[cajun47]

i found my grandfather's little lead pot and i put a little lead in there and put that on a crawfish boiler using butane. nothing is happening.

also, just for target practice can i use lead from batteries to make 9mm and .44 bullets? i have a huge deep cycle battery burning in the back yard and i'll get the lead later. gotta go check on those fires! bye.

[The Bushmaster]

I would not use that battery lead because of the sulphuric acid that it has been bathing in during its life of service. :scrutiny:

[ATAShooter]

Sulphuric Acid + heat= not good.

[cajun47]

how long it takes to melt lead?

[ReloaderFred]

You'll have to reach a temperature of approximately 600 degrees to melt your lead. Whatever you do, don't use the battery lead for casting bullets! The acid can't be removed from the lead and it will damage your bore. After casting, the bullets will get a frosted coating on them from the acid leaching out. Just forget about the battery lead and get some wheelweights and use those for casting your bullets.

Hope this helps.

Fred

[cajun47]

roger. no battery lead. i turned up the butane all the way.

[Walkalong]

I had to cut a piece of iron pipe to go around my lead pot on my homemade heater to help hold the heat in. It would not get hot enough without it but worked fine with it. If this does not make sense, I can email a pic. :)

[fecmech]

The acid is the least of your worries. I believe all the batteries made in the last 10-15 years have Cadmium in the plates which is something you don't want to breathing the fumes of when it's molten. Stick to wheel weights, roofing lead etc, stay away from the car batteries.

[cajun47]

i melted a little lead i found with the pot. worked great when i turned up the burner all the way.

now where is a good place to order bullet moles(sp). i want to start with 9mm, .44mag, and is it alright to shoot lead bullets in my ak? it should clean out the same as handguns?

should i oil the pot? its rusty. i buffed it already.

can i melt gold or silver in that pot? i would love to turn my wedding ring into a 9mm bullet. i have some silver spoons i would like to turn into bullets, not that im afraid of werewolves, i rather have silver bullets than spoons though.

[ZeSpectre]

Lead melts at 622 degrees. A typical butane/air burner can reach about 1800-2000 degrees in the flame but with losses to the crucible and air you are probably going to get about 800-900 degrees max out of it. It should melt the lead but you will probably need to turn it all the way up.

Silver has a melting point of around 1,760 degrees and also cools really fast so it is very hard to cast. I really doubt your current arrangement would be capable of doing the job.

Gold melts at just a touch under 1,950 degrees. See silver comments above.

You don't say what your crucible is made of but probably iron or steel (melting point of 1,500-2,700 degrees) or iron (2,795 degrees) so obviously a steel crucible won't work very well for gold or silver smelting.

That's about as much as I can add to this

[okeybug]

Is your pot getting hot? It's either your pot or you don't have lead. Get an RCBS or Lee pot and it shouldn't take over 30 minutes at the most to get things melted. The only thing that people might have in their homes that will melt gold or silver is a ceramics kiln. Your much better off using wheel weights with a little lynotype in it. Battery plates will explode getting acid all over you. Messy!!

[wolf_from_wv]

I wouldn't oil it...

No water near it either!!!!

[GRB]

I would be very careful about burning any type of battery containing lead and acid like a car battery. I have seent he results of a car battery that exploded. The scars on the mechanics hands, arms, chest and face are there for life, he was lucky to live, and maybe even luckier he had been wearing safety glasses when it blew up.

[griz]

Try Midway or Midsouth for molds. Lee brand molds are aluminum, inexpensive, and work well. Lyman and RCBS (and others that are less common) make steel molds that will last longer but cost about two or three times as much.

And if you don't already know, DO NOT let molten lead and water get close to each other. The water flashes to stean and sprays lead all over the place. It hurts. Also wear safety glasses. Gloves are good idea too.

[Chawbaccer]

Get a piece of stove pipe that fits around your lead pot and a piece of scrap metal for a lid, that will keep the heat around the pot and your lead will melt much faster. Forget the battery, lots of lead compounds are released when they burn, non of them are good for you.

[RustyFN]

can i melt gold or silver in that pot? i would love to turn my wedding ring into a 9mm bullet. i have some silver spoons i would like to turn into bullets, not that im afraid of werewolves, i rather have silver bullets than spoons though.
Yea but you never know when a vampire might show up.:D
Rusty

[EddieCoyle]

i melted a little lead i found with the pot. worked great when i turned up the burner all the way.

now where is a good place to order bullet moles(sp). i want to start with 9mm, .44mag, and is it alright to shoot lead bullets in my ak? it should clean out the same as handguns?

should i oil the pot? its rusty. i buffed it already.

can i melt gold or silver in that pot? i would love to turn my wedding ring into a 9mm bullet. i have some silver spoons i would like to turn into bullets, not that im afraid of werewolves, i rather have silver bullets than spoons though.

You melted the lead before you got a mold?

If you're serious about casting, before you kill yourself with acid or toxic fumes, you should read up here (http://castboolits.gunloads.com/).

Since lead apparently has a higher melting point than crawfish, you also might want to look into getting a furnace designed for bullet casting. You'll save money in the end by not burning so much butane. (Is it really butane and not propane? If so, you're spending way too much unless you get it for free.)

Just for the record, if you have silver spoons that you don't want, simply sell them and buy 4 times more real bullets than you could make by melting them down.

[.41Dave]

Silver is very hard to cast for bullets. It melts at a high temp, cools very quickly, and there is significant shrinkage as it cools, so any bullets cast in standard molds will be significantly undersized. You would need to determine the amount of shrinkage and order oversized custom molds.

[snowtigger]

Several years ago, I set out to make some silver bullets. Everything i read said it was no go.
I had some .999 fine silver ingots and a pot that would only go to 1100 degrees. (at that temp lead is really giving off fumes, be careful, it is about to boil) . I floated one of the ingots on the lead. After a few minutes, it started to melt, so i put the rest of the silver in the pot. It took a while, but it eventually alloyed with the lead. I don;t have pure silver bullets, but i ended up with a 6% silver alloy. IT CASTS AT ABOUT 800-850 DEGREES.
They shine up really nice. I don't know what the hardness is, but it is pretty dang hard. It also stands up to a hammer test very well, deforming, but not fracturing.


PS Cost is not the object, the journey to the outcome is.... You want silver bullets, go ahead and make silver bullets. BE CAREFUL THAT ALLOY IS VERY HOT.

[Lucky]

That's cool! I wondered about throwing silver solder in there, but your experiment is better! Could I ask what equipment you used?

[agd1953]

cajun47 is, 1) pulling your leg. 2) the only pot he has is not for melting lead or ) is stiffing the fumes from the battries he has burning :D :D :D

[highlander 5]

Buy one of the Lyman cast bullet manuals loads of useful info
For an electric pot I use an RCBS has a lot more room underneath and has fit every mold I have even LBT

[The_Antibubba]

Said RustyFN:
Yea but you never know when a vampire might show up.

You really shouldn't post such dangerous information in a reloading forum! :mad:

Silver is for Werewolves. For Vampires, you want the wooden bullets or the Garlic-tipped.

It's very important to post the correct data for specific loads. You don't want to be held responsible for someone ending up undead, do you?

:scrutiny:

[snowtigger]

Lucky, I used a Lee 4-20 pot about 1/4 full. It gets a lot hotter when it's only partly full. It took a while to reach these temperatures, but it worked.

[skinnyguy]

I like the idea of melting the wedding ring into a bullet. I got "fired" from my marriage after 13 years about 9 years ago, and that lady has been a pain ever since. The wedding ring into a bullet idea would be quite appropriate.

Using precious metals brings to mind an off-the-wall question though. How possible would it be to mount a diamond or ruby into the tip of a precious metal bullet? Not for use, obviously, but for display.

[GooseGestapo]

Don't get caught burning the batteries either.

They're considered hazmat, and improper disposal can get you 6-12mos in the County Jail.
I put a few in the slammer for it myself!!!
Ditto burning tires.
Ditto burning wire/cable for the lead sheathing.

(I got a real dirty look from my captain when we were going through the training on the new laws on environmental protection when they came out ~15yrs ago. I commented that when working in DNR I expected to do a lot of different things: but I never expected to be checking folks for a license to take out the garbage, or "over the limit" for used tires !!!

In fact, burning anything but vegetation is illegal now in most states. And even that requires a permit!!!

Like the poster mentioned regarding selling the silver; recycle your batteries and get wheelweights from the tire/battery shop. Be sure not to make too much "black smoke", as the neighbors might complain !!!

[SSN Vet]

i would love to turn my wedding ring into a 9mm bullet

:what:

and just what would you like to do with that bullet?

No wait.....don't tell me :o