first time smelting

dudley2112

dudley2112

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Ottawa, Ontario
well i had to clean out the backstop at our indoor range yesterday so i took advantage of the situation and gathered up some lead. Being a nice day today i decided to have a go at smelting it down... Mom was less then pleased by the mess but i think it went well for my first try. Heres some pics

about 1/2 of the scrap i started with, dried it out in the sun for a day first
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hell of allot of crap from all the shattered bullet jackets and stuff

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damn bit too much wax perhaps... mom flipped out at this haha :p
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first few ingots
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final product got about 16lbs of lead from it

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my ingots next to some free ones a nice old timer gave to me today

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Hey, great BBQ.... :D

Just remember, if anyone asks, you are not "smelting" but "melting". A smelter has to abide by legal/environmental regulations a couple of volumes thick.
 
nicely done!! I had the same issue with too much wax!! The flames on mine were a little higher freaked my helper out! Nice old timer to give you all those ingots!
 
haha thanks for the legal tip :p .... think im going to do the rest of my "melting" in a more rural setting because the rest are WW's and ive been told those make some seriously filthy smoke. Ya gave me 31lbs of WW's in ingots, enough to get me started while i build up my own supply of WW's.
 
I hope you didn't drink from the bottle (6th pic)
Do not eat or drink or even smoke while melting/casting lead if you value the rest of your life.
Also avoid melting lead on your barbecue. Unless you like the metallic taste in steaks.
Other than that, you're on the right track.
 
Hug that old timer!! @$3 a pound some places.
I cleaned out a indoor backstop twice and melted it in a half of a 2' propane tank. Over a wood fire, in a barrel. Poured over 800 3lb dollar store muffin tins ingots in 4 days. Moved them from Viking to Peace River. 30 in each 5 gallon pail, was all I could handle. The good part is you know it will make good bullets, because it came from bullets.
If I pace myself it should last my lifetime.
 
Good work. Nice score on the range scrap.
I melted a 5 gal bucket of WW this weekend but from a full 5 gal bucket I got only about 35 lb of ingots.
I usually get over double that.
Lots more steel and zinc WW showing up these days.
Even those stick on ones, they have steel and zinc versions of those too which surprised me.
Over 50% of the bucket was junk (rubber stem valves, steel WW and zinc ww).
 
tigrr said:
Hug that old timer!! @$3 a pound some places.
I cleaned out a indoor backstop twice and melted it in a half of a 2' propane tank. Over a wood fire, in a barrel. Poured over 800 3lb dollar store muffin tins ingots in 4 days. Moved them from Viking to Peace River. 30 in each 5 gallon pail, was all I could handle. The good part is you know it will make good bullets, because it came from bullets.
If I pace myself it should last my lifetime.
Click to expand...

ya if i had really wanted to i could have gotten TONS more but they were more concerned with cleaning out the water trap then my attempts to make cheap bullets.... next year ill be better prepared and get way more.
 
a good old speaker magnet for steel, then u have to pick out the zinc but they are usually easier to spot by colour and also the clink they make when u drop them on the ground.
 
If you can control the heat at all, the zinc melts at quite a bit higher temp than does the WW lead alloy.
I just watch, and as soon as the lead is melted, and not heating it above that temp, I skim off all the steel brackets and the zinc WW, and discard them.
Never had a Zinc WW melt in my lead yet. Eagleye.
 
'09fxdb said:
A good friend of mine is a mechanic with his own garage...I can get several hundred pounds of weights a year from him. What is the best way to separate the lead ones from the zinc and steel ones? ...Bill
Click to expand...

Lead melts at a lower temp than zinc. If you melt it all together slowly, you can scoop off the zinc weights once the lead melts. Works for me anyway.
 
phishroy said:
Good work. Nice score on the range scrap.
I melted a 5 gal bucket of WW this weekend but from a full 5 gal bucket I got only about 35 lb of ingots.
I usually get over double that.
Lots more steel and zinc WW showing up these days.
Even those stick on ones, they have steel and zinc versions of those too which surprised me.
Over 50% of the bucket was junk (rubber stem valves, steel WW and zinc ww).
Click to expand...
I also melted a full bucket of WW this weekend but I got 100 lbs.
 
'09fxdb said:
A good friend of mine is a mechanic with his own garage...I can get several hundred pounds of weights a year from him. What is the best way to separate the lead ones from the zinc and steel ones? ...Bill
Click to expand...

I actually melted down a big batch of wheel weights today into ingots.
Bought a 5gallon pail that was 3/4 full for $20. from local tire shop.
I had to use a course file on almost every single weight to test for lead,
and the reject pile was disapointing in its size when done.
I think i will go back to salvaging fired bullets.
 
Oh my "f"ing god don't melt wheel weights on your BBQ!!Go buy your self a turkey fryer and use it to melt your wheel weights at a safe distance from everything you will put in your mouth!!I use a 10 qt cast iron dutch oven and never let it get close to anything that I cook with!
 
Good job,

I check out the dirt burms after every rain at the range and it always seems to uncover a bunch of spent bullets that go back in the pot and get recycled into ingots for casting later. It may be the best way to get good lead with the amount of steel and zinc tire weights that are being used now.

Cactus
 
mr.e moose said:
Oh my "f"ing god don't melt wheel weights on your BBQ!!Go buy your self a turkey fryer and use it to melt your wheel weights at a safe distance from everything you will put in your mouth!!I use a 10 qt cast iron dutch oven and never let it get close to anything that I cook with!
Click to expand...

Garbage day is your friend.
Over the years i have scored at least 6 coleman stoves.
I have 2 that is amost mint.
One I keep for camping and another i gave to buddy for camping as well.One of the others is a dedicated smelting unit.
The others i have passed onto to shooting friends.
One tank of fuel can melt a lot of lead.
It lasted my whole 3/4 5gallon pail.
Naptha gas stoves are cheaper to opperate than the propane ones,
and have better heat range.
Start high then turn down once you get lead melting.
I tried the small propane tank way, and you can go through 2 little tanks
pretty quick.
On another note,
when did the price of naptha double in price.
Cost more than gas .
 
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