Stick on Wheel Weights-What are they made up of?

[blasternank]

What's the difference if any in between the now stick on WW's and the clip on WW's that they have now? Are they the same composition or are there some differences? Is one better than the other for casting?

I just separated a couple of boxes of WW's and separated the zinc, steel/iron and then the lead ww's and the stick on lead WW's.

Thanks.

[MtGun44]

Stickons = Lead. Clip ons = lead/tin/antimony alloy, perfect for cast boolits. Trade the
stickons to muzzle loader folks for clipon alloy. If you run into a LOT of stickons, mix them
50-50 with wwts, for most moderate cartridges.

Bill

[alamogunr]

I consider the stick-on's to be pure(more or less) lead. The clip-on WW are lead with approx. 2-3% antimony and I'm guessing a negligible amount of tin.

I've sort of come to this conclusion from reading posts on this board, not from any special insight or experience.

After cleaning up clip-on WW, I add between 1 and 2 percent tin to help with fill out.

I keep the stick-on's for casting round balls for muzzle loader and cap&ball revolver although I think it might be more effective to buy round balls than cast your own.

John
W.TN

[KYCaster]

Several years ago I checked several different styles of stick on weights and found a wide variation in hardness and specific gravity. From dead soft pure lead at one extreme and harder and less dense than clip on at the other extreme.

Since that test I haven't bothered to separate them from the CO.

More recently I've been finding lots of zinc, steel and plastic in both the CO and the SO weights.

At one time I would expect about 13% scrap when rendering WW, now 50% scrap is not at all unusual. Add that to the price most places are asking for their WW and the hassle of dealing with possible Zn contamination, I'm about to give up on WW. If I can find ANY other source of lead I'll leave the WW for somebody else.

That's just my opinion...YMMV.

Jerry

[steg]

So far "every" stick on Iv'e come across have a small "Zn" stamped on the lower left hand corner of every weight, I've just been re-cycling them as scrap.......................steg

[white eagle]

a lot of mine recently have been FE so I scrap them and save for the recyclers

[HollowPoint]

I still have two five-gallon buckets full of stick on wheel weights.

I was mixing them with the clip on wheel weights I have but, lately I've begun
using the Clip-On weights for my rifle bullets exclusively.

The nearly pure lead Stick-On wheel weights are now used in my 44 lever action.
I've been paper patching them to good effect and good accuracy.

After I got the correct size figured out, I no longer have to alloy any of my 44 magnum
bullets. I just cast, size down and wrap with paper; then they're ready to shoot.

HollowPoint

[pcarpenter]

I am fairly new here and was going to post something on this topic, but I saw KYCaster's post and thought I would just raise the issue here.

I just got started smelting and know about separating zinc and keeping the melt temp fairly low to prevent contamination. I also separated the stick-ons to make a batch of pure lead. I found some that were unpainted and had that pure lead look and were nearly dead soft. I also had a bigger batch that were painted and clearly much harder. My first thought was that perhaps these were zinc and I snapped one in two to see, as well as using a ball-peen hammer to test dentability. Didn't ring like zinc but was still harder than pure lead. Dropped one into a pot at about 600 degrees and it melted nearly instantly.

Now I am trying to figure out what to do....given this, it would seem that maybe they should go in with the clip-ons, rather than "contaminating" my presumably dead-soft stick on batch??? My end goal is to end up with predictable hardnesses rather than just being able to say "this ingot was from stick-ons" and "this ingot was from clip-ons".

Paul

[bumpo628]

I estimate that WWs have the following composition:
Stick on: 0.25% Tin, 99.75% Lead
Clip on: 0.5% Tin, 2% Antimony, 97.5% Lead

[mold maker]

I'm finding far less Zn clip on WWs, but much more Zn stick on weights. The majority of the none lead clip on are now Fe, Iron.
Usable lead from WW is now becoming a much smaller % of the pounds you carry home.
Last time I took a full bucket of clips and Fe weights to the scrap yard, it probably cost me more in gas, than the return on it. The bucket was worth more to me.
To those who said that collecting WWs was a waste of time I say "Thank You". You have allowed me to accumulate over 2 tons of those shiny ingots. To those who are having a hard time finding WWs. "You ain't seen nothing yet".

[geargnasher]

Several years ago I checked several different styles of stick on weights and found a wide variation in hardness and specific gravity. From dead soft pure lead at one extreme and harder and less dense than clip on at the other extreme.

Since that test I haven't bothered to separate them from the CO.

More recently I've been finding lots of zinc, steel and plastic in both the CO and the SO weights.

At one time I would expect about 13% scrap when rendering WW, now 50% scrap is not at all unusual. Add that to the price most places are asking for their WW and the hassle of dealing with possible Zn contamination, I'm about to give up on WW. If I can find ANY other source of lead I'll leave the WW for somebody else.

That's just my opinion...YMMV.

Jerry

I find this all to be very accurate also in my area. Many stick ons are harder than the average clip-on, and many stickies are zinc. It's easy to tell the soft stick-ons because they have no fancy paint or decorative surface, just the weight markings.

The "rules" of such and such weight is such and such composition are all out the window these days, even the antimony levels and arsenic content are all over the map with any weight. Some use a bit of calcium for hardness and have no arsenic, those take a while to age harden. The truth is YMMV with any type of weight these days, assume nothing.

Gear

[nonferrous]

As long as you collect wheel weights, you will always have stick ons to get rid of. For a while now, I have been blending 25% stick ons with 75% clip ons for a reasonablly nice and consistant alloy for under say, 900 FPS.

Some time back, I scored 200 pounds of pure lead from elevator counter weights. I used the same blend ratio with that and the boolits from it are somewhat softer. I have to think that even though they are softer than clip ons, they are still better than pure.

[blasternank]

I am looking to buy a lee slug mold so maybe I'll save some of them for that. What about the 00 buck mold from lee? Would you use mainly lead in that as well just like the slug?

[blasternank]

What about the 00 buck mold from lee? Would you use mainly lead in that as well just like the slug?

What I mean is would you use the stick on ones which will be softer and more lead or the clip on ones that would be a harder pellet?

Thanks.

[bumpo628]

What I mean is would you use the stick on ones which will be softer and more lead or the clip on ones that would be a harder pellet?

Thanks.

Stick on weights would be perfect for buckshot. You want soft pellets - especially if you have a choke.

[steg]

Bumpo, I always thought it was better to go harder with buckshot, to keep them from deforming and flying truer, what would be the advantage of softer buckshot, unless your looking for a faster expanding pattern?..................................steg

oops sorry I totally missed the choke part of your post, sorry now I understand.........

[blasternank]

So if I have no choke it's better to have harder buckshot and if it's choked it would be better for a softer lead, correct? I don't know too much about buckshot as I've always just bought it and never reloaded for it.

[bumpo628]

If I remember correctly, soft lead is recommended for buckshot and slugs in the Lyman manual. If you are shooting without a choke, then you can use harder stuff. The hard stuff will retain it's shape more than the soft upon impact. Depends on what you're looking for - penetration or stopping power. My experience is limited, so I have to defer to the experts in the shotgun forum.

I did a quick search in the shotgun casting forum:
http://castboolits.gunloads.com/showthread.php?t=102240

[BAGTIC]

I use my stick on wheelweights for casting 'split shot' fishing weights as the soft metal makes them easy to crimp on and t remove later.

[JeffinNZ]

As a matter of interest, I have oven heat treated stick on WW alloy to 12 BHN from its original 7.8 BHN.