What is the most lead you melted down at one time?

[JeepsAndGuns]

What is the most lead you have melted down at one time and how did you do it?

I have a collection of lead I have accumulated over the last year, getting some here and there. I started out with a bag of corroded birdshot I melted down to salvage the lead. I also got a few wheel weights, then I bought some lead (about 50 pounds) from a member on another site. It was a mix of unknown in muffin tin ingots and lee ingots, plus some with some type of company logo with a mix of PB and lino stampings, and lastly a few random bullets.
Most of what I got from another forum had some oxide/corrosion on it from poor storage. So I took and melted it all down to clean it up and re cast. All I had was a old frying pan and a turkey fryer base, so I threw in just whatever I grabbed till the pan got full, cleaned it and then re cast into new ingots, then added more ingots till it got full again.

Well all this was when I still knew nothing about different lead alloys, so I had no idea what linotype, pure, etc... was. It was just all "lead" to me. I know now, but back then I did not.

Here is my issue. When I go to cast, I just grab some from my pile of ingots. One casting session, my slugs will come out one weight. Then next time I cast, I grab a few more ingots and the slugs will come out another weight. I have had a variation of 5-10 grains between casting sessions (casting shotgun slugs mainly) because each ingot might have a little more of this and a little less of that in it (or vice versa). It seems each ingot can be a little different.

I am wanting to just take everything I have, melt it all down at once to blend it all to a smooth consistent amalgamation so I will get the same weights each time I cast.
I know it will be a "unknown" alloy. But I figure I can send a ingot off to be tested if I really want to know. But I am only casting 12ga slugs and buckshot as of now, so a specific hardness I am not too worried about. I just want it all "even".

I bought a 12 inch 6 quart dutch oven at harbor freight on clearance for cheap thinking this would be plenty big enough to melt it all down.
I fire up my propane turkey fryer base and started cooking. It took a long time, but it did eventually get it hot enough to start melting it. When it was about 1/4 full, I had a issue of the lead not melting at the outer edge. I think it was losing too much heat out the sides. Once it got closer to full, it stopped doing that. However as it got full, it started taking longer and longer for ingots to melt when I added them. I just do not think the turkey fryer I have, has enough heat/power to melt down and keep hot this much lead. Also, when it was a couple inches from the top of the pot, I still had like half left still un melted. So I went ahead and cast all of what I did have melted into ingots while I set back to try and come out with another plan.

So back to my question. What is the most you have melted down at one time and how did you do it?
While I have not weighed what I have, I would have to guess 200 pounds or less.
A large cauldron? But heated by what?

[quack1]

You could melt as much as your pot will hold in several roughly equal weight batches. Be sure to mark ingots from each batch, so you can keep them separate. Then when you cast, just use an ingot from each batch. That way you will have the same alloy every time.

[toallmy]

Have you tried setting up a heat shield ?

[TurnipEaterDown]

If they vary 5-10 grains, (on a shotgun slug, presuming 12 Ga and > 1 oz or 437 gr) you might be a bit over concerned.
Pull some old commercial rifle bullets (RP / WW) and weigh the 20 some time. You will probably be surprised at the weight % variation...

It is best not to mix unknown "lead", as sometimes it isn't just lead and can contain metals that make your casting difficult (or worse). For instance, I got a chunk of cerrosafe in the last pile of donated lead I was given. Sorted that out, and pitched some stuff I didn't recognize.

A better way to uniform your lead pile is to put some from Each of your prior sessions in the pot and remelt until you get the pot full, ladle off only about half or less into ingots, and keep refilling with a little from each of these prior sessions until you are done.

Be safe, wear some sort of eye protection, and don't get you head over the pot when putting in scrap lead. I have had voids hold moisture and throw quite the molten blob out when adding to a hot pot.

[ioon44]

Back in the 1990's I had a 35-gal cast iron pot with a 100,000 btu burner and actually held 2000lbs of lead, not something I would want to do again.

[GregLaROCHE]

I use mostly range scrap and when I first started I used a skillet and moved up to a Dutch oven. My ingots were not constant in hardness because all the raw scrap was mixed together. I then started separating the scrap by range distance. The lead from the 25m range (mostly handguns)is a lot harder than lead from the 50m range (mostly muzzle loaders and 22s). Now I have two types of ingots. My ingots still vary in hardness, but are much closer than they were when everything was mixed together.

[BK7saum]

i routinely melt a couple hundred to 400 pounds at a time. I built a bottom pour pot that is 14" in diameter and 12" tall and sits on a custom steel frame. I used to pour 8lb ingots but have ben using the Redneck gold or CB ingot molds lately.

[GhostHawk]

I'm with Turnip.

I pulled apart a box of 20 7.62x39 by tuleammo once and was amazed.

Bullet weights varied constantly from plus or minus 10 grains from spec. IE 124 grain bullets could be 114 or 134.

Powder charges averaged 5 grains off of whatever arbitrary "center, or average" From 50 grains to 60 and anywhere in between.
You had heavy charges under light bullets and light charges under heavy bullets.

So I stopped buying factory loaded ammo entirely. I make better loads myself every time I sit down.

[JeepsAndGuns]

i routinely melt a couple hundred to 400 pounds at a time. I built a bottom pour pot that is 14" in diameter and 12" tall and sits on a custom steel frame. I used to pour 8lb ingots but have ben using the Redneck gold or CB ingot molds lately.

What is your heat source for this? Do you have the pot insulated on the sides? What type of a valve do you have on the bottom?

[JeepsAndGuns]

Have you tried setting up a heat shield ?

I had that thought when I saw it solidifying on the edges, but once I saw it was too small I figured there was no point.
If I find or build a replacement, this will be a big consideration. I see stuff that is made for furnaces that looks like regular insulation, but is made for super high heat.

[Hossfly]

I use cut down (Freon) jug. Holds about 100 Lbs safely. Wrapped with Kaowool ceramic insulation. Takes about 30 mins with my fish cooker propane, till skimming starts, then turn down to low and fluxing starts.

Mostly wheel weights and some soft all kept separate and letter punched for type of melt.

Bought weed burner from Harbor frt. now that thing will blast out some serious heat.

Remember lead weighs 700 Lbs. Per cu ft. So you must have a substantial base as not to collapse under the weight.

[JimB..]

I use a propane tank, maybe 200-250 lbs. I like to do large batches for consistent ingots.

I haven’t built a heat shield, but a few pieces of scrap plywood makes a pretty big difference.

Can you do a rough hardness test of your current ingots to get them roughly sorted, then you could be a little more consistent in your blending.

[lightman]

If you were close to me I would help. We could get it melted in one batch.

My smelting pot is made from a valve cover from a high pressure railroad tank car. It looks like the valve cover from a bulk propane tank (500-1000 gallon) but much heavier. I heat it with a homemade jet burner, made about like a weed burner. It will hold 400# but I usually stop at about 350 to give me room to get aggressive when stirring and fluxing. I use a Rowell ladle and 7 or 8 of the Lyman style ingot molds. I can melt that pot full in about 20 minutes.

A lot of guys use a cut off 20# propane tank heated by a Turkey fry burner. That would hold close to your 200 pounds.

You could buy a Harbor freight weed burner pretty cheap to assist the burner that you have.

I like smelting in large batches for the consistency. The draw back is making sure what you are melting and not contaminating your mix. With 400# you also need a stout frame to hold the weight.

Me and a buddy, working together have done 1600 pounds in a day, with time out for lunch.

[JeepsAndGuns]

Ok, I gathered it all up and weighed it all. In total I have 190 pounds.
Of that 190 pounds, 148 is the unknown mix. I do have 38 pounds of pure lead still in the original ingots I got from a local store, and one 5 pound ingot of linotype.
I'm thinking about keeping the pure led separate and buying some more linotype and combining them 10 pounds at a time in my lee electric pot to make some hardball alloy and keep it in case I want to start casting some pistol/rifle bullets.

The rest I still need to melt down. I Added 5 pounds of antimony and 2 pounds of tin to around 50-60 pounds I had in the pot. I was anticipating I was going to be able to melt everything down and wanted to up the hardness a little to somewhere around hardball or less when it was all said and done. I wanted a little harder than pure.

I have a brick fire pit I made in my front yard for camp fires roasting hot dogs and whatnot. It is just stacked bricks around2 foot tall.
I am thinking if I can find a pot big enough, maybe I can put a bunch of charcoal in there and use a little air blower to get it going good.

[country gent]

I smelted old school here years ago a 25 lb propane cylinder cut an 1" or so below the top radius. This I believe I used 3 16" truck rims 2 with the centers cut out and one as is welded together to make a stand. The one as is had a 2 1/2" hole cut in the side of it. In this was a 4' piece of tail pope and a shop vac hoe in it blowing. a layer of stoker coal the pot and a layer of coal around the pot. The pot would hold roughly 300 lbs when full. With the coal and blower I could get 3 pots a day. Once I seen molten lead I shut the vac off and let it go. I was given 5500 lbs of range lead and wanted to clean it up. In ingots it took up a lot less room in the garage too.

The big thing when smelting large batches is to have the right accessories. I made ingots in angle iron moulds 5 3 1/2 lb ingots to a mould 5 moulds. When solidified they were dumped and refilled. My ladle was made from a 4" pipe cap. The skimmer was made from 6" spade. flux was half a bar of paraffin and a couple cups of sawdust 2-3 times. ingots were stamped with the pot number they came from.

Doing 200-300 lbs with 1 lb ingot moulds and normal accessories will take forever to do. My ingot would stand up in the lee 10 lb pot and slide down as they melted They were roughly a 2 X 2 triangular ingot 11" long, to pre heat they sat across the top of the pot.

[ebb]

I am new at this so take this for what it is worth. I have considered the same issue with my lead, fishing weights from my neighbor who has a metal detector, lead from x ray room dry wall from my friend Skip, ingots from friend that made them in a big cast-iron pot (they are huge), ect, ect. my plan was to get a tool to check hardness and use all the similar hard ones for something that needs to be hard and use the rest as they get softer for other things that don't need the hardness. I thought that buckshot would be soft pure lead and slower speed pistols could be in between. does my idea have merit????

[John Boy]

Over 4 days remelted 1700 lbs of muffin tin Ingots by Bhn into 6 lb ingots

[kevin c]

I do what Quack and Turnip do: turn the raw stock into multiple batches of same # and size of ingots, and add one from each to the pot to make new ingots that are one homogeneous lot weighing the total of all the lots.

I need a lot of boolits, so I use a lot of lead. I use one alloy, and load one boolit style and weight. Consistent alloy makes consistent boolits so I like big batches of casting alloy made from big batches of source metal.

I use a half propane pot to make #240-250 at a time. The high output double jet burner used a lot of propane until I set up windscreens for the burner and a thermal jacket and lid for the pot. Now a 5 gallon tank will do 1000 to 1250 pounds of lead.

[MOA]

Had lots of roofing boots from a roofing friend when I lived in West Mobile Alabama. Got tired of it taking so long to get the job of smelting it down for my base material to make my different alloy out of. I like you was using a small Dutch oven to do it with. I had three 35 gal galvanized steel trash cans from Wally that when full I would do a batch. PITA, it would take forever. Decided to build a new smelter. 20# propane tank was the answer for me. I can do 250-300 pounds of lead at a time. Did 600+ pounds back on November 9th an 10th. So, about 250 to 300 pounds per pot load is the biggest load at one time for me which is a hugh improvement over my old method of doing this. Wish I had done it sooner. Happy New Year to all here on Castboolits. A new smelter project is a great New Year resolution I think.

[Outer Rondacker]

To much. I have found smaller batches work better for me, I make a day of it while doing some casting. Got some fake lead in a large pot once and had to give it a toss. Lead is hard to come by in upstate ny so wasting 50 or so pounds at a rip not worth it.

If I knew I had pure like the beautiful buckets in the pics above I might go back to the big pot. Nice score.