more tough than hard. Pages of data under that link.

[toallmy]

I am not an experienced caster, I have aquired a little over 10,500lbs of lead bricks that are 50lbs each, not ingots. these were "certified" 99.97% pure for use in an x-ray dept of an old hospital. These are grey with a little white oxide here and there. Checked to see if they had residual radiation contamination there was none. melted to make into ingots (cupcake pan) had a lot of dross that looked like oatmeal that I put to the side. and a blue color. never exceeded 650 deg as per the temp probe. checked for radiation again for the because of the blue color, there was none. took my saeco pot and put the probe in it along with a few of the new formed ingots. brought the heat up to 670. poured a few boolits. think I am going to frame them for being unique works of art. tried heating the iron molds, it helped a little. then I fluxed the heck out of it repeated the process had the same result.
got ticked off took the dross and put the dross in the main smelter, did not care about the heat, just wanted to see what happened, I had 150 lbs of dross. the dross started melting, so I made ingots and put an X on the top of each one with a sharpie
there was still some debris on the top of the pot and removed it.
interesting thing, the oxidided Lead that is on wheel weights and other types of of lead such as mine, need to be heated to the point that the lead does not just soak into the oxidized material and float looking like oatmeal. the oxidized material looks like ashes. had my lead tested the original pours that are bluish, and the ones made from the dross, all are 99.97% lead, put the saeco in a hood and brought it up to 750 deg and finally got a good pour. I definately have to add tin to bring the temps down as the 750 deg is getting a little to hot... to increase mold fill out does anyone know where I can find between 200-300 lbs of tin?

A sight sponsor rotometals has any thing you need to work out the alloy you like , but you don’t need to do it all at once . As you mentioned pure takes more heat to melt .

[oley55]

I can't believe all the helpful folks on this forum. I am a member of a few other forums and I never get the number of responses that I get here and I'm new. I'm learning so much in a short amount of time. Many thanks to all thus far. As much as it is frustrating I'm still enjoying the new venture.

I agree on all counts. Last night I was thinking/hoping your initial difficulties would not put you off.

The thing I like the most about casting boolits is that bad boolits are just so dang easy to recycle, as opposed to recovering components from loading screw-ups.

[kevin c]

Just throwing out ideas, here.

Do you cast outdoors? I ask because you said that your prior session with another alloy went well, but that the most recent session with the same alloy wasn’t as good. Any seasonal change in air temperature or air movement where you cast changes how the casts come out, unless you compensate for them.

It’s cooler now; I’ve had to raise my pot temp and mold preheat temp by 30° each, plus really speed up my cadence, all to keep the mold at the best temperature for great fill out. If your new alloy needs more heat in general, it might need even more in cool weather.

Another off the wall thought: the higher the lead content of the alloy, the higher the liquidus temperature. Were your wheel weights all clip on, or did you have a lot of stick on, which generally are softer, more pure lead? Any non wheel weight soft scrap lead in the melt?

All that to suggest more heat might be a good thing to try.

[GregLaROCHE]

I’ve reread this thread. Something that was only mentioned one was how fast the lead was flowing out of the pot. If your pot is not new, there is a possibility that the spout or valve can be clogged with crud slowing down the flow rate. Too slow of a flow rate has given me wrinkled boolits in the past.
Otherwise, make sure the mold is clean. I spray mine down with Ballistol before storing. When get ready to use them again, I spray them with brake cleaner and then wash them with dish detergent in the hottest water possible and rinse well.
Finally, keep the temperature up with both alloy and molds. I suggest increasing the temperature while pouring until you have very frosted boolits and put the boolits aside in order to inspect later. See how things change and the temperature of the mold will be increasing too.
Good luck and just keep on casting!

[dearslayer]

Just throwing out ideas, here.

Do you cast outdoors? I ask because you said that your prior session with another alloy went well, but that the most recent session with the same alloy wasn’t as good. Any seasonal change in air temperature or air movement where you cast changes how the casts come out, unless you compensate for them.

It’s cooler now; I’ve had to raise my pot temp and mold preheat temp by 30° each, plus really speed up my cadence, all to keep the mold at the best temperature for great fill out. If your new alloy needs more heat in general, it might need even more in cool weather.

Another off the wall thought: the higher the lead content of the alloy, the higher the liquidus temperature. Were your wheel weights all clip on, or did you have a lot of stick on, which generally are softer, more pure lead? Any non wheel weight soft scrap lead in the melt?

All that to suggest more heat might be a good thing to try.

There was actually a lot of stick on lead. I had kept all those separate at first but at the last minute threw them all in the pan. I guess I should have melted them separate??

No other non wheel weight lead.

[dearslayer]

I’ve reread this thread. Something that was only mentioned one was how fast the lead was flowing out of the pot. If your pot is not new, there is a possibility that the spout or valve can be clogged with crud slowing down the flow rate. Too slow of a flow rate has given me wrinkled boolits in the past.
Otherwise, make sure the mold is clean. I spray mine down with Ballistol before storing. When get ready to use them again, I spray them with brake cleaner and then wash them with dish detergent in the hottest water possible and rinse well.
Finally, keep the temperature up with both alloy and molds. I suggest increasing the temperature while pouring until you have very frosted boolits and put the boolits aside in order to inspect later. See how things change and the temperature of the mold will be increasing too.
Good luck and just keep on casting!

I will check the spout next time. Yesterday I took the mold apart and cleaned it with dish soap. Used an old tooth brush and some tooth paste to polish it and washed again with Dawn dishsoap. Then cleaned with brake cleaner tonight before giving it another shot. To say I'm discouraged is an understatement. I had the mold on the hot plate forever and it was about 500°f on the bottom so I flipped it over but because of the handle bolt it wouldn't sit flat so I don't think the sprue got up to temp. The melt was around 750- 800 and still after all this the boolits dropped the same as before. After trying for about 2 hours I finally gave up in disappointment. Next time I'll try the 9mm mold to see if maybe the problem is with the new .40 mold. Can't figure why I can't attach photos because that would explain better.

[Dusty Bannister]

Perhaps you could rest the handles on a block of wood or something beside the hot plate so the blocks can lay flat on the surface of the plate? It will also help heat evenly if you could cover the blocks with foil or a metal can cut to set flat on the plate. If you remove the sprue plate screw from the mold, you may find that the plate will loosen with use during casting. That will require drilling and tapping for a set screw to hold the sprue plate screw in position.

[GregLaROCHE]

Try using the brake cleaner before the dish soap. As was mentioned, there could be some residue left with your brand of brake cleaner.

[toallmy]

If preheated as Dusty Bannister mentioned in post # 92 doesn't fix the problem , and your flow when poring is good you might have a venting problem .

[AlHunt]

OP, are you holding the mold directly against the spout? I don't like that method, I feel like I get a better, faster pace holding the mold away from the pot.

How about some video? Just some cell phone video of your setup and a couple minutes of you casting might give us a better picture of what's going on.

[dearslayer]

OP, are you holding the mold directly against the spout? I don't like that method, I feel like I get a better, faster pace holding the mold away from the pot.

How about some video? Just some cell phone video of your setup and a couple minutes of you casting might give us a better picture of what's going on.

I have a steel bed I made to support the mold and the height allows the mold to be about maybe 3/8" away from the spout. I thought closer might be better than further away. I wish I could post photos but no matter what it won't allow me. I go through the the motions of attaching them but then I get an error message.

[AlHunt]

I have a steel bed I made to support the mold and the height allows the mold to be about maybe 3/8" away from the spout. I thought closer might be better than further away. I wish I could post photos but no matter what it won't allow me. I go through the the motions of attaching them but then I get an error message.

Yep, a year or two back I screwed a wooden bock to slide my mold under the pot and switched away from pressure casting. It made a world of difference.

If you're willing to do a video you could post it to youtube and give us a link. Seeing your process firsthand might help.

[Helka]

Pictures from dearslayer.





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[Helka]

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[Helka]

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