casting question ?

[freekforge]

If you are casting round balls and cant get pure lead ive made some out of wheel weights and they worked just fine. people act like if you use wheel weights for anything muzzle loader the dead will rise and the world will end :haha: but they will work for RBs if you have nothing else

But if you use them for conicals the dead will rise and the world will end :shocked2: :haha: so be careful

 

[Idaho Ron]

I don't know about the dead rising but. Wheel weights are alloyed lead if you lucky. A lot of them now are zinc. If you get zinc into your lead it will look like oatmeal. At that point your lead is ruined and all you can use it for isfishing weight. Wheel weight alloy behaves different when pouring. It will not shrink as much as pure lead so the the balls or bullets will be slightly bigger around, and they will be lighter. When pushing wheel weight bullets down the barrel it is very hard to get them to go down with the same loading procedure as soft lead. Warning, hard lead bullets or balls can and will get stuck in the barrel. Care must be used to keep that from happening. I have shot wheel weight bullets. I don't care for them. Ron

 

[mack1]

bullshop spurplate lube is the best I have found. 2cycle oil works well also a drop on a Q tip applied to a warm mold is all that is required. As for lead pipe use caution when smelting, my only visit from the tinsel fairy was from pipe. I rest my aluminum molds on my elect pot while it is coming up to temp to get the mold running faster Aluminum seems to heat up faster so watch bullets for frosting and add a bit of tin to help fillout. Make a large spur so no void forms when it cools if there is a hole in the spur the bullet is no good. If you get smearing on top of the mold from the spur let it cool longer if it is hard to cut it cooled to long. That is all I can add to the good advise above.

 

[freekforge]

I have a small lee pot that you dip from its the smallest i believe. and i found that if you mix 4oz of wheel weight and the rest (cant remember how much it holds off the top of my head)of pure lead you come up with an alloy that pours well and is soft enough to "cut" with your nail i have used this with excellent results using lee REALs and they almost all mike at .508 on the top ring and .498 on the bottom. so its not best to use only WW but you can mix the lead to some extent relatively safely.

 

[Idaho Ron]

I am aware of that. If you search some of my old posts I alloy most of my lead, and never use just pure. I have a Cabine tree hardness tester. I add reclaimed lead shot to pure lead to get the desired hardness. I Pour a few and test them hot. I want them to be in the neighborhood of 6 BHN. It does homogenizes the melt and help fillout in the mould. Nail scratching is a poor way to assess hardness. I can scratch lead that is 20 BHN with my thumb. A better way is to drop an ingot onto concrete. The hard lead will give a ringing tone. The soft lead will thud. soft being a loose term.
When I am buying lead I absolutely will not buy lead unless I can test it with my hardness tester first. I am surprised your real mould only throws .508 on the top ring. Mine throws .517 on the top ring. Ron

 

[freekforge]

I too thought it was strange that it only threw a .508 in fact i had to recheck my micrometer for zero because i was expecting it to be bigger. the biggest i found was .513 and that was made of range scrap.

 

[floyd1350]

would you by chance know the alloy or hardness of shotgun slugs?

 

[Rifleman1776]

In March of this year I borrowed a .495 Lee mould from a friend. I cast a batch of nice balls with it and then measure them. They were, in fact, .492 size. I checked the Lee website and it stated the balls from a .495 mould were actually .492. I wrote the Lee company and asked what was going on. They wrote back saying the "typo" had been corrected. I later purchased a Lee .495 of my own. It casts balls at .495 consistently, as it should. I use only pure lead.
This does not speak well of their quality control or attention to details.
And, it could explain why there is often confusion in results between shooters.

 

[Idaho Ron]

I have never ran them but if you want to send me a couple I would test them for you. Ron

 

[buttonbuck]

I cannot say their bhn but slugs are harder than pure cast roundballs. I cast lee key drives out of x ray room lead they are softer than remington sluggers, When I first started collecting lead I cleaned out the backstop where we shot a lot of slugs over the years sighting in our slug guns. cast a few ingots and I found one it is harder than lead ingots from pipe, roof jacks, cable sheathing and x ray walls.

 

[fire-n-brimstone]

On a safety noted NEVER use a aluminum pot for melting lead it will fail and dump lead on you.
To pre-heat mold dip corner into the melt. I have used Wheel Weights with no issue.


Andy

 

[floyd1350]

good enough, thanks

 

[Lonegun1894]

Seeing as there have been references to the tinsel fairy and protective clothing, here is one thing I did which I knew better but did anyway. Couldn't sleep one night a few years ago, so thought I would go ahead and cast a few RBs on the kitchen stove. I can now prove why casting while wearing nothing but boxers :youcrazy: is a BAD idea. The cat decided to come see what I was doing, and somehow between it being curious and me trying to get it away, we knocked the lead pot over. I ended up with a 3x5" area on my right abdomen that was splashed with melted lead. I immediately peeled the lead off and the skin came with it, which will get your attention. The good news is the cat wasn't injured at all, and my burn didnt do any long term damage. I do have a nice scar to serve as a reminder of what NOT to do. I always say stupid ought to hurt, and I'm not exempted from that. Just passing this on in the hopes that someone will earn from my mistake without having to go through it like i did. I still dont use welding gloves, apron, etc like many do, but I do make sure I am wearing boots, jeans, and a long sleeved shirt. I know I will get burned again someday, we all do if we cast, but I take many more precautions that I used to in my younger dumber days. Live and learn.

 

[B.Habermehl]

I repeat this every time this thread comes up. Be ABSOLUTELY CERTAIN that your lead scrap does not have any trace of moisture! When anything containing even a little moisture gets in to a pot of molten lead it will cause a superheated steam explosion, Spattering liquid lead further and faster than you can posibly get away from! I have a nice set of scars on my left hand from flying molten lead. Small 3third degree burns. All of my scrap lead laagers in my garage at least a year to be sure it is dry. Be especially aware of pipe lead. I usually melt scrap lead over the pot with a set of tongs and a torch. That way the scrap is never submerged in the pot potentially carrying moisture. Sure it sounds like overkill but I really have a major dislike for pain. Those burns took a good 6 weeks to heal.