Ending a 40 year hiatus!!

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Ohartless1

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I’m returning to cap and ball plus casting my own ball ammo. Just to start my memory again I tried to do a golly gee and melt/cast some .45 cal ball tonight using a cast iron pot, propane burner and a ladle (ZERO TEMPERATURE CONTROL). I came across something new to me. Prior to fluxing using sawdust, I noticed the pot had a layer on top that could only be described as lead “foam”. It floated on top of the lead and my ladle had a tough time pushing through. This material would not mix back in. Even after fluxing it remained on top and formed a dense floating “foam” and has the appearance and texture of rough, sandy lead colored brownie batter. 40 years ago I cast probably close to 1000 lbs of pounds and this is the first time I’ve come across this. Out of 10 lbs I have about 1 lb of this “scrap”.
Any suggestions what this might be? The lead was recycled from old lead pipes.
 
I wonder if your cast iron pot rusted under the lead from being in storage for 40 years. That rust will just float to the top and cause trouble.
If it is sandy colored I would definitely scrap it.
 
Lead pot/open fire can be done.....if you want to do a year's supply, better just buy the $65 Lee production pot and forego all the issues associated with temp and spills and dipping .....etc....etc....
Casting bullet is a hobby in itself....and it sure compliments the shooting hobby.
20170301_172455.jpg

You can be historically correct if you want. As for me, I like to spend a few winter days casting BP ammo for all my rifles and revolvers conveniently and safely.
20170226_161533.jpg

If you buy into it ....you'll be casting for all your calibers soon enough.
 
If it was gray, and “fluffy”, it’s ZINC!

Bad stuff !
Many wheel weights are made from it due to environmental regulations against lead.
Many states now mandate lead free products to include tire weights.
Iron/steel is used, too.

I use paraffin wax for fluxing. Only way to deal with zinc is to keep fluxing and skimming till it all floats out.
Learn to separate the non lead weights from the lead...
Or, better yet, buy fresh lead from a known source. There are several, including RotoMetals.
Another is to by core pin sprues from RMR reloading.
 
Welcome to the forum Ohartless1.

For lead balls you want pure lead without tin and antimony which harden the lead.

The reason for this is when you press the ball into the cylinder you want to shave off that small lead ring. This means you have a good seal. A hardened ball with tin and or antimony will take more force, thus putting more stress on your loading lever which can be damaged.

Having said this, if tin and antimony are floating to the top mixed in with the dross (impurities) you don’t want to mix that back in; you need to scoop that oatmeal looking mixture out. Now this doesn't mean you got ALL of the tin/antimony out. You still have hardened lead, just not AS hard.

If that were my lead, I would save it for smokeless bullet casting and get a new source of PURE lead for your cap and ball.
 
GooseGestapo said:
If it was gray, and “fluffy”, it’s ZINC!

……….
……..
……..
Click to expand...

This not necessarily true. There is a possibility that zinc may be in the oatmeal mixture on the top, but tin and antimony will do the same; mainly antimony. A good indicator for zinc is a lot of purple color floating on top of the molten lead. Not blue, but purple; though blue may mixed in. Now oil can bring purple color too sometimes, so don’t get that confused with zinc.

Zinc will mess up the pouring valve on bottom pour pots and commercial machines. It must cleaned out completely to get the valves to seat properly.

Zinc is nasty stuff. That’s why I stay away from wheel weights. Now if you have premillennialism wheel weights you are probably ok, otherwise use due diligence when culling your weights.
 
GooseGestapo said:
……………………..ZINC!

Bad stuff !
Many wheel weights are made from it due to environmental regulations against lead.
Many states now mandate lead free products to include tire weights.
Iron/steel is used, too.

I use paraffin wax for fluxing. ………… .,,,,
Learn to separate the non lead weights from the lead...
Or, better yet, buy fresh lead from a known source. There are several, including RotoMetals.
Another is to by core pin sprues from RMR reloading.
Click to expand...


Right on !
 
Could it be you didn't have enough heat and you had a big gob of alloy that was not quite to the liquid state?

Sawdust sucks for flux. It's the popular thing over on the cast boolit site, but I tried it and it sucks as a general purpose flux. I have tried a few various things and I find beeswax to be the best. It offers the longest lasting flux, and lowers the surface tension better than candle wax or sawdust.

I have cast over a fire. It was fun once. It wasnt easy like in the movies. To really do it with any decent amount of success, you need a rocket stove setup. I have smelted WWs over wood fire with a rocket stove setup and it worked pretty good when I have free wood.
 
Last edited:
Armored farmer said:
Lead pot/open fire can be done.....if you want to do a year's supply, better just buy the $65 Lee production pot and forego all the issues associated with temp and spills and dipping .....etc....etc....
Casting bullet is a hobby in itself....and it sure compliments the shooting hobby.
View attachment 1046647

You can be historically correct if you want. As for me, I like to spend a few winter days casting BP ammo for all my rifles and revolvers conveniently and safely.
View attachment 1046646

If you buy into it ....you'll be casting for all your calibers soon enough.
Click to expand...
that gun has a built in reloading press!!! they thought of everything back then
 
Just to clarify
All the lead was sourced from old pipes. (So who knows what was inside them). The cast iron pot had no rust and had been cleaned with potassium hydroxide and a wire wheel then dried and coated with a light covering of cooking oil to make sure no rust developed. The material floating on the very top was crumbly and has a similar weight to lead.
I did go back and cast a couple balls with this material and they both turned out PERFECT. No seam, minimal shrinking, shiny and bright however everyone that has seen them thought they were steel ball bearings. We all know that’s not possible but they did have a steel ring to them and they were HARD. I threw them back into the pot with the rest of the “trash”.
 
After decades of casting - and researching about casting - I honestly have no idea what the "foam" could be. I've never seen anything in my pot that I would describe as "foamy". Perhaps the OP could snap a picture for us, next time.

I will say that I think @Reinz may be closest to the truth here. One of the purposes of flux is to mix the alloy into homogeneity, which is something we don't want for our BP guns. I like to take the pot up to the melting point of lead and then skim off anything that rises to the top. Then I stir the mixture and skim off again. Only then do I flux, and then stir again and skim again. It's a safe bet that anything floating on the mix isn't lead, and should be kept out of our percussion revolvers as much as is possible.
 
I’ve had some off the wall questions that I’ve asked in different forums but I gotta say this is the largest group of wisdom I’ve been able to find. Thank you all so much for your assistance. Once I get up and running with real equipment, I’m sure most of the problems will go away and as I have some updates up post them here. Thanks for all the help.
 
That last description you added makes me think a high antimony alloy. Although pipe usually is soft lead. A very high antimony alloy will clump antimony like you described and doesn't want to mix in without enough tin to make it alloy correctly.
 
Makes sense. I’ve got about 400# that I’ll need to monitor the temperature and clean it up.
 
Makes sense. I’ve got about 400# that I’ll need to monitor the temperature and clean it up.
 
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