Melt Day

[bersaguy]

Had a productive day today. Melted down about 35lbs of wheel weights along with most of my stash of rejects. Had an additional 15 or so lbs of stick on weights and melted those down with some of my older muffin ingots of soft lead. Still have enough weights for another full melt. I had bought some casting alloy from Acme before the covid times started. I threw about 8 or 9lbs in with my clip on weights, definitely brought the hardness up, think I will do the same with the next melt. Should be good for quite a while.
Puts me at a little over 50lbs of ingots done, another 40lbs to melt with 35 or so lbs of Acme lead leftover. Not to mention the 25lbs of dead soft lead
My first run melting lead I only had wheel weights, so that was all I had in my finished alloy, I think they ran a little on the soft side. They all dropped heavier than than the mold stated, ie my 228s dropped 232ish+, my 125s dropped 130ish From what I can gather COWW tend to run somewhere in the 9-12 BHN range, ACME says their alloy is BHN 16, I'm hoping I wind up somewhere in the 10-14 BHN range with what I did today. Now I have to gear up for a marathon casting day

 

[Hooda Thunkit]

I've always enjoyed rendering the bulk/dirty lead and casting into ingots (ingotizing? Is that a word?). I don't know why.
Maybe because I start with a bunch of nasty ugly crap, and turn it into something that can be stacked and admired.

Good job on the rendering/alloying. I hope it works out the way you plan.

Melting stuff is fun !

 

[Soonerpesek]

Looks like you wore your helper out...
He probably needs some treats...

 

[FROGO207]

Good deal there!
I usually wait until the weather cools off a bit so the sweating is to a minimum. I have a couple hundred pounds to work up into ingots later this fall myself.

 

[AJC1]

I believe most drop weights are tuned to lyman #2 alloy. If your shooting a high pressure cartridge like 9mm that may be required. 38 and 45 seem to do well in the 10bhn range. So far 11 seems ok in 357 when powder coated.

 

[EMC45]

I've tested clip-on wheel weight bullets through the years with my SAECO bullet tester and they have always came up at Lyman #2. Stick-on wheel weights are nearly pure lead and I use them for 12ga slugs and buckshot.

I've killed critters and tons of paper with clip-on bullets and they've worked perfectly.

 

[cfullgraf]

ingotizing?

I like it whether it is a word or not.

 

[lightman]

I call it smelting, although thats not the correct term. I save my scrap all year and a buddy and I get together after hunting season is over and melt our years accumulation. I melt in batches of between 350 and 400 pounds. This gives me a pretty large consistent batch to cast from.

I actually enjoy it. I also enjoy the hunt and satisfaction of finding scrap. I use mostly wheelweights.