Thanks guys. Ricky you mentioned "getting the zinc weights out" and "the stickons out". Is this something you take off before you smelt them or do they, the zinc weights, also float to the top?
Exile, being fairly new to casting myself, I found that my only source for very soft lead was stick on wheel weights. It is very useful to cast a few pure lead slugs of whatever caliber you are shooting so you can "slug your bore" to measure the diameter of the grooves in your barrel. I've managed to gather around 1000 lbs of ww ingots, but only have around 10 lbs of soft lead from all those wheel weights that I use for measuring bores, and protecting gun barrels in vises and such. I seperate them and smelt them in a stainless steel measuring cup using a propane torch. My cast iron pot / turkey fryer is WAY too big for the amount of stickons that I get from a 5 gal bucket full.
Everything that I've learned about casting I've read on this website. I've never had a bad dealing with any member here, and I think that you'll find them to be a helpful, good bunch of folks. Mike