A fine start.
”We know they are lying, they know they are lying, they know we know they are lying, we know they know we know they are lying, yet they are still lying.” –Aleksandr Isayevich Solzhenitsyn
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http://castboolits.gunloads.com/show...raight-shooter
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If you need it, varying the thickness of those poured disks can get you down to a bit under an ounce, while fractions of a disk of a given weight can be added to the melt by submerging just a part.
Bullet molds cast even lower weights of tin and will be vey uniform.
I prepare 240# batches of final casting alloy, where I’m adding nearly 5# of tin, so getting the amount down to the nearest half oz is plenty accurate enough.
My operation is smaller but the sentiment of "close enough" is the same in 100# batches of 50-50% Pb-COWW alloy, cooled in 3# ingots.
Each 50-50% ingot is weighed and marked in #'s and oz's.
As weight in "X" #'s and "Y" ozs of 50-50% alloy is added to the casting pot, Tin is added, by weight, to create 49-49-2% Pb-WW-Sn alloy in the 20# pot.
With stores of nuclear shielding lead, tire shop COWW's, 50-50 alloy, and Tin, casting and smelting has been quite the adventure.
If it was easy, anybody could do it.
My stash of lead is not where I would like it to be. Out of desperation I bought wheel weights at $1 a pound. I iam planning on hitting up a few rural scrap yards this Friday to try and get what ever I can. I am really hoping to find some dead soft lead as that is what I am lacking in right now.
Those look good! I have used the small cavities in a Lee ingot mold for my tin and solder ingots.
Love that golden hue that tin alloy has. Just so purty. I tend to use a mini-muffin or candy pan so the coins are smaller but same idea. I found I prefer making larger batches of a casting alloy rather than mixing it in the casting pot a batch at a time. More consistent to make 50 or 100 pound batch.
Some stuff I make more than one batch of hundred pounds, pour each into 4 or 5 pound slabs in bread loaf pans then cross mix. Taking half the slabs from one batch and melting them with half the slabs from the other batch. That way the alloy for at least the next couple hundred pounds will be the same.
I would encourage the person hitting the rural scrap yards to get that soft lead. One can add whatever alloy is needed to it and it is the more common thing to find in scrap bin and generally pretty identifiable as to being soft lead by form. Pipe, xray shielding, flashing, etc. Where the bin of "hard" lead can be much more varied and unknown. Other than WW's. Soft lead is the "flour" in our recipes, making up 90% of even a rich alloy such as Lyman #2 so having as much of that soft as possible will prove useful.
One can buy a few pounds of sweetener from a member or a commercial seller such as Rotometals for much less than one can purchase the bulk plain lead to do a large batch from those sources. Good hunting! Might want to take some bags with donuts with you to drop off with the yard workers. Folks appreciate that extra effort.
Scrap.... because all the really pithy and emphatic four letter words were taken and we had to describe this source of casting material somehow so we added an "S" to what non casters and wives call what we collect.
Kind of hard to claim to love America while one is hating half the Americans that disagree with you. One nation indivisible requires work.
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Potter molds for the win. I have 3.
”We know they are lying, they know they are lying, they know we know they are lying, we know they know we know they are lying, yet they are still lying.” –Aleksandr Isayevich Solzhenitsyn
My Straight Shooters thread:
http://castboolits.gunloads.com/show...raight-shooter
The Pewter Pictures and Hallmarks thread:
http://castboolits.gunloads.com/show...-and-hallmarks
None of the local scrappers will sell to walk in people they wholesale it all out to the big smelters. It's kind of annoying. But what can you do.
Find out what the scrap yards pay for soft lead, then offer 10cents/lb more to the plumbers, roofers and remodelers, explaining they will get more for it and not have to take the time to haul it to the scrap yard. That way it will cost you half or less than if the scrap yard would sell it to you.
Spell check doesn't work in Chrome, so if something is spelled wrong, it's just a typo that I missed.
BP | Bronze Point | IMR | Improved Military Rifle | PTD | Pointed |
BR | Bench Rest | M | Magnum | RN | Round Nose |
BT | Boat Tail | PL | Power-Lokt | SP | Soft Point |
C | Compressed Charge | PR | Primer | SPCL | Soft Point "Core-Lokt" |
HP | Hollow Point | PSPCL | Pointed Soft Point "Core Lokt" | C.O.L. | Cartridge Overall Length |
PSP | Pointed Soft Point | Spz | Spitzer Point | SBT | Spitzer Boat Tail |
LRN | Lead Round Nose | LWC | Lead Wad Cutter | LSWC | Lead Semi Wad Cutter |
GC | Gas Check |