Cast Boolits problem

[Deltadart]

I picked up some lead from a scrap yard, which I was told came from a gun crank's estate. These are 1 pound ingots, from the Lyman ingot mold. The guy thought it about 14 BH, and I have purchased lead from him for many years, good guy. When I put it in my RCBS furnace @ 760F, the dross was light grey, almost like lead whipped cream, and granular. Nothing like comes from wheel weights. The lead alloy was also had a thicker viscosity to it, so much that it would barely flow from the bottom port. Wheel weight lead comes thru at this setting very well. Has anyone had any experience with this sort of issue. This was a 10 pound trial run, bullets always had a wrinkle to them. I increase the heat to 790 and no difference. Then added 1 pound ingots of 8 Hb lead in an attempt to dilute. Not much help, I was able to get a decent shiny bullet using the Lyman dipper, but not from the bottom port.

[mehavey]

.... and ...what did the hardness come out as?
Lee BN tester preferred.

Without it -- and a lead thermometer -- you're flying blind no matter what the lead source/furnace dial setting.

[zxcvbob]

It sounds to me like it's contaminated with zinc. BTDT, (some wheel weights are made out of zinc now)

[Pahoo]

When I encounter lead/lead alloy, that is suspect, I do a not so scientific melt test. I use small pieces of "known" pure lead, as my standard. I then take the suspect lead of equal size and equally spaced on and aluminum pan. I place the pan on a low to medium heat and observe the melt time. I may do this as much as three times. I really don't care much about temperature, just observe the melt time. Of course to start, I give the suspect lead the thumb scratch test.

I also use a home made hardness tester that is less accurate. .....

Be Safe !!!

[Hellgate]

It looks like it is contaminated. Hopefully you are casting bullets that are for practice and not match grade. I will add other mixed lead to dilute it to castability and use it for general use. I'd crank up the temperature to get good flow and to heck with frostiness. I have a stash of tin solder that I sometimes toss in to get better fill.

[Deltadart]

I checked the hardness of the bullets and they are 10.7HB according to my Lee tester, mic @ .456 from a Lyman 454-190. Air cooled and aged three days. Also dug out the thermometer to check the furnace setting as mehavey said. I knew that it was off some, but has been a while since I actually used the thermometer. Just set it and forget it mind set. Not good. The furnace is off by nearly 75 degrees. I thought it in the other direction, so apparently I don't know my own furnace. My bad. Anyway I lowered the temperature by 100 degrees and the mixture is much better and flows freely. There was no time to cast, but will do that on Monday and have a much better idea. I did not think about the zinc contamination, but that is a real possibility. These are just for punching paper with the Vaqueros, not for competition.

[Sure Shot Mc Gee]

If only use for target practice. Shoot it. If intended for hunting? Buy from a retailer who has a good reputation in the shooting society.
Not shinny. Lacking tin.

[jdc606]

Originally Posted by Sure Shot Mc Gee

Not shinny. Lacking tin.

I've been shooting mostly .36 cap and ball revolver. Buying the balls pre-made by Speer or Hornady. The Speer are dark but the Hornadys shine. Does that mean the Speer have less tin and are softer? If so, then shucks, the Speer brand are hard to find.

[mehavey]

I'll go out on a limb and say all RB is cast (pretty much) pure lead.
Any "shininess" is just some protecting (oil?) coating.

[Hellgate]

I have tumbled RBs to round out imperfections and tossed in a little powdered graphite and they come out shiny black. I think the Hornadys are tumbled and may have a thin hard wax coating to prevent oxidizing. If you cast your own from soft or pure lead they hold their shine longer if you put them in sealed snack/sandwich bags.

[Hawg]

Back in the late 60's early 70's I cast some round balls that broke in half when they hit something. They looked crystalized inside. I never did figure out what caused it but back then wheelweights were my main source of lead.

[Hellgate]

Hawg,
Back about the same time (late 60s-70s) I salvaged lead from car batteries by draining out the acid, filling back up with water and freezing them for a couple days. Then I smashed them open on the concrete driveway. I melted down the screens inside and cast into roundball for my 58 cal Zouave. If you hit the ball with a hammer it split with the crystal pattern inside. They were like shooting ball bearings and not particularly accurate but shootable. I'm guessing there was calcium or zinc contamination so I marked the ingots as BAT LED by stamping the letters in with a screwdriver. I probably still have an ingot or two laying around.

[zxcvbob]

Car batteries really don't have much lead; they have a lot of lead oxide and sulfate. I think in an emergency I could smelt them down (drain and burn them in the rubber or plastic casings with a lot of charcoal) but it wouldn't be pretty, and it would not be very good lead. It's alloyed with calcium. And maybe more exotic metals now like stronium.

I don't remember the details, but if you mix calcium lead and antimony (or arsenic) lead, you get a lot of "cottage cheese" dross that if it gets wet gives off extremely poisonous gas. Zinc and antimony might do the same thing, I don't know.

If you have lead that's contaminated with zinc, you can't really just dilute it with good lead because a little zinc ruins a lot of lead. You might can use it up by adding just a little to a whole pot of lead. (it might even be a good hardener in small enough amounts, but that would be tiny amounts.

[arcticap]

It just goes to show that you can't trust lead ingots from a scrap yard..

[mehavey]

Batteries:

NO !

Originally Posted by Linstrum

The warnings about smelting automotive batteries to recover the lead they contain needs a bit of explanation. Doing so really does have the potential to harm or even kill you and here is why. Maintenance free/low maintenance batteries use calcium metal-doped lead to catalyze the hydrogen gas generated from water electrolysis back into water. That is what makes the batteries low maintenance or maintenance free, you don't need to add water to the cells as often like in the old days. When the battery lead is melted down there is enough sulfuric acid from residual electrolyte trapped in the lead dioxide and lead framework of the battery plates to react with the small amount of calcium metal in the lead alloy. Normally when sulfuric acid (or water) gets in contact with calcium metal it undergoes a rather vigorous reaction that generates hydrogen gas. In and of itself this is no big deal, hydrogen is a simple non-toxic asphyxiant that is also flammable. But the lead alloy used in batteries also contains a bit of antimony and even arsenic to help harden and strengthen the lead to withstand the vibration and general knocking-about batteries have to withstand in order to survive normal automotive use. When hydrogen comes in contact with arsenic and antimony, or compounds of these two elements, the hydrogen reacts to form ammonia analogues called arsine and stibine, AsH3 and SbH3. Both of these are heavy gases and both have the similar characteristic odors of rotting fish. In World War One the Germans experimented with these, along with phosphine, another rotting-fish-smelling gaseous ammonia analogue with formula PH3, as war gases. As such they were highly effective since they are deadly in amounts too small to easily detect. In even smaller amounts that are too small to immediately kill they cause rather painful lung damage that often eventually leads to emphysema and lung cancer.
So, leave smelting car batteries or using lead smelted from them to professional recyclers. Many folks including myself have successfully smelted batteries and lived to tell about it, but the risk is just too great to mess with the stuff.

http://castboolits.gunloads.com/show...l=1#post440985

[Hawg]

Originally Posted by Hellgate

Hawg,
Back about the same time (late 60s-70s) I salvaged lead from car batteries by draining out the acid, filling back up with water and freezing them for a couple days. Then I smashed them open on the concrete driveway. I melted down the screens inside and cast into roundball for my 58 cal Zouave. If you hit the ball with a hammer it split with the crystal pattern inside. They were like shooting ball bearings and not particularly accurate but shootable. I'm guessing there was calcium or zinc contamination so I marked the ingots as BAT LED by stamping the letters in with a screwdriver. I probably still have an ingot or two laying around.

That might very well have been it. Dad had a junkyard and I did break open a few batteries for lead but it wasn't enough to be worth the effort.

[Sure Shot Mc Gee]

As far manufactured ball. You'd have to ask such Caster's what their lead alloys are so to brighten their cast?

[Deltadart]

I was always told to never use automotive batteries as a source for lead. Far too hazardous fumes. Just dont do it, so I never have in 45 years.

[Hawg]

Originally Posted by Deltadart

I was always told to never use automotive batteries as a source for lead. Far too hazardous fumes. Just dont do it, so I never have in 45 years.

This is true but I didn't know that when I was 12.

[Deltadart]

Hawg
When I was 12 I had a .410, no casting there.
My dad was a plumber, and I used the lead he had back then. I was 20 in '68 when I started casting. I did not know much about it, very little. Just kept trying. Shortly after that I became a U.S. Government employee, no need to cast bullets they furnished all you wanted.