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Thread: Cleaning up my disaster with the zinc

  1. #1
    Boolit Buddy Jadkins87's Avatar
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    Cleaning up my disaster with the zinc

    Hey , yall trying to clean my mess up and save what lead I can .. I received my thermometer and now able to keep a real eye on what my pot temp is and I got it running around 650 and keep saw dusting it and waxing it and it's getting the pretty colors like lead normally does. How many times should I run the saw dust ..

    Thank you all

    God Bless

    JDAS

  2. #2
    Boolit Master
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    Once you’ve alloyed zinc into lead it’s best to just toss it, there is no amount of fluxing that will remove the zinc. Maybe see of you can swap it with your scrap yard, even if you get 50% you’ll be ahead.

    That said, if your melt looks good, cast some bullets and see what they look like and how hard they are.

  3. #3
    Boolit Grand Master
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    I have proven thru testing that up to 5% Zn will not harm your boolit performance. They will be a tad bit lighter but compensate with your loads, if that is critical to your needs.


    DO NOT THROW IT OUT! Send a sample to BNH on here for an x-ray analysis of what you got, and then make the decision on what to do.

    I shoot boolits in 30/38/40/45 cal with 5+% Zn with excellent results.


    banger

  4. #4
    Boolit Master


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    If your contaminated batch is not too large, keep diluting it with lead. That worked for me.
    Last edited by dondiego; 10-09-2024 at 10:31 AM.

  5. #5
    Boolit Master
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    Guys, while your advice is correct, for a new caster wouldn’t you suggest avoiding unnecessary complications? Maybe at least set the mess aside for a while and deal with it after having some experience with uncontaminated alloy?

  6. #6
    Boolit Grand Master fredj338's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by dondiego View Post
    If your contaminated batch is no too large, keep diluting it with lead. That worked for me.
    ^^THIS^^ Add lead & flux, add lead & flux.
    EVERY GOOD SHOOTER NEEDS TO BE A HANDLOADER.
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  7. #7
    Boolit Master
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    Just fire up the pot to a higher temp and cast heavy pistol bullets or something for a 45/70. Don't worry about the scum on top and cast fast. These bullets will not win any long distance benchrest matches but they will shoot just fine. Most people are not accurate enough offhand to know a difference.

  8. #8
    Boolit Buddy Jadkins87's Avatar
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    Well thanks guy's I ran it several times and casted 3 boolits that with pure lead they go 309gr to 310gr and with the mix the 3 casted 308.7 all 3 so I called it go and going to see if I can get the mix scanned tomorrow along with all my other alloys and start with a 100% known alloy.. At $28lb for antimony I ain't sure how much casting boolits I'll end up doing. Round balls for all my BP is a different story. I thank you all for all the help the last few days..

    God Bless

    JDAS

  9. #9
    Boolit Master
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    Quote Originally Posted by Jadkins87 View Post
    At $28lb for antimony I ain't sure how much casting boolits I'll end up doing.
    Why would you pay $28 a pound for antimony alloy when you can buy monotype/ foundry type all day long on Ebay for less than $2.50 a pound? I just bought 60 pounds for $1.66 a pound shipped.

  10. #10
    Boolit Master

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    Quote: "3 boolits that with pure lead they go 309gr to 310gr and with the mix the 3 casted 308.7 all 3".

    All 3 weighed 308.7 with no variation, thems good boolits. If there were zinc in the mix, fillout would not be good and the weight would not be so consistent.
    Spell check doesn't work in Chrome, so if something is spelled wrong, it's just a typo that I missed.

  11. #11
    Boolit Master
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    Less-than-perfect boolits still make good handgun plinkers. Far better than one would expect. Why not use that alloy for such?

  12. #12
    Boolit Master
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    Zinc can be removed from lead with Sulfur! You can get the sulfur in the garden department of most home improvement stores. The sulfur attaches itself to the zink and can be skimmed out of the alloy! Or the zink attaches itself to the sulfur lol. Anyway add sulfur mix skim add more sulfur repeat as needed until there’s no more clumps. It’s not easy, it is the process, definitely do it outside it stinks. It all depends on how much zinc is in the alloy. Obviously if there’s more zinc than lead it’s probably not cost-effective to remove the zinc with sulfur. It definitely works I’ve done it!
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  13. #13
    Boolit Buddy Jadkins87's Avatar
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    Roto metals is $129 for 5 lbs and that what I was basing my price off of.. $1.66 seems to be a great deal.

    Thank you

    God Bless

    JDAS

  14. #14
    Boolit Master
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    Rotometals 30% antimony is more than enough for any hard lead casting and it is FAR from your price!!! 5lbs is 43.00.

    https://www.rotometals.com/super-har...imony-70-lead/

  15. #15
    Boolit Buddy Jadkins87's Avatar
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    I must be misreading there prices. And I must have the mathematics off. On what is needed to make a 100lb batch of hard alloy. I can't get the calculator here on cast boolits to work on my computer.. I was under the impression to make Hardball I would need 2lb tin 6lb antimony 92lb pure lead.. If I have this wrong please let me know cause that's how I was told and have no one close by or to talk to about it besides of on here.

    Thank you

    God Bless

    JDAS

  16. #16
    Boolit Master
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    That’s the right mix for hardball.

  17. #17
    Boolit Master
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    Quote Originally Posted by Rickf1985 View Post
    Rotometals 30% antimony is more than enough for any hard lead casting and it is FAR from your price!!! 5lbs is 43.00.

    https://www.rotometals.com/super-har...imony-70-lead/
    Yes but don't forget that you will also have to buy at least 1/2 to an equal amount of tin. Letterpress type has both for a fraction if the price. Foundry type is 23% antimony (close enough to 30%) and also has 15% tin. This is a prefect ratio for a tougher hardball.

    Jadkins is correct that to make BHN 15 hardball you will need 2lb tin 6lb antimony to 92lb pure lead. But while hardball is hard it is also a cheap alloy that is brittle and should be left for shooting paper. A better alloy that can be used on game is Lyman #2, 95:5:5 which is also BHN15. You can get close by adding 5 pounds of foundry type to 15 pounds lead. That will get you 3.75 tin, 5.7 antimony which is just as hard but with more tin it will be tougher.

    Even adding 5 pounds of foundry to 20 pounds lead will get you 3% tin 4.6 antimony at BHN14 which should be good enough for anything you can cast.

  18. #18
    Boolit Master
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    Has anyone considered that the used type metal might be not up to spec? Also, with all the putzing around with the various type metals you are diluting the entire resulting alloy by adding lead back in. Yes, you can get a decent alloy by going cheap, or get the expected alloy by adding the specific metal into your melt. A matter of cost or a matter of getting it right. It is really not that critical to many of us.

  19. #19
    Boolit Master

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    Quote Originally Posted by dondiego View Post
    If your contaminated batch is no too large, keep diluting it with lead. That worked for me.
    Dilution is the solution to pollution. Some strive to include Copper in their alloy, Zn and Cu are close on the atomic chart.
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  20. #20
    Boolit Grand Master Bazoo's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by Jadkins87 View Post
    I must be misreading there prices. And I must have the mathematics off. On what is needed to make a 100lb batch of hard alloy. I can't get the calculator here on cast boolits to work on my computer.. I was under the impression to make Hardball I would need 2lb tin 6lb antimony 92lb pure lead.. If I have this wrong please let me know cause that's how I was told and have no one close by or to talk to about it besides of on here.

    Thank you

    God Bless

    JDAS
    I can't get the calculator to work on mine either for some reason. The calculator works on my site though.

    https://bulletmatch.com/pages/lead-alloy-calculator
    BulletMatch: Cataloging the World's Bullets

    Lead Alloy Calculator

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