marking ingots

[686]

if you were to mark your bullet ingots, what yould you mark? i make 5 lb ingots when i mix my lead for my bullets. thought it might be nice to mark them as not to forget which is which. if it were wheel weights you could put W or WW. WHAT ABOUT BULLET MIX. i was also wondering if i could put a weld bead in the bottom of my ingot mold so they would be marked as i cast them. i would like to use as few of letters as i can. maybe B for bullet or H for hard. has any one done this? thanks for your help

[Ricochet]

I use a black marker, with alloy initials I hope to remember.

[pumpguy]

What ever you do, make a key to the abbreviations and keep it somewhere safe. You would hate to forget what you were doing a couple of years down the road.

[Johnw...ski]

I just stamp them with a single stamp, 1,2,3, A,B,C, etc. I have a file in my computer where I keep my loading data an there I have a folder with my lead data. So for example an ingot marked "1" would be a 30 to 1 Pb to Sn mix or "L" would be linotype.

John

[Boerrancher]

I for most of my shooting I use WW and range lead. I have a pile of range lead ingots and a pile of WW ingots. I pull the number of range lead and number of WW ingots I want and put them in the furnace to make my alloy. I also have Lino ingots that are completely different in shape from anything else. If I want an extra hard boolit I toss in the proper poundage of Lino into the pot.

Best Wishes from the Boer Ranch,

Joe

[imashooter2]

I use a black permanent marker same as Ricochet.

[Old Ironsights]

I have a pile of WW and a pile of pb.

I mix at the point of casting and cast until dry.

No point in confusing things.

[cabezaverde]

I just hit them with a little shot of spray paint. Not the whole ingot, just a thin stripe.

Yellow is pure, green is lino, black is range scrap, unpainted is ww.

[GabbyM]

I've an old galvanized steel trash can. a couple of five gallon buckets and a wood box. I mark the containers and dump them in. Spray paint sounds doable. But I'm to cheap to buy paint.

At the moment I've a pile of 2/3 alloy ingots just laying where they fell. I'm working off the top of the pile. It's lead you know. Hard for an old guy to move about several times.

[MT Gianni]

I take a screwdriver and etch WW ,#2, or PB in them.

[357maximum]

I use a set of comunist block el cheapo metal stamps for special alloys..... everything else is in it's appropriate pile/ or /container

[largom]

I probably go overboard but I use metal number and letter stamps to mark base metals and alloys. I melt the base metals [lead, wheel weights, lino] in a 100 lb. pot, pour into ingots and then stamp the ingots according to metal and BATCH No. Each 100 lb. pot is a different batch No. for that metal. EX: WW Bat.2 is wheel weights batch No. 2. PB [lead] Bat. 1 is lead batch No. 1 , L [for Lino] Bat. 1 .
Alloys are stamped A [for alloy] and a number. The alloy number only changes if the mix changes. The alloy numbers are kept in my load book and tell me what percent of each base metal was used and what BATCH No. the metal came from.Hopefully this allows me to duplicate alloys more precise.

Larry

[cohutt]

mark container for small ingots, mark big ingots directly with a marker that smells like

ww= obvious, wheel weights
pb= soft seals flashing etc
pb al = pure lead (al is code for the source)


from a while back before i reorganized :

[jawjaboy]

Heap a good ingot ID soloutions here. The key is to remember your code, whatever it may wind up being. Already been said, but it a be the key to your memory 30 years down the road.

[twotrees]

A Schmidty alloy then ???


LOL

Neater than mine by a mile.

I put them in stacks and hope I remember what is what.

[Typecaster]

I basically like Richochet's plan, except I can't that I can't even remember my own initials now that it's happy hour and I've topped off my first martooni (by topping 'em off, I don't have to keep an accurate count).

I have found that solvent markers (marks-a-lot and sharpei) in colors other than black do tend to fade. Blue seems to be the worst.

My dad (97+) has a simple formula: he uses a cold chisel to mark "WW" for WWs, or "L' for lno I gave him. He has a lot more spare time than I do. If it's an unmarked ingot, it had better be (foundry) pure lead (at least soft).

Being a shiftless and lazy Irishman, I use a black Sharpie, but store almost all ingots in ammo cans, so they won't fade. If I mix a specific alloy, I use 357maximum's tehnique of the disposable stamps. Even HF stamps will mark ingots.

Cheers—
Richard

[mooman76]

i also use Majic marker for marking. WW a SL for Soft lead.

[HeavyMetal]

I have used "permanet" marker but it will fad sooner or later.

Currently will start using the metal stamps to number things this is much more "permanant" and I won't have to worry about fading marks.

for wheel weights I'll use WW, for Lead I'll use PB, and if I make an alloy, such as Lyman # 2, I'll mark it 9-5-5 on the ingot. Different alloys will get the correct numbers.

Lino or foundry type I'll leave in it's original print form until I need to blend it!

Seems pretty simple!

[38 Super Auto]

I just hit them with a little shot of spray paint. Not the whole ingot, just a thin stripe.

Yellow is pure, green is lino, black is range scrap, unpainted is ww.

I like this.


I alloy up 125-150# and place a cardboard ID with the allow/hardness info in the bucket. I have a hard alloy for 38 super, 357, a much softer alloy at BHN~10 for 45 ACP and W/Cs and an extra hard alloy for .308

Based on input from this forum, I keep three alloys around for my three primary applications and cast up a new batch when it's spent. I obtain more uniform bullet weights by alloying up larger batches rather than alloying in the lead pot.

[Bill*]

I use small office stickers, but I don't mark them with the Material. I mark them (all 1 lb ingots)with a hardness number. I only have to test one from each "smelt". Each batch gets piled on a shelf so I just need one sticker on the whole row. If I want a certain BHN I can get close by using, say, 3 #11s and 1 #22 to get approx BHN 13.75. "Works Fer Me!"