Results of my first lead melting session

I still can't believe I lifted 150lbs bucket of WW and carried it 30ft, rolled it on parking lot and then hoisted into car. I only weigh 135lbs. I'm Hercules. :)

Next step is to actually read this thread and figure out how to smelt.
 
firemachine69 said:
This thread is making me want to get into smelting. Problem is, I barely load two hundred rounds a month. :redface:
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I won't be shooitng that much either, probably less than that. I'm getting into it because I need bullets for an obsolete caliber. I still think the time and investment will be worth it in the long run, looks fun too. :D
 
NavyCuda said:
Does anyone here cast core slugs for swaging copper jacketed bullets?
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You don't use cast slugs for swaging copper jackets bullets, what you need is lead wire the right diameter and a accurate way of cutting it into exact lengths to make good bullets. Along with expensive swaging dies and copper jackets.

I cast for rifle and pistol, gas check, size and lube in a lubesizer and get great accurate rounds for a fraction of the cost of store bought.
 
You can do it both ways, cast core and/or cutting lead wire, look on the confuser long enough and you will find cast core molds. They must however be made of pure lead as anything harder will be hard to swage and hard on equipment. I def. agree with the above poster on accuracy and cost savings of cast bullets, just makes sense when prolly 95% of your shots are on paper targets.
 
Didn't know that Ben, learned something new today. I bet it would be hard to get consistent weights casting those slugs using pure lead, you can't rely on tin to help with fillout.
 
ben hunchak said:
You can do it both ways, cast core and/or cutting lead wire, look on the confuser long enough and you will find cast core molds. They must however be made of pure lead as anything harder will be hard to swage and hard on equipment. I def. agree with the above poster on accuracy and cost savings of cast bullets, just makes sense when prolly 95% of your shots are on paper targets.
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I have read that cast lead doesn't do as well in supersonic autoloaders.
 
I think I melted 65% of my bucket of WW. I'm not going to melt anymore. For temperature gauge, I used the Canadian multi volt meter with thermocouple. When lead turned into nice melt, I scooped all the gunk that floated to the top, making sure I don't go over 700F and fluxed with candle wax.

I have 71lbs of muffin ingots now, that's enough for almost 4k of 9mm boolits. I hope there is no zinc in it. I'll order the mold next week. Hope I didn't screw up, otherwise I'll have a life time of fish weights and I barely fish.
 
Don't know much about cast bullets in autoloaders as I use other type guns for testing and shooting cast due to accuracy concerns, but before my recent move i tested Paper patch cast bullets at over 3000fps. While the paper patch bullets were not as accurate as i would have liked, accuracy did not deteriorate between 1800 and 3000+ fps. I know it doesn't have alot to do with orig. post but food for thought on how to stretch the use of cast bullets and save lots of money.
 
Good to know Ben... I read that lots of people fire cast boolits with their Sig p226, so I'm going to give it a try. After paying ~$100 for 1000rds of plated bullets, I thought to myself, I mine as well try and cast 9mm and if it works, I can shoot 9mm at the cost of .22lr.

I'm going to bug my WW supplier again nearing end of winter tire season and see if he'll sell me some buckets. My first 5G bucket was free.

It looks like I didn't melt any zinc. I'm a total noob but I read that someone melted zinc and you will know. The surface will look like porridge. While skimming, I think temperature went as high as 740F for a brief moment.
 
Try to keep the smelting temp low as possible. That way you don't run he risk of melting any zinc. I'd have to look up the temp, can't remember off-hand what zinc melts at. When all the foriegn objects are cleared from the melt, turn the temp up and commence to fluxing. That's my normal routine.

hey Ben, if you read this, do you know where a guy could buy lead wire for swaging besides Richard or Dave Corbin?
 
Well, I just went to the shed to take a look at the slag. Plenty of intact pieces but I had no clue which ones were zinc. So I used a blow touch (I forget what kind of gas, but it's the yellow bottle vs standard blue). Most of them did not melt except for a few. Still wasn't sure. I finally found one labeled Zn and I torched it. Well, it took about 3x longer to melt compared to lead weights. Looks like I didn't melt any zinc, unless it sank. I had a weird strip of stick on weight in the pot. It sank but never melted!

Consensus is 780-785F for Zinc WW. And wiki says 787.15 °F for pure zinc.

My pot never hit those temperatures. I started scooping around 620F and while I was scooping, I think it climbed to 740F but I was pretty much done slagging.
 
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I use a cast iron pot that's good for about 10 pounds full. I only melt down about 5 pounds at a time because my ingot mold is 4 x 1lb ingots. I bought a single burner butane stove from Princess Auto for $20. The cans of butane are about are about $4 from Cdn Tire and I can melt down about 50 pounds (10-12 cycles) of lead per can. Once the cast iron pot is hot it takes less than a minute to melt down the 4-5 pounds of lead. Works really really well. I also managed to scrape about 100 pounds in 15 minutes from the sand trap at my clubs indoor range. Our club doesn't allow jacketed bullits so with the exception of a little plating the lead is near perfect.

The butane solution works for me because for $20 I can purpose the burner solely for melting lead as opposed to possibly contaminating my camping cooking stove with lead dust.
 
Man, I wasted $28 for a heavy duty stainless steel pot. It's very thick. Not very big, but I was able to extract 71lbs of lead in 2 sessions. I'm using an outdoor burner with unknown BTUs (regulator broke). Whatever 20lbs propane tank can emit. I'm probably running it at 20-30% and when it becomes liquid, 2-5%. Hehe...

I actually found a really cheap stainless that is taller but the walls and bottom is very very thin. I was looking for cast iron today but couldn't find anywhere. If I had more time, I would check out used place but I finally folded. Another trip out would mean $10 in gas. My car drinks a lot of gas. I won't save any $$$ at the end thx to not researching on pots. Last thing I thought I would not have trouble finding.
 
I couldn't resist. My equipment already outside from yesterday. After more readings last night, I think it was very unlikely I melted zinc. Actually almost impossible. Whatever zinc weights I scooped out where unharmed. I casted my last batch of WW. Now I'm able to determine total yield - 110lbs out of 150lbs. Not bad I guess - 73% yield. :)
 
Oh, I thought zinc melted lower than that. Good to know. I went on a wheel weight roundup yesterday and netted almost 600 pounds. I'd say the pails were anywhere from 160 to 180 lbs apiece. I ran out of bucket space, and the GM dealership wanted their bucket back. I thought "No problem, I'll just dump it into the box and scoop it into one of my pails when I get home." I heave it over the tailgate, and commence to pouring. Pail was over 3/4 full. The first 4 inches was big beautiful lead alloy weights. The remainder was a mix of new/used nuts, bolts, washers, wheel weights, and only a few valve stems. Yeah, I set up a light and picked through the pile by hand last night to wind up with about 100 lbs bullet material, and about 50 lbs misc nuts, bolts and washers. :slap: D'oh! Nothing is ever simple when I'm involved.
 
I use a 20 lb propane tank with the top cut off and a tiger torch to suppliment the turkey cooker burner under the tank. I intend to thread 1/2 pipe into the bottom of the tank so that lead can run off into a 15 litre cast iron dutch oven for the second melt, fluxing and cleaning.
 
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