Next phase of reloading, casting.

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Weber

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Getting into the next phase of reloading for me. Collected my first score of wheel weights, almost 100lbs.

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Okay, and here's your first bit of advice: separate the clip-on and stick-on wheel weights and smelt them separately. They are a completely different hardness (~ a BHN of 5 or 6 for stick-on's, and about a BHN of 11 for the clip-on's.

Don
 
I have everything for making ingots, and I'm working on getting the rest.

My focus right now is to make as many ingots as I can, while I have a good supply of wheel weights.
 
I actually smelt and cast out of the same pot. Yeah, it gets a little dirty but I've not had any problems.

I agree on separating the stick ons from the clip ons.
If I'm loading low velocity stuff like .40 and .38 Spcl I use a 50/50 mix of stick ons to clip ons.
For stuff like heavy .45 Colt loads and 9mm stuff, I use straight clip ons.
 
I noticed a few steel clip ons in the mix. They're not really problematic, you can just scoop 'em off the top of the melt along with the clips.

I didn't notice any obvious zinc weights, but it's very likely that you've got a few in there. Unlike steel, zinc can melt and alloy with your lead and turn it into a concoction with the casting qualities of overcooked oatmeal.

There are several ways to keep this from happening.
#1- Use a good quality casting thermometer and don't let your melt get over 700 degrees, 650 is even better.
#2- Drop your wheelweights end first on a concrete surface, a low pitched "thunk" or "thud" means lead, a high pitched "tink" means zinc.
#3- Pick the weights up individually with a pair of dykes and try to cut them, if they dent or cut easily, they're lead, if they don't, they're not.

I use method #3 followed by method #1 and haven't had any problems with zinc contamination since I started doing it that way.

DO NOT trust the thermostat on your pot to keep the temps low enough! Use a good casting thermometer made for the job. This is the advice of an experienced oatmeal chef!

95% of the zinc weights I've found have been marked with a "Zn" somewhere on the weight, but I've run across a few clip ons and a bunch of stick ons that weren't marked at all.

The advice given above about separating the stick ons from the clip ons is dead on. Straight clip ons are good for 90% of what you'll cast, but a stash of essentially pure lead is great if you ever want to play around with soft nose hard cast bullets for hunting.

Welcome to the addiction!
 
Casting is great. I use a 54k BTU turkey fry propane burner and a cast iron pot. Don't take short cuts and don't take anything for granted. I use one pot for everything and don't use a thermometer. You can figure out pretty quick if the pot needs to be hotter or cooler. I melt slow with wheel weights and the zinc stays on top and I remove it without it melting. Easy enough. It is a real pleasure.
 
If you melt it with a flame, make sure you have a thermometer or you could ruin your melt with an accidental Zink weight
 
A couple of things I've learned:

Since zinc weights don't melt until about 785°, I don't bother sorting them. They all, without exception, float to the top so long as I smelt at around 650° -700°.

You really do need a thermometer. One overlooked source are digital voltmeters. Most of them nowadays have a means to plug in a temperature probe as did mine. So I bought a temp probe for my meter for less than the price of a lead thermometer.

Stick on weights are indeed pure lead. Thing is I've never had enough of them in a 5 gallon bucket to matter. Even if you had half stick-on weights and melted them with your clip on weights, your alloy is going to be about 9.5 Bhn as opposed to 11 - 12 Bhn of clip on weights. I've verified this time and again with a hardness tester. Unless your casting for a rifle and plan on running them 1200+ fps, or more, 9.5 Bhn is fine. I cast all my hollowpoints at this hardness and run the bullets right up to 1000 fps with zero leading.

Your going to loose roughly 15% of the gross weight of the lead when you smelt it. Still, you should end up with 80+ lbs. of ingots from your bucket.

Have fun!

35W
 
Lee makes some decent casting stuff. Their bottom pour pots, moulds, and harness testers are very serviceable for their low cost. I like a more traditional lube so I bought a Lyman luber sizer, but if you don't mind lee's 'all over' lube, they even make a ver inexpensive sizing solution.
 
Good Score! I never separated the stick-ons from the clip-ons in the past. Mostly because I never found enough stick-ons to matter and I have a source for soft lead. Now I do because I'm finding more and more stick-ons. Beware of the Zinc, and I'm seeing a few in your bucket.

I spent an afternoon smelting, a few weeks ago. I'll try to post up a few pics, later. Ended up with about 750# of ingots. Waiting on another pretty day to do it again. I have about 500# of cable sheathing and probably 700# of WW to sort for the next smelt. Lightman
 
All these years I thought Beauty Is In The Eye Of The Beer-Holder.

Pour the weights out onto a piece of cardboard and pull all the other crap out that you don't want in your pot like valve stems and caps.
 
Last edited:
I mix all of the wheel weights together. After eliminating the Zinc of course. The BHN usually falls between 12 and 18. I like to cast bullets at BHN of 10 to 11. So all I do is add pure lead till I hit my desired number.
 
I mix all of the wheel weights together. After eliminating the Zinc of course. The BHN usually falls between 12 and 18. I like to cast bullets at BHN of 10 to 11. So all I do is add pure lead till I hit my desired number.
Click to expand...

Please explain how mixing stick-on wheelweights with a BHN of about 5 with clip-on wheelweights with a BHN of about 11, you end up with an alloy of 12 - 18? Physically impossible unless you are talking about water dropping a bullet from that alloy and then measuring it.

Don
 
david bachelder said:
I mix all of the wheel weights together. After eliminating the Zinc of course. The BHN usually falls between 12 and 18. I like to cast bullets at BHN of 10 to 11. So all I do is add pure lead till I hit my desired number.
Click to expand...
How did you determine your Bhn? I'd think it really difficult to go over 12 Bhn with WW's.

35W
 
35 whelen, I'm an electrician, and have several different voltmeters. Do you have any problems with the temp probe/wire overheating or with your meter going to sleep? Lightman
 
I'm an electrician too and keep a Craftsman meter here at the house. I only use the temp probe when I'm smelting to make sure temps stay down well below the melting point of zinc. The hot alloy did melt the end of the temp probe exposing the element, but that didn't hurt anything.

35W
 
Congrats on the find Weber! I enjoy the cast boolits process as much as I do the reloading process.

The Dove
 
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