Melting wheel weights for bullet casting - all you need to know

Finally got around to casting some ingots today for the first time from a mix of mostly plumbing lead and a little bit of wheel weights. I noticed in the original post the ingots have some little craters/dimples just like mine do. Just wondering if fluxing in the casting pot will clear this up?Since of course we don't want these in our finished cast bullets.
 
jongun said:
Finally got around to casting some ingots today for the first time from a mix of mostly plumbing lead and a little bit of wheel weights. I noticed in the original post the ingots have some little craters/dimples just like mine do. Just wondering if fluxing in the casting pot will clear this up?Since of course we don't want these in our finished cast bullets.
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You certainly want to do some fluxing in the casting pot. The dimples will largely disappear when you add some tin to the alloy.
 
Use a 3m respirator with p100 multi gas cartridges when doing that.
Breathing all those paint, oil and lead fumes will make you sick.
I even wear it to cast the bullets, why not. But to smelt all that crap, without a proper respirator, its just a bit dumb to your health.
Got it all on ebay.
 
jongun said:
Finally got around to casting some ingots today for the first time from a mix of mostly plumbing lead and a little bit of wheel weights. I noticed in the original post the ingots have some little craters/dimples just like mine do. Just wondering if fluxing in the casting pot will clear this up?Since of course we don't want these in our finished cast bullets.
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if your using new cup cake pans with teflon coating or nonstick coating, then it's the coating gassing off from the heat. no big deal and will go away with time.
 
Yup bread molds with a nonstick coating will gas crater the bottom of the ingots until the coating is burned. You can also torch it before with a propane torch. Half my ingots have a cratered bottom, no issues
 
just to let some of you guys know that the lead less solder is usually 95% tin. When I am having a bit of a problem with fill out I will drop some of that in the pot .. Hardens the bullet up and sharpens the edges nicely.
 
Spawn-Inc said:
if your using new cup cake pans with teflon coating or nonstick coating, then it's the coating gassing off from the heat. no big deal and will go away with time.
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I'm glad to hear this. I just melted my first batch of wheel weights today and had a lot of dimples in the bottom.

I also tried to melt some lead shot about size 10 or 12, this was not so succesful. There was a lot more waste than lead, what looked lot unmelted lead floating on top.

I think I'll be using the shot for in bags for my lead sled.
 
Tazzy said:
I'm glad to hear this. I just melted my first batch of wheel weights today and had a lot of dimples in the bottom.

I also tried to melt some lead shot about size 10 or 12, this was not so succesful. There was a lot more waste than lead, what looked lot unmelted lead floating on top.

I think I'll be using the shot for in bags for my lead sled.
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It is gas from the teflon burning off. As indicated it will burn off. When I have melted down shot you almost have to squash the pellets against the side of the pot. You will get a fair amount of junk on top of the mix. Squash the pellets and when you are satisfied you got them all flux your mix with sawdust. Candlewax doesn't do near the job sawdust will and skim off the crap on top.

Take Care

Bob
 
Thanks for the advice. I was trying sawdust, I will try a higher temp with the shot again if I really need to.

I also traded a bag of shot for a 30lb lead bar so I'll be good for a little while.
 
It seems the quality and suitability of wheel weights for casting has gone down since this article was first written. I picked up a small bucket the other day ( maybe 25 lbs) and a lot of steel and zinc- the stick on weights were mostly steel. I pulled only 7 ounces of lead stick on weights out, and have yet to sort through more thoroughly. Somebody should post pics of what types are zinc or steel for a quick visual reference.
 
I preheat my weights on a frying pan before smelting them and the tape comes off easy once they heat up. I preheat weights for two reasons, speeds up process quite a bit and I wash my weights before sorting so need to make SURE they are dry before going in smelting pot.
 
Another trip to the same tire shop and got just over 5 lbs of the stick ons in a quarter bucket of weights. A lot seemed to be newish and unused. Double sided tape not even peeled off. Seems like this will be my go-to shop, since I want the soft lead for the black powder Minies. Anybody in Nova Scotia who wants a couple buckets of clip on weights, let me know. I probably won't be using them anytime soon.
 
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