Casting experts, a little guidance please...

[stilly]

SO I melted some wheel weights and I was wanting to FLUX it because I wanted SOFT lead and I wanted to get all of the impurities out to get the purest lead.

I did not have anymore sawdust and I had no more wax, SO I got the next best thing, my homemade napalm which is essentially sawdust infused with wax.

I dropped a chunk of it into the lee pot and DAMN did it put out some white smoke. Even with the fan going it was heavy.

Anyways, after pulling out the steel from the wheel weights the lead turned GOLD- NO, the MELT turned GOLD, then when I would rake the lagle across it it would turn gold, then blue, then purple. I kept removing that crap out but damn it kept turning purple. I must have removed a LOT of it, but damn it steill kept changing colors on me...

Was I supposed to keep doing that until it turned silver and stopped changing colors on me or what? It WAS very cool to watch though.

I need to urify my lead to make it as soft as can be. Am I on the right path?

I ended up swaging one into a 22lr jacket and made my first 57gr .224 bullet tonight. THen I broke the punch and got mad. But I have a lot of lead and a lot of derimmed .22lr...

[CGT80]

Sounds like you are running the pot pretty hot, and you may have pretty soft lead. You won't get rid of those colors when running that hot. The lead is oxidizing. I just looked at pine shavings at petsmart yesterday. For under 3 bucks you can get a decent sized bag of pine.

Wheel weights usually have tin and antimony in them. Tin helps the lead to fill out in the mold, so you get sharp edges. Antimony makes the boolits harder. If you want soft boolits, add some pure lead. You won't likely get all the tin or antimony out of the melt. You can buy pure lead from people in the form of sheet lead or order from rotometals on the internet. Some people on the castboolits forum sell pure lead.

It sounds like you are swaging boolits. There is a subforum at castboolits that is dedicated to that. That forum has all your answers. I am no expert in casting right now.

I have a bbq thermometer that will measure my melt so I can figure out what works for me. I also built a PID controller for my lead pot. It automatically keeps the temp at what I set it to, and it learns to do it more efficiently. If you get serious about casting, you might consider that. It is just over a hundred bucks to buy all the parts.

Some people use soft lead wire and just cut it for the core of their swaged boolits. Others are sucessfully casting 224 gas checked boolits to run in their AR 15's.

Read Up: http://castboolits.gunloads.com/forum.php

[gunboat]

As pointed out above -- wheel weights are too hard for cores --
Trade it for softer lead -- Your cores do not need any antimony or tin for that matter. The tin helps fill out the cast "boolitt, but your core doesn't need to be as perfect.
my ha-penny

[stilly]

After I posted that I went looking and indeed, the temp was too hot. I let me friend control that and if there is tin involved with the lead then the melting temp is apparently like half that of what it normally is I guess...

Glad I kept all that dross. I was like, DAMN this gonna make for some perty pictures, but I want silver shiny lead. Now I know. I will tell him to turn that temp down more next time. I can not afford to get any more lead. I saw lead wire at the cost of 119 + shipping for a 45lb spool out of jersey. I was like, DAMN, I paid $65 for these wheel weights. No way I am giving them up. I will make them work, AND they DO work, but I just gotta reduce the core that gets inside.

I know all about castboolits, but I know that folks here also know and I do not want to go to another forum. I wanna come here.


I was going to get a IR thermometer to check the temp, but a bbq thermometer sounds good too if it will not melt.

Right now I wanna flux these and make them into pure lead ingots as soft as can be and then once I have fluxed them and gotten out the nasties, I wanna start making cores, but first I gotta get a core mold (working on it now, I have a c. palmer hot pot on the way for $30).

BTW, if there is anyone that would allow me to buy pure lead for real CHEAP that is local to socal then I would prolly go for it, OR if they would allow me to turn in my lead for pure lead, then I would go for that too, but anything that involves me shipping this stuff elsewhere is not gonna work right now.

Thanks for the input guys. Once I get my punch replaced I will swage some more. This is actually kinda fun... Actually, the GREATEST amount of satisfaction comes from derimming the .22lr...

[BigBronco]

Would you like to swap some of them wheel weights for pure lead? Or I can bring some pure next Sunday.

[nothing4u]

Would you like to swap some of them wheel weights for pure lead? Or I can bring some pure next Sunday.

I was gonna say this lol. But I'm no where near.

[nothing4u]

If your lazy you melt at the lowest temp to get the steel clips, aluminum, steel, and zinc weights to float on top. Then trade wheel weight ingots for soft stuff like range or plumbers lead. At the temp you saying, if any zinc was in the pot it's now in the alloy, no one's gonna want that alloy for casting bullets.

[CGT80]

I also have some soft sheet lead that I could trade, assuming stilly's lead isn't full of zinc.

This is the thermometer that I use:

http://www.teltru.com/p-272-big-green-egg-primo-grill-dome-kamado-replacement-thermometer-lt225r-5-inch-stem-2001000-degrees-f.aspx

It isn't cheap but it works just fine and goes from 200-1000 degrees F.

The control on the lee pots is not very good. You may have to adjust it often, especially when the lead level gets lower. The thermometer will help. An infrared thermometer may not work because the lead is reflective. Or.....you could just keep the temp only hot enough to get your cores cast. The mold can be heated on a hot plate to make it fill out and drop the cores better. Sometimes it is the mold that is too cold and not the lead.

I wouldn't worry too much about getting extremely clean lead, and you won't really purify it by fluxing. Some pine sawdust and some wax, one or two times, will get all the dirt to float out. Dirt plugs up the bottom pour spout on the pot. Since these are cores, you won't be worried about getting perfect fill out and the lead will covered in brass, which means no contact with the barrel.

This sounds like a cool project. I have read that the swaging dies are very expensive though. I go through too many 224 bullets to consider making my own by swaging. It sounds like I would spend more work and time, not to mention money, vs. just buying bullets by the case. Casting works for my lower volume ammo needs.

[stilly]

As everything melts we skim it all off. Only at the end of it all was anything turning colors. Usually though it takes till the vey end to get the gold color, but last night it was blue and purple.

I imagine that there should be little if any zinc in there hopefully, but whatever I can do to draw it out I am always glad to do.

BigBronco could you bring some pure lead next week when you show up? I got about 30+ lbs of wheel weights but I am curious as to how much softer pure lead is as opposed to wheel weights when it comes to swaging. :\

I would like to look at soft sheet lead too. I am having a hard time finding it, they have it in rolls everywhere but it seems like it is just, well, THIN. I thought it would be large foldable mats. :\

[CGT80]

PM sent to Stilly. I have sheet lead, and it is folded up. It scratches easily and is easy to bend.

That is good to hear that you skimmed when it was cool. You may have pulled out some good metal, but at least you probably got any zinc out as well.