alternative ingots

[snuffy]

A long time friend AND gunshop owner has a fab shop in back as well. He cast boolits too. He made this once from drops from some 3 X 1.5 channel. It's 4.5 inches long.





That ingot is 5#, not filled out because the mold was cold, and I was pouring from a lee 4-20, not much flow. He borrowed it to me for when I re-melt all that range lead I have to do. My job is to test it, then I might make a few more!

[Dale53]

I have shown these before (similar to the ones above). I have three of these moulds and several of the regular Lyman, Saeco, and Lee moulds. I set them up and "Let 'em rip!"



The angle iron ingot moulds produce a 3½ lb ingot that stand on end VERY well in the RCBS electric pot. The 1 lb and ½ lb ingots enable me to alloy in the pot just before casting.

I smelt ONE time. For me the ingots must be usable in my RCBS pots without smelting a second time. I Keep the ingots in a container (mostly milk crates). I label the container and am careful to keep them separate.



Dale53

[jawjaboy]

[cohutt]

one of jawjaboy's original mold versions, drops between 6 and 7 lbs depending on alloy. stack nicely offset 1x3

with standard lyman ingot in it for scale:



fill 'em up please:




Galena towers Phase I, back before phase II, III, & IV were added:

[TAWILDCATT]

I was going to sujest channel iron but I see jawjaboy?? already has them.I had a comercial mold that went 10# but gave it to nabor when I moved south.should of taken one more truck trip,as I would be rich with what I left.
chipper lawn mowers 30 20# gas tanks 2 drill presses and more.oh well to late

[fallout4x4]

I had this one made for me, but its too big for my smelting operation. the ingots fit in my lee prod. pot 4, but I don't smelt big batches that can fill it all the time.




I havent put it up in the swappin and sellin subforum yet. Make an offer and you can have first dibs.

[Tom Herman]

Great pics and discussion! I'm envious of those of you that have talent and the tools available to make your molds reality.
From a purely mathematical viewpoint, storing circular materials is a waste of space, as well as being cumbersome.
If you do the math, and compare circular materials to square (or rectangular) ones, here's where we are (Assume a 1" dimension):
The area of a square (two dimensions) is height times width, or 1" x 1", which gives us an area of 1 square inch.
The area of a crcle 1" in diameter is Pi x radius squared, thus: 3.14159 x (1/2) squared, or 3.14159 x 1/4, ot about .785 square inches.
Aside from the fact that circular stuff is a pain in the butt to store, you simply can't get the stacking efficiency of square or rectangular shapes.
I would also much rather drop an ingot out of my Lyman or RCBS molds than to try to pound or force one out of a pipe.

Happy Shootin'! -Tom

[deltaenterprizes]

Mini loaf pans at Walmart! Be careful, the silver ones are tin coated. They also sell the disposable ones made from aluminum foil.

[C1PNR]

IIRC it was BruceB who suggested what I did. 1 1/2" channel cut about 1/2" shorter than the length of an ammo can. We sealed the ends with flat bar just a little longer than needed, so I could add "handles."

The triangle shapes fit together nicely in the ammo can, and you can still get your finger in at the end to pull out 1 or more ingots at a time.

I got my Brother to do the welding (outside only) and I added flat bar handles on a bolt hinge for easy dumping. The handles fold back along the mould for storage.

Ammo cans are cheap, stack well, and you can just move a full one without resorting to a furniture dolly.

[Brick85]

IIRC it was BruceB who suggested what I did. 1 1/2" channel cut about 1/2" shorter than the length of an ammo can. We sealed the ends with flat bar just a little longer than needed, so I could add "handles."

The triangle shapes fit together nicely in the ammo can, and you can still get your finger in at the end to pull out 1 or more ingots at a time.

I got my Brother to do the welding (outside only) and I added flat bar handles on a bolt hinge for easy dumping. The handles fold back along the mould for storage.

Ammo cans are cheap, stack well, and you can just move a full one without resorting to a furniture dolly.

How much does an ammo can full of lead weigh? I'm guessing a good 50 lbs, easy. I know from salvaging birdshot that a gallon weighs around 50 lbs.

I just scored some 3/4" x 3/4" angle iron today, really thin stuff, but should work. I have no welding skill but a friend has offered to teach me and I figure this would be a great way to learn. What I was originally thinking was to weld them together as a channel (two of the "L" shapes make a "U"), and then divide the channel, maybe 1.5" x .75" x 5", but I don't know if this is feasible. I'd prefer rectangular ingots, because they'd stack really easy. Wouldn't the triangles be a fairly poor use of space unless you stack them opposite one another, and contain the ends?

I'm thinking to make up some boxes out of scrap plywood, anyway, and I could just stack them inside the boxes. Cheaper than ammo cans, for me at least.

How much capacity should I make up? 10 lbs? 20 lbs? I can get a ton of scrap angle iron if I grab it in the next couple days. I don't even have a smelting setup yet, so perhaps I ought to err on the side of optimism?

[thenaaks]

lead density is .4104 lb/cubic in
50 cal ammo box 11x5.5x7=423.5 cu in
423.5 x .4104= 173.8 pounds of lead in a 50 cal ammo box
that's a hernia for sure!!!

[geargnasher]

I truly envy all of you who have such huge storage limitations that you have to make ingot moulds the most effecient shape to store your hundreds of pounds!!

I also envy Felix's MOAS, though I could easily make one I will probably never see enough scrap lead at one time to fill one!
(Sniff, pout, covet).

Just kidding, guys, great pics and ideas for all of us.

Gear

[fredj338]

You need to worry more about how they fit in your casting pot than your storage unit. I used to use a mini loaf pan, but now also use molds from jawjaboy. I only fill them half way, makes about 3# ingot & fits nicely in the Lee 20#, abit snug in the 10#, but that one only gets fed 1# Lyman ingots for HP casting. Adding much more metal than 6# to the 20# pot at 1/2 full, cuts your casting tempo way down & you have to wait for it to come back up.

[Old Ironsights]

...
I just scored some 3/4" x 3/4" angle iron today, really thin stuff, but should work. I have no welding skill but a friend has offered to teach me and I figure this would be a great way to learn. What I was originally thinking was to weld them together as a channel (two of the "L" shapes make a "U"), and then divide the channel, maybe 1.5" x .75" x 5", but I don't know if this is feasible. I'd prefer rectangular ingots, because they'd stack really easy. Wouldn't the triangles be a fairly poor use of space unless you stack them opposite one another, and contain the ends?...

On the left is the beginnings of my 2# WW ingot stack. On the right, is 99% of my Lyman pb stack.

Yes, you need to stack the triangle ingots face-to-face on one edge to get maximum storage density, but I will be getting about 1200lbs into that little nook under my bench.

[Brick85]

You need to worry more about how they fit in your casting pot than your storage unit. I used to use a mini loaf pan, but now also use molds from jawjaboy. I only fill them half way, makes about 3# ingot & fits nicely in the Lee 20#, abit snug in the 10#, but that one only gets fed 1# Lyman ingots for HP casting. Adding much more metal than 6# to the 20# pot at 1/2 full, cuts your casting tempo way down & you have to wait for it to come back up.

I actually don't even have my casting setup yet (gave what rudimentary setup I used to have to a friend). What length is appropriate? 5" or so seems like it'd fit in any reasonable-sized pot, and I can't think I'd go bigger than 20# (though 20# of liquid lead isn't really that big!). I'm hoping to manage to drop a steel or cast-iron pot into a wood stove I have, set it up outside, and cast nearly for free; and if that fails I could put it on a small propane burner. Probably ladle-cast, at least til I figure out a way to bottom pour from inside a wood stove.

On the left is the beginnings of my 2# WW ingot stack. On the right, is 99% of my Lyman pb stack.

Yes, you need to stack the triangle ingots face-to-face on one edge to get maximum storage density, but I will be getting about 1200lbs into that little nook under my bench.

Yeah, when you think about it that way, it's not such a chore to contain the triangles. Nice stack on those trapezoidals by the way--I never thought to stack them in opposition.

[hoosierlogger]

I know from salvaging birdshot that a gallon weighs around 50 lbs.

A half gallon milk jug of .356 boolits weighs in at about 30 Lbs. So I would assume birdshot weighs more

[Brick85]

A half gallon milk jug of .356 boolits weighs in at about 30 Lbs. So I would assume birdshot weighs more

Probably. This was just by feel--it tore my arm off about as much as a sheet of sheetrock does (which is to say not that much, but enough).

[chemist308]

Mini loaf pans at Walmart! Be careful, the silver ones are tin coated. They also sell the disposable ones made from aluminum foil.

Neat idea. Now I'll be able to easily tell the pure stuff from the ww stuff.

[jar-wv]

So far I've been using soda cans. 2 in a 20 lb Lee pot and a bit of solder usually fills it up. They do take up a bit of space storing them but thats no problem. Lots of outbuildings.

jar

[Leadsmith]

I use the same technique C1PNR talked about, 1 1/2 angle iron that is 5 inches long. Each one weighs about 3 pounds, and my 50 cal ammo cans hold about 90 pounds when mostly full. I don't fill them all the way up cause I can't handle more weight very easily.

I also use the ammo cans to store my unsmelted lino and mono type that is in small pieces. Works well, I can just stack the cans up against the wall and I mark the can with the content and weight.

Bob