Stick on lead wheel weights

OverUnder725

OverUnder725

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Super GunNutz
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Next door to my neighbour
So, the way i understand it, stick on weights are sought after by the ML guys and clip on weights are the choice of pistol and rifle shooters….correct? I have almost 90 lbs of sick on weights that are all lead, no Zn or Fe. Would the ML guys go to the hassle of trading clip on for stick on? Are they that fussy or am I just better off melting it 50-50 with clip on and shoot it in my pistol?
 
If I were your neighbour, and I needed it, I would be all over that, like a hobo on a hotdog!!! Would even pay a small premium for pure lead.
Don't smelt it, someone will trade you for sure!!
Mike
 
I will have to check the bucket and see how many of the "brick" looking stick on weights are in there.

***EDIT***
Just went out to the shop and checked a bunch. Using the method of pinching the weight with a pair of side cutters, I found it impossible to tell the difference. Not mythbusters credible by any stretch but, thats all I got….




"like a hobo on a hot dog" HeHeHe..
 
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Why is it the Black powder guys have a B^%#$ of a time finding soft Lead and the hi power guys struggle to find hard lead.
I never have issues finding soft lead but pain in the ass scoring WW,
I mix 50/50 for my 45/70 and 30-30 and have never looked back.
 
OverUnder725 said:
I will have to check the bucket and see how many of the "brick" looking stick on weights are in there.

***EDIT***
Just went out to the shop and checked a bunch. Using the method of pinching the weight with a pair of side cutters, I found it impossible to tell the difference. Not mythbusters credible by any stretch but, thats all I got….




"like a hobo on a hot dog" HeHeHe..
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Easiest way to tell is the painted / coated stick ons are the same as clip ons. Bare, raw lead stickies are close enough to pure to be considered pure for our purposes.
These and ones like them are basically the same alloy as clip ons:
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And these are the most common type of "pure" lead I see.
lead-01.jpg




It's pretty easy to tell the difference when there are a few of them together. When bending, the pure ones will keep bending where as the ones that are harder will fracture and break on the first or second bend. Makes it easier when balancing to not have to take the time to use a tool and cut the weights apart.
 
I don't agree the painted one are quite as hard as WW but a bit harder for sure. Last batch I did had some in the mix but were most the pure lead "TAPE-A-WEIGHT". I keep them separate but use up the pure lead with WW about 1/3 tape to 2/3 WW.
 
yomomma said:
Do you guys remove the double sided tape first or just throw in the smelting pot as is?
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I pre smelt all my casting alloys in a cast iron pot to get rid of most of the impurities, clips, etc. and cast them into small, relatively pure ingots which I melt in my casting pot. If you do this the tape just burns off so I wouldn't bother removing it. However, if you drop the wheelweights straight into your casting pot (I don't know why people do this as it is a receipe for clogging the pour nozzle), then I would remove the tape first.
 
Don't bother buying an ingot mold, just use a dollar store steel muffin tin. Then scratch the lead type on the surface.

As to the question about rifle guys always looking for hard and Bp guys always looking for soft; the answer lies somewhere between geographic supplies and the fact that WW are middle of the road and thus a bit soft for high velocity rifles and yet too hard for BP use.

For rifle guys a bullet can't be too hard because many mistakenly try to get jacketed velocities from a gas checked cast bullet. In actuality anything over 1850fps (approx) is counter productive in terms of accuracy. Now some guns have accuracy nodes above this (which is too bad) but pushing a cast bullet to 2100+fps is generally counter productive.
That said, a spool of 50/50 tin antimony hard solder is a great thing to have. A garage sale pewter cup or silver solder is a good thing too for anyone with a rough bore or with higher velocities in mind.

For BP guys ww can be softened a bit by over heating at the smelting stage and NOT fluxing before skimming the top. When the top is skimmed off and the clips and slag are removed the tin and antimony is also removed as they are less dense than lead and so float to the top. Then reduce heat,flux,stir and skim slag only.This will help soften it up but the end product is not 100% pure lead. Usually comes out at about 20:1>30:1 impurities like barium do not seem to be removed like this.

I got about 600+lbs of lead anodes from a chrome plating shop the alloy was supposed to be 94% lead 2%tin 4%antimony.
But barium was used to control the acid levels in the chrome acid bath. The resulting lead was WAY to hard for most of my fathers BPCR guns but worked in my Mosin Nagant, for targets only. Recovered slugs from a 50yd target, through 3/8" plywood, multiple feet of frozen snow bank and found carving a swath through the dirt below showed no signs of deforming and the tooling marks and mold joint could clearly be seen!other than the rifling imprint and a bit of base melting it looked as though I had just cast it?! (165gr{32-40} RNFP sized .314" with 27gr of 5744 from a 20" M44 barrel)
 
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Seagull said:
I don't agree the painted one are quite as hard as WW but a bit harder for sure. Last batch I did had some in the mix but were most the pure lead "TAPE-A-WEIGHT". I keep them separate but use up the pure lead with WW about 1/3 tape to 2/3 WW.
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This was posted by a member on Cast Boolits who tested a bunch with an x-ray machine.
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Believe what you will, I will continue to put mine with the clip on weights.
 
ciphery said:
Don't bother buying an ingot mold, just use a dollar store steel muffin tin. Then scratch the lead type on the surface.
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That's what I use but I went with mini muffin pans as they make smaller ingots that melt quicker in the casting pot. About 1/2 pound each which is just about perfect.
 
BigUglyMan said:
It looks like much of a muchness. Regardless, serious BPCR guys will buy foundry-alloyed lead from someone like Canada Metals.
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True that, Some will take years to work up a load, multiple molds, and cases of powder. When a good load is found, the fewer variables, the better.
 
sawzall said:
Believe what you will, I will continue to put mine with the clip on weights.
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Interesting Data. Did they explain why he chose every different size? Unfortunatly there is only one type of painted stick on in that list and I don't think I have seen those very often. Pure lead is more a pain to me and what I don't use in mixing with WW I make into boat/decoy anchors. I will have to try and get a hardness test on my last batch I "refined".
 
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