Melting wheel weights for casting bullets?

[RT2506]

All these post are good. I use the gas burner from a turkey cooker with a large cast iron pot to melt my wheel weights. I do this outside. Put wheel weights in the pot turn up the heat and when they melt I drop in a chunk of bees wax which will burn and smoke but I start stirring the pot slowly with a metal spoon with a wooden handle on it to flux the melt. I then use the spoon to skim all the clips and trash off and then drop some more bees wax into the pot and stir again. Then I use a metal dipper to dip the lead out and pour it into an ALUMINUM cup cake pan. The lead will pop right out of the ALUMINUM pan but will not come out of a metal pan I learned the hard way . These stack good and store easy.

 

[LoneTraveler]

The Fluxing (Using bullet lube, candle wax or bees wax), makes the tin and antimony mix back in with the lead to, Tin and antimony being lighter float to the top of lead and must be remixed back into the lead to make a true alloy. If you just scrape the skim off the melted lead you are taking the hardening goodies out of the alloy. For rifle bullets I use 9 lb. Wheel Weights and 1 lb. bar of 50/50 Solder.

I started cleaning up WW and pouring the alloy in muffin tins, Then at a Flea Market one day I found a Cast Iron pan, What I have hear called a mush pan. It makes 12 sticks at once. each about 6 inches long X 1" D shape weighs 1 1/4 lb. is great, Lay these on the furnace edge to get warmed up and get any moisture out of the ingot. Then just stand in the back of furnace and keep casting.

RULE 1 OF BULLET CASTING. PLACE RECLAIMED BULLETS IN A COLD POT AND HEAT TILL MELTED. If you have melted alloy in the pot and dump recovered bullets in LOOK OUT. Any Hollow base wad cutter bullets or hollow point bullets will have mud and moisture in their cavities will make instant steam and blow up in your face. Be careful.

When I went to work as a Wildlife Officer in 1971, I went into Bullet Casting to turn Wheel Weights into usable bullets for my service pistol. A local gunsmith I bought my first bullet mould from was into shooting cast bullets in his center fire rifles, and got me hooked. I shoot cast bullets in my 270 Win, 308, 300 WSM and 338 WM. as well as 45,40, 38 and 357 pistols. My 300 WSM shoots sub 1" groups with cast bullets at 100 meters. Though low and to the right from hunting bullet Zero. The load is a 168 gr. cast gas check bullet and IMR 4198 from LYMAN on line data.

I was looking for some of the new lube at the time ALOX had just hit the market. Old Chuck gave me some of his own home brewed bullet lube. I asked him how good it was. He said it is sort of dirty but stay under 2400 FPS it will do great. It uses bees wax, Vasaline and powdered graphite and works just like he said. I have had no problem with leading with this lube.

 

[Bill Johnson]

All these post are good. I use the gas burner from a turkey cooker with a large cast iron pot to melt my wheel weights. I do this outside. Put wheel weights in the pot turn up the heat and when they melt I drop in a chunk of bees wax which will burn and smoke but I start stirring the pot slowly with a metal spoon with a wooden handle on it to flux the melt. I then use the spoon to skim all the clips and trash off and then drop some more bees wax into the pot and stir again. Then I use a metal dipper to dip the lead out and pour it into an ALUMINUM cup cake pan. The lead will pop right out of the ALUMINUM pan but will not come out of a metal pan I learned the hard way . These stack good and store easy.

That's exactly the route I took! This is what I got:

King Kooker 54,000 BTU Bolt Together Propane Gas Outdoor Cooker with 6 qt. Cast Iron Pot, Aluminum Basket and Lid-1644 - The Home Depot

although it was about $60 when I got it. It will hold about 100# of lead alloy. One advantage of this, besides keeping the junk out of your casting pot, is if you make 100# batches, you will have a large, very consistent alloy for repeatable results.

One other thing, sawdust works much better as a flux than beeswax. There's technical reasons for this and I would heartily recommend you download and read From Ingot to Target: A Cast Bullet Guide for Handgunners

You can download it here: Cast bullet reference on lead alloy's, min / max pressure, lube, shrinkage,

I've been in the casting game over 35 years and this is, by far, one of the best books on the subject ever to come out, and it's absolutely free.
:

 

[Canadian Bushman]

I dont wanna start a which is better argument, or encourage one but i would like to know why some of you believe sawdust removes antimony from the melt. I have no evidence to believe this is true.

 

[MR T]

Found a new forearm workout.lightbulb

 

[Canadian Bushman]

Found a new forearm workout.lightbulb
View attachment 44661

It kinda sucks when you got a bucket full but it really makes those zn weights stand out huh?

 

[Kennibear]

If you can find a chemical supply house or old school apothecary try ammonium chloride. It is like salt but will reduce the dross (trash) into its original metal, that is turn the oxides back to tin, antimony etc. I bought a 1# can from Fisher Scientific years ago and still have half. You can put it in a salt shaker and use it that way. DO NOT USE IT TO FLUX THE METAL IN YOUR FURNACE!!!!!! This stuff is corrosive as acid and will kill your casting furnace the first time you use it. OUTSIDE USE ONLY! The fumes are deadly. Use it in your smelting pot outside only. I have a cast aluminum pot (garage sale $2) and use a camping stove. The ingot moulds are not that much so I have one and made one.

The Ammomium Chloride will alloy crude antimony into the lead @ 1000F. Without it you have to get much hotter. I have 140# of first pass electrolytic antimony that has a smidge of arsenic(3%) and traces of silver and gold. It "inoculates" the alloy with arsenic to enhance the water hardening (also known as "chilling the lead"). That source dried up so don't ask for it.

If you use straight WW drop from the mould into water. Be careful doing this but I have without problems for decades. Size to final diameter and reheat the bullets to just before melting and drop them into water again. Lube them in a sizing die about 0.002" larger so as not to damage the harden surface. WW done this way are almost as hard as straight Linotype and chilled twice after sizing will be as hard or harder than Linotype. Alox NRA formula all the way. Tried everything else including many "secret formulas" and NRA Alox/Beeswax is consistant and unsurpased. The other lubes try to be just as good but they will never be better. They smoke a little less on firing but that's about it.

Get Lyman's book on this and save yourself the learning curve.

On my next post we can talk "triple chilled binary eutectic antimony/lead alloy with arsenic and silver/gold inoculations and their hardness".

It will be fascinating



Really.....

KB