Wheel Weight Metal composition
Gents:
Finally taking the plunge into bullet casting, and thus scrounging wheel weights as the usual raw materials. Getting harder to find here in CA, as they outlawed the lead ones a year or so ago, so when you get a bucket from a tire store almost half of the "take" is either zinc or steel, which you need to cull out.
I had one bucket that was very old stock that was donated to me from a friend - these had been sitting in his garage for over 20 years! They melted down very "smoothly" and "clear", and made nice, defined ingots that have cast excellent, well filled out bullets.
I just got two more buckets from scrounging around the local tire stores, and I noticed that almost half of the lead ones were coated in some sort of galvanizing (must be some sort of zinc too?) that you could actually "peel off" (most of it) if you smashed it with a hammer. I tried this because when I melted it down with the coating on, it made for a very "porridge-like" mixture that only "cleared up" when you were at peak tempurature, and the ingots cooled to a somewhat "frosty" appearance (no, the metal was not TOO hot! I know about that) that didn't have the same defined casting characteristics of the older stuff. I cast some bullets with it, and they were "OK", (just "OK"), but not as "clean" and "defined" as bullets cast from the older stock without the coating.
What can be done about that coating? Is that another "CA thing" that was done in a legislated attempt at "containing" the lead? If I have to go to commercially prepared alloys I'll be losing the cost-effectiveness of casting in the first place! HELP!
Finally taking the plunge into bullet casting, and thus scrounging wheel weights as the usual raw materials. Getting harder to find here in CA, as they outlawed the lead ones a year or so ago, so when you get a bucket from a tire store almost half of the "take" is either zinc or steel, which you need to cull out.
I had one bucket that was very old stock that was donated to me from a friend - these had been sitting in his garage for over 20 years! They melted down very "smoothly" and "clear", and made nice, defined ingots that have cast excellent, well filled out bullets.
I just got two more buckets from scrounging around the local tire stores, and I noticed that almost half of the lead ones were coated in some sort of galvanizing (must be some sort of zinc too?) that you could actually "peel off" (most of it) if you smashed it with a hammer. I tried this because when I melted it down with the coating on, it made for a very "porridge-like" mixture that only "cleared up" when you were at peak tempurature, and the ingots cooled to a somewhat "frosty" appearance (no, the metal was not TOO hot! I know about that) that didn't have the same defined casting characteristics of the older stuff. I cast some bullets with it, and they were "OK", (just "OK"), but not as "clean" and "defined" as bullets cast from the older stock without the coating.
What can be done about that coating? Is that another "CA thing" that was done in a legislated attempt at "containing" the lead? If I have to go to commercially prepared alloys I'll be losing the cost-effectiveness of casting in the first place! HELP!
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Hi, Max2005,
I have collected WW lead and it works great as is for most applications. OR, like CA is ruled by a bunch of ecofreak greenies and may have already outlawed lead WW here too. I was given about 100 lbs of ingot battery lead, but haven't tried casting with it yet. Salvaging lead from old batteries is a toxic dirty job--not really worth it unless you are really desperate or set up for it. Most of my lead is backstop lead from 3 gun ranges. I use old cast bullets, which are usually hard, for casting. Soft lead from jacketed bullets and black powder balls/bullets goes for swaging, which I am just starting to get into. I ran into 50 lb. of linotype (very hard) lead a while ago for $40 so I grabbed that, although it will probably need to be alloyed with some softer lead and additional tin to make the best bullets. It is surprising how much backstop lead can be found. I just pick up what can be seen, but if you want a lot, take a shovel and a heavy sieve or old colander. On most ranges, you can pick up a lot of it in a short time. It is dirty, so I run it with tap water in my rotary tumblers for an hour or so, and then rinse it off. I used to add some soap to the tumbler, but it makes the lead corrode if it sits very long, so I stopped doing that. It comes out very clean and doesn't make a muddy mess in your lead pot. Then I just sort jacketed/lead bullets out and cast into ingots. Run a magnet through them to pull out the steel jacketed stuff. Anymore, I pitch the plated bullets--they are too much hassle. The old jackets and any bad brass you find can be sold for scrap. I stamp H or S on the ingots for hard and soft, although the fingernail test works well if you don't have a lead hardness tester (I don't.)
Have fun with it.0 -
Just a note.....
If you wash jacketed bullets with water, make sure they are COMPLETELY DRY before they are introduced into the melting pot....At 700-800 degrees F any residual water will instantly flash to steam and you'll be cleaning lead off of the ceiling....Hopefully only the ceiling...Been there seen that!! A friend was really lucky he was wearing a hat, gloves,safety glases and a face shield.... The clothes dryer the pot was on and the garage ceiling weren't as lucky
Be careful...
JIM............0 -
I for one will never attempt to wash range scrap. Water will get trapped between jacket and lead months later you get steam and molten lead will sputter off you and walls ceiling. Instead I suggest get an old cast iron dutch oven "from GoodWill" a car type 120 volt Vacuum cleaner a piece of thin wall metal tube to hook up to the blowing output of Vacuum a dozen bricks and a bag of charcoal. Plus a muffin tin "also from Goodwill. This will let you make a Forge type fire box to melt large amounts of lead very quickly . start from cold pot and fill with scrap then start fire and let scrap slowly get hot enough to melt use an old large kitchen spoon to skim off dirt, steel, bullet jackets. Then pour off lead into muffin tin. make good size ingots. NEVER drop scrap lead into liquid lead. 0 -
Max, if you have several "buckets" full of w.w. lead, you are going to have to do a lot of shooting to use up all that lead in your life time, waaaaaay back when (abt. 40-50 years ago) i was scrounging for lead in about 2-3 years i had 6, 5 gal. buckets full of w.w. and bullet lead, they weighed in at 90-100 lbs. i started to melt it all down, poured in into Lyman & SAECO molds, got several hundred ingots, then one day a friend of mine who worked at General Atomics asked me if i wanted some pure lead ingots that were salvaged from a fire, got 22, 25 lb. ingots, the area of the fire had maybe a ton of melted then solidified lead on the floor.., any ways my friend, i still have 8 of those pure lead ingots and maybe 60-70 Lyman ingots, i started shooting rifles more than hand guns about 15 years ago. i have not cast a bullet in over 30 years because when i did cast bullets i done them by the thousands, i still have hundreds of .30 cal., .357 cal., .44 cal., .45 cal., bullets that i probably will never use......,
Sooooo, to make a long story short, you will have enuff lead to last a life time of shooting if you have 300-500 lbs. of lead.0 -
Add a little tin solder if you want your bullets to pour and fill out well. 0 -
I think it is some sort of plastic cloating. Gloppy, but will burn off eventually. 0 -
You do not say what kind of bullets you will be casting or what they will be used for. If just plinking then use whatever you can find and make it work.
If your interested in accuracy as in sub-MOA stay far away from any wheel-weights. Even the so called "Lead" ones have a lot of crap in them that you can not remove by melting.
Ten-shots at 100 yards with lead-tin bullets, no wheel weights ever.
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Gents:
Once again you all came through with great suggestions; I think I know what to do now to make it all work.
BYW, using this stuff for pistol practice / plinking bullets; just the raw materials to keep the "BOOM" going down range!
I also have a supply of pure sheet lead that was given to me by a plumber friend who was working on the renovation of the Leland Stanford Governor's mansion here in Sacramento a while back - geat to mix with 50/50 for more "refined" bullets, and also those that need to be at a 40:1 ratio for those old 41 and 38 long colt calibers (and 455 webley too). Great fun!0
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