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May 15, 2021, 01:54 PM | #1 |
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What to do with contaminated lead?
I have about 30 pounds of lead I salvaged from tire weights but I think I missed a zinc weight and this batch is contaminated. I've had those ingots in a GI ammo can for years and now I need to find a use for them or to get rid of them. Any good ideas?
Tony |
May 15, 2021, 04:28 PM | #2 |
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I sure would not worry about contamination in 30 lbs. Pour it, shoot it.
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May 16, 2021, 08:15 AM | #3 | |
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May 16, 2021, 12:44 PM | #4 |
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There are metal recyclers in most every city if you don’t want to shoot it.
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May 16, 2021, 12:55 PM | #5 |
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Dive weights.
Sell the alloy to a dive shop or diver.
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May 18, 2021, 01:22 AM | #6 |
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Thanx for the suggestions. I don't know of any dive shop around here but I'll look. The last time I tried to cast bullets from this batch of alloy the didn't fill out well. For now I have plenty of good alloy to cast with so I'll get around to dealing with this when I do...
Tony |
May 18, 2021, 07:06 AM | #7 |
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Could it be be used for fishing weight casting?
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May 18, 2021, 07:55 AM | #8 | |
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Quote:
Also, trying to dilute Zinc contaminated bullet casting alloy by adding more pure lead has been reported by some casters as being problematic in that they maintain that it will take great deal of pure lead to dilute the Zinc contamination to the point where cast bullets become usable. |
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May 18, 2021, 08:01 AM | #9 |
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Why not simply toss it in the general household trash? I believe all municipal landfills are lined and this is really not a large amount.
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May 18, 2021, 09:08 AM | #10 |
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cast a few. see how they turn out. If they cast okay. then no worries. if they don't, then there's always the other options. All depends on how much zinc is actually in there.
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May 21, 2021, 01:58 PM | #11 |
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Cast it into small "mini-muffin" ingots and add 1 mini-muffin to every pot when you fill it for casting . In small amounts the zinc has no discernable affect on a large pot 10 - 20 lb. pot ... there is just too little zinc in it to do any harm .
Times are too hard to be throwing any reloading stuff away . Gary |
May 22, 2021, 06:23 AM | #12 | |
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May 22, 2021, 07:10 AM | #13 |
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Oh, Lord. You sound like the commercial fisherman I knew that use to pour used motor oil on his dirt driveway to keep the dust down. You might as well dump sewage into the Bay; he finally got the message.
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May 22, 2021, 08:12 AM | #14 |
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I had an Aunt that put used motor oil on the dirt road in front of her house to keep the dust down. Worked great. You would get locked up for doing that nowadays. I never could understand all the hoopla. The oil and lead originated in the ground, whats wrong with putting it back where it came from. I pump water out of the ground to water my lawn and nobody says anything.
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May 22, 2021, 09:50 AM | #15 | |
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Tony |
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May 22, 2021, 10:03 AM | #16 |
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How do you know you have zinc in it? I found when melting down wheel weights that the wheel weights of lead melted much sooner than zinc and the zinc weight floated out. If I remember right, that would be good!, zinc melts at 850* and lead at something like 600*. I never smelter lead at over 650* and actually no problem with zinc, at 650* the zinc won't melt!
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May 22, 2021, 10:10 AM | #17 | |
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May 22, 2021, 10:11 AM | #18 | |
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May 23, 2021, 10:01 AM | #19 |
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What makes you think I had a temperature controlled furnace to melt it? I used a stainless steel pan on a camp stove. I'm pretty sure I melted at least one zinc wheel weight in the mix. I can't get good bullets from this alloy even with my best molds.
I might mix it in with better alloy someday or it might just sit in that GI ammo can for the rest of my days. Tony |
May 23, 2021, 11:28 AM | #20 |
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Tony,
Some advice for melting clip-on wheel weights in the future. Test them with a pair of side cutter pliers. If you can put a dent in them with the side cutter, they are lead; if you can't, they ain't. Don
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May 24, 2021, 01:34 AM | #21 |
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That's one of the many things I learnt too late... I have another bucket of wheel weights that I need to smelt down and I can gurandamtee you that I won't make that mistake again.
I have one forklift ballast plate and if I can break it down to melt into ingots, I might mix it in with the contaminated lead. That should be a 4 to one clean lead to iffy lead alloy mix. I could also toss in one of those bars of pure tin I have lying around. This also assumes I scrounge up melting pot large enough for all of it... I hate tossing lead and that's why I kept this 1/2 a GI ammo can of iffy quality ingots though my last move... It would have been a lot easier to have gotten rid of them than bringing them to my new digs. Tony |
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