Trouble with range scrap.

[sgms18]

I'm having a hard time getting good bullets w/the range scrap I've collected. Mainly wrinkles & poor fill out. I thought the molds weren't hot enough but it dosen't seem to get better as I cast. Then I thought I must have oil in the cavitys so I've cleaned w/rubbing alcohol & acetone w/no improvement. I've added a little tin (pewter) & some wheel weight lead & that has helped some. It's still tough to get good clean bullets w/this batch.

[Winger Ed.]

I'd crank the heat up until you see some frosting and try that.
If that works, you should be able to back the heat off a little until it stops.

[Larry Gibson]

Probably a high percentage of antimony if the RL came from commercial cast and jacketed bullets. The alloy needs tin and probably more lead. With RL I usually add 30 - 50 % pure lead then add 2% tin.

Adding COWWs just adds more antimony and very little tin exacerbating the problem.

[sgms18]

Thanks for the replies. I'm using a Lyman Mag25 & have it turned all the way up. (850°) I don't have a thermometer to measure the actual temp but still no frosty bullets. This range scrap came from a public indoor range so probably a little bit of everything. I guess I'll have to try some pure lead & more tin.

[Winger Ed.]

Hmm. The range scrap I've had was a mix of the more or less pure Lead that melts out of jacketed stuff,
and a lot of commercial or home grown cast.

Some of the commercial cast I've scrounged was harder than Chinese Algebra too.
Adding pure Lead would be a good place to start.

[fredj338]

I shoot mostly range scrap from outdoor ranges. I rarely add tin but do sweeten it with a bit of lino for 9mm. I run the pot at 750, no fill out issues. Could be other contaminates from the indoor; frangible matl, rubber crud. Make sure you flux well before & during casting.

[Bird]

Bring the pot temperature up to 625-630F, and hold it there. Then flux well. Anything that will not go back into the mix, scrape it off. You probably have too much antimony in the mix. Try casting again. If the bullets are too hard to size, add pure lead, and maybe some pure tin.
I have had the same problem at times with recovered range lead.

[Chill Wills]

Not often, but I have found the odd zinc bullet in the backstop. It may only take one or two to give some trouble.

[imashooter2]

I’m of a different opinion. Linotype is 12% antimony with 4% tin and it casts as sharp and detailed as printing type requires it. There is no way your range scrap has 12% antimony. So adding 2% by weight of pewter should get you an alloy that works.

Next, buy a thermometer. The dial on your pot doesn’t equate to anything. Alloy temperature is the first step in trouble shooting fill out problems.

[Winger Ed.]

Not often, but I have found the odd zinc bullet in the backstop. It may only take one or two to give some trouble.

Oh yeah, they'll make a mess out of your alloy.
I use a old Peo-Melt and after finding one by accident,
I bring the heat up slowly so if there any more strays in my range junk,
they'll float up before they have a chance to melt in.

[deces]

People are casting zinc now, good chance you have contamination unless they are all jacketed.

[dverna]

Something other than commercial cast bullets in your RL are causing your problem. Commercial bullets are 92-2-6 with 6% antinomy and that alloy casts very well.

I hope you do not waste a lot of time and tin trying to get a bad alloy to work. Tin is not cheap.

I would dump all the alloy in the pot and cast with 92-2-6 alloy...but I have lots of it. If that alloy does not work, you have a heat issue. If you do not have 96-2-6 use straight Linotype for your test.

[Bigslug]

My nine year old "range scrap analysis" thread may help you out some: https://castboolits.gunloads.com/sho...ed+range+scrap

Until I got the XRF scan done later in the thread's run, I was speculating on what I had based on hardness alone, but I kept inserting updates into the OP. Either way, it only ran for two pages so it's a short read regardless.

Fluxing with sawdust during the smelt and again with a blob of bullet lube during the casting session may help. More tin to achieve decent percentages in the tin-poor mixes I discovered in my travels is usually necessary. Of late, my pistol alloy has become four ounces of tin to 20 pounds of jacketed cores - sometimes with a little more tin going in if the mold decides to be difficult.

More and more, I think picking out "other people's cast" and smelting it separately is worth doing. The factory jacketed stuff - being swaged - is going be be a pretty consistent material based on the necessities of the process that makes it. That consistency alone makes it worth keeping separate. Cast can be anything, and the only clue you'll have as to what it MIGHT be is a hardness test or an XRF scan of every batch you make. Good as an enrichment tool for plinker ammo that doesn't require a lot of hard science, but probably a path to frustration for anything you want to go cutting edge on.

Fortunately, I have not yet gotten "zinked", but the possibility of zinc in a berm threatens to be a real killjoy for a lot of us. This is another reason for segregation of projectile types - we may end up having to resort to smelting cast one pot at a time so we can skim off zinc projectiles at a lower melt temperature. I'd have to think hard on a process for that, since it's pretty difficult to run a turkey burner with a PID.

[Sasquatch-1]

I would recommend you get a thermometer and make sure your pot is coming up to temp. If you are using steel molds, preheat them.

[Rickf1985]

Somebody mentioned frangibles. What exactly are they made of? Is it something that will melt into a lead alloy or will it just float out as dross?

[Winger Ed.]

Somebody mentioned frangibles. What exactly are they made of? Is it something that will melt into a lead alloy or will it just float out as dross?

They're bullets made to shatter on impact. They're marketed for training and Lead free ranges.
They're mostly powdered Copper pressed into shape but not melted doing it.
Imagine a glorified dirt clod made mostly out of Copper.

[JonB_in_Glencoe]

I'm having a hard time getting good bullets w/the range scrap I've collected. Mainly wrinkles & poor fill out. I thought the molds weren't hot enough but it dosen't seem to get better as I cast. Then I thought I must have oil in the cavitys so I've cleaned w/rubbing alcohol & acetone w/no improvement. I've added a little tin (pewter) & some wheel weight lead & that has helped some. It's still tough to get good clean bullets w/this batch.

Are you getting "any" good boolits from your range scrap? You word your first sentence ambiguously.

You've been a member here from quite a while, is it fair to assume you've cast boolits successfully with another alloy with these same molds? I just want to make sure your problem is your alloy, and not something with your technique.

[405grain]

My first thought when I started reading this thread was "zinc". If the alloy is contaminated, adding good ingredients to it might just be a waste of those metals. Because more people are starting to cast zinc bullets, when melting range scrap you should try to raise the temperature slowly so that these intruders will float on the molten lead and can get skimmed off before they pull any shenanigans.

[country gent]

Range lead especially indoor ranges can be heavy with .22 rim fire bullets which are normally a higher antimony content. When I was melting the RL from the clubs indoor range which was all rimfire bullets it took more heat to melt and went thru a definite "slushy" stage
At most lead temps zinc dosnt fully melt but does get slushy looking
I would pour an ingot and send it off to a member here for analysis with his gun. At one time he charged a 1 lb ingot to do this.

[murf205]

Range lead has become the crap shoot of casting with all the mystery metal being dumped into a berm now days. I got lucky with my score of range lead a few yrs back because it was from a range that only hosted black powder muzzle loader and revolver matches= pure or 99% PB. I added 2% tin and got just what I was looking for. It taught me that pure lead and 2% tin will get 90% of the shooting done for me. sgms18, I don't know what your are casting for or how fast you want to drive it but if you have a scrapyard nearby that will sell you some pure lead, that + the 2% tin would be a good place to start. Powder coating will let you speed up velocity-- a BIT.