Wheel Weights --- Stick-on vs. Clip-on for bullet casting

[Southern Shooter]

Today, while waiting on my car to be repaired, I asked the auto shop owner what he did with his wheel weights. Well, in the end he gave me 3 five gallon buckets full of Stick-on and Clip-on wheel weights...for free. I am not sure what kind of money this will have saved me. But, figured I should take them.

Anyway, is there a difference between the two "leads" for casting bullets in the .38 Special/.357 Magnum and .44 Magnum? Would this lead work? Do I need to mix them?

Did I do well by landing this stuff?

Thanks

 

[Ridgerunner665]

Yes...you did well.

You'll have to watch out for zinc and steel weights.

IIRC (I'm new too) stick on weights contain more lead...

 

[Rollis R. Karvellis]

I do believe it's the stick on type that will be zinc or steel. Check over at GlockPost, there a bunch of lead whores, plenty of good info.

 

[ReloaderFred]

The stick on weights, with the double sided tape on the back, will be for the most part pure lead. The wheel weights with steel clips will probably be a combination of lead for older weights, zinc in some of the newer ones, and steel in some of the newer ones.

Any weight that has the clip riveted to it should be discarded, since these will be either steel or zinc. They will also have a distinctive "clink" when dropped on concrete. Some zinc weights won't be riveted, but will still "clink" when dropped.

When you sift through your treasure trove, and that's what it is, take out all the tire stems, labels and other debris. You'll need to smelt this lead down to remove the clips and impurities, such as grease and dirt. Don't get your melt over 700 degrees or you'll melt the zinc and ruin the alloy. When the weights start to melt, any that won't melt with the rest and are floating on top of the melt, are either zinc or steel, since they're lighter than lead and will float. Remove them right away and when you get sufficient lead melted, stir in some sawdust and let it burn. The resultant charcoal will flux the alloy when stirred and the impurities will float to the top and can be skimmed off.

Straight wheel weights make fine bullets without any other alloy being added, unless you're going to push your .44 Magnum as hot as possible.

There is a mountain of information on bullet casting at this site: http://castboolits.gunloads.com/

If all this is a little overwhelming, you can always ship that lead out west and I'll convert it into bullets and let you know how well they shot....... I'd even pay the shipping!

Hope this helps.

Fred

 

[dagger dog]

The stick on weights will be almost pure lead, and have a double sided tape attached, so separate them and smelt them as a batch.

The clip weights can be sorted by sight to start, the steel or iron will be stamped FE, the zinc can be sorted when smelting by watching the melt, steel, zinc, any others will float on top of the lead melt.

Get a thermometer, and watch the temp, as the batch starts to melt at @ 650-700 the lead will become liquid and the non PB will float on top of the melted PB.

Keep the smelting temp below 700 degrees and zinc contamination won't be a problem, all clips, and zinc weights will float to the top of the mix and you can skim them off with a strainer.

Save your stick ons for muzzle loader round balls, or mix with tin and wheel weights to get the correct alloy to harden enough to shoot at higher velocities.

The arsenic that is present in the wheel weights is the controlling factor for hardness, I have found that water quenched wheel weight mix, will withstand , with the proper lube which is usually VERY STICKY,( 50% bees wax and the other half being what ever you have on hand alox,lanolin,paraffin,etc) velocities in the 1,000 FPS range with out leading ,add a gas check and you can go higher.

A lot of leading problems are not a LEAD MIX problem, but are from dimensional differences in throat, or chamber, to barrel diameter. The hot gas blowing by and melting the base of an ill fitting bullet.

Smelt your raw lead and flux it enough so it is CLEAN, pour that into ingots, then you are ready to cast.

I have found that casting the cleaned wheel weight mix at temp's above 800 degrees gives the best results in PRE-HEATED,aluminum, steel,or cast iron moulds.
I cast and drop into a full 5 gallon bucket of water with a pad at the bottom of the bucket.

 

[Bluehawk]

The arsenic that is present in the wheel weights is the controlling factor for hardness

I thought it was either the antimony or tin!!! Somebody needs to tell Lyman and RCBS they have been wrong all these years! :banghead:

 

[Walkalong]

The Antimony contains the Arsenic. Tin hardens the alloy a little, but is mostly to help flow and fill out the mold well. Follow the castboolits link and they will explain it in detail.

 

[Remo-99]

But, figured I should take them.

Yep, good score. If your shooting 45acp or 38spl a mix of say ~50/50 of clip on + stick on will be fine, if your looking to cast for magnum cals, 9mm, 40s&w, 10mm, etc. sorting them and just using the clip on types would benifit.

 

[dagger dog]

Bluehawk,

LYMAN CAST BULLET HANDBOOK pg.49 states---" Arsenic is every bit as important as antimony and tin, especially whre hardness is concerned".

If you read the sub chapter on this element you'll see how it factors in hardness.

 

[lwknight]

The only thing arsenic does is to harden the alloy faster than it would without it.
Arsenic is only useful in heat treating operations.
Arsenic is a helper , not a player.
There is no arsenic in commercially cast bullets that are 15 to 16 bnh.

 

[snuffy]

SS, lots of good info for you here.

Zinc melts at 787 degrees F. IF you keep your smelter below that point, you will see all non-lead WW float to the top. They can then be skimmed off. Flux can be anything containing carbon. Candle wax is the most common. Wood sawdust, or any dry chunk of wood allowed to char works as flux. Be sure to flux BEFORE skimming the clips and dross from the pot.

Do NOT melt those WW in your casting pot! Even with fluxing properly, there's a lot of dirt that will get trapped by the lead against the sides of the pot. It will eventually work it's way down to the valve area, and maybe even get into your bullets.

Best way is to find an old turkey fryer, and a 6-8 quart cast iron dutch oven. Also, as mentioned, get a casting thermometer. That will serve to prevent the melt from getting too hot, possibly melting the zinc weights that escaped detection during your visual sorting. Don't start a cold pot at full open on the gas valve. It WILL heat the bottom of the pot to above the melt point for zinc, BEFORE the top of the pot even melts to give the thermometer a reading.

Why be so worried about zinc? because even a tiny amount will make the resulting lead alloy totally unusable. The resulting alloy would look like oatmeal, imagine trying to pour oatmeal into a mold!:banghead:

As far as arsenic goes, it is essential if you wish to heat tread any lead alloy bullet. It is a catalyst. An alloy using pure metals of lead, tin, and antimony would not heat treat harder if arsenic was not present. It would be whatever hardness the alloy would be air cooled or cold water quenched. Some will argue that fact, but I've proved it to myself with an alloy that refused to water quench harder than air cooled. Addition of shotgun shot containing arsenic, resulted in water quenched bullets that were considerably harder, the difference was the arsenic used by the pellet makers to harden the shot. That's why it's called "chilled" shot, it's dropped into cold water to harden it.

 

[Bluehawk]

LYMAN CAST BULLET HANDBOOK pg.49 states

Which Lyman handbook are you referring to...what edition?

I understand arsenic is used in alloying with some lead products but it certainly is not the main element factor in bullet alloy hardness as was stated above. Arsenic, only up to about 2% is used...Tin in excess of 4% is useless...Antimony, on the other hand, plays a much bigger role in the final product hardness and does not naturally contain arsenic.

 

[Bluehawk]

On the CastBoolits site, it's in general agreement that it's antimony that is the greatest factor for bullet hardness.

 

[dagger dog]

Bluehawk, 3rd edition.

 

[snuffy]

On the CastBoolits site, it's in general agreement that it's antimony that is the greatest factor for bullet hardness.

That's very true, BUT we're, or should I say I'm talking about heat treating cast bullets. By that meaning, heat treating can be either dropping directly from the mold into cold water, OR putting the bullets in an oven bringing them to just UNDER melting/slumping temp, then dropping into cold water.

You won't get hard, heat treated bullets without antimony OR arsenic.

 

[R.Clem]

Try these folks for information about casting and alloying.

http://www.lasc.us/

This is the page you are seeking.

http://www.lasc.us/CastBulletNotes.htm


Ray

 

[Bluehawk]

I went back and checked one of my casting books...the RCBS version...it states arsenic is a contamanint, that in small amounts does no harm to the bullet alloy, but anything more than .5% and it causes surface imperfections. If it's a contaminant, then it hardly would be considered useful for any hardening/strength benefits of normal bullet casting.

 

[frankge]

I use a pair of wire cutters to test the wheel weights. The lead will easily cut or deform steel and zinc will not - you'll also get to know what each looks like and have no problems. I'd avoid just dumping it all into the pot.

 

[Ridgerunner665]

Without arsenic...heat treating of lead bullets IS NOT POSSIBLE.

It is a catalyst...not a contaminate. (but it is true...very little is needed to do the job)

Its the arsenic that enables bullets to be hardened through heat treating (water quenching and oven toasting)

 

[Walkalong]

Ridgerunner665 is right. It is well documented.

As the RCBS book stated, it can cause problems in too large a concentration, but it is critical to hardening whether by water dropping or oven heating and cooling.

 

[snuffy]

Ray, specifically THIS link on the LASC site;

http://www.lasc.us/HeatTreat.htm

We have a bunch of "so called eggspurts" disagreeing about what it takes to harden bullet lead. The unwashed masses have come to the conclusion that arsenic is essential for heat treating lead.

From the LASC link I supplied;

Adding sufficient quantities of antimony to produce hypoeutectic lead-antimony alloys can attain useful strengthening of lead. Small amounts of arsenic have particularly strong effects on the age-hardening response of such alloys, and heat treating and rapid quenching prior to aging enhance these effects.

The alloys with 2 and 4% Sb (antimony) harden comparatively slowly, and the alloy containing 6% Sb appears to undergo optimum hardening.

Quenching of castings from arsenical lead-antimony alloys offers an attractive alternative method of effecting improvements in strength. The alloy containing 2% Sb clearly does not respond sufficiently to be considered as a possible alternative. The 4% Sb alloy, however, attains a hardness of 18 HV after 30 min, and the alloys that contain 6, 8, and 10% Sb could be handled almost immediately.

(SB= antimony) Read further down to the explanation of hardness as it relates to strength.

Richard Lee has a lot of info in his reloading manual about hardness related to pressure for lead bullets. If a bullet is not hard enough, it won't take the pressure,(which relates to velocity), without leading.

 

[R.Clem]

As a note, a couple winters back I cast some 300 grainers for my .44's, I cast outside in the snow and just drop them into the same. When I got ready to size these slugs, they wouldn't go threw the sizer. I checked the hardness, 18 BNH,
these were cast from straight clip-on wheel weights.
I later checked the diameter of those slugs and found them to be .430, so it was just pan lube and load. Those slugs were so hard they didn't deform on impact into dirt at 25 yards.
I have no idea how much arsenic is in wheel weights, but in the past they have proven to respond very well to water quenching.

Ray

 

[Bluehawk]

Where does the info come from proclaiming arsenic is contained in wheel weights??
If this were true, I suspect OSHA would have been jumping in and making up all kinds of rules for the guys at the tire shop and the CPSC would be having a field day!!!!!!
I have seen neither one of them get involved.
In car batteries there was calcium lead compounds for the plates, but by the time they were disposed of, the corrosion of the plates made them useless for lead recovery.

 

[Ridgerunner665]

If you want hard bullets that are not too brittle to hunt with...arsenic IS essential.

If you just want hard...keep adding antimony.

If you want TOUGH (plenty hard, yet not brittle)...add arsenic.

Bluehawk...its well known and documented in several places mentioned in this thread (the links) that wheel weights contain at least .25% arsenic. (that is 1 quarter of 1%...very little, but that is enough to enable hardening through heat treating and water quenching)

 

[Bluehawk]

its well known and documented in several places mentioned in this thread (the links) that wheel weights contain at least .25% arsenic.

I have not read of any real fact that proves your comment. Show me an MSDS that proves the manufacturers use arsenic in their wheel weights!
As I wrote earlier...RCBS considers arsenic (As) a contaminant and far outweighs what any "expert" on the forum has to offer! If it were of any real benefit I seriously doubt RCBS would classify it as something contaminating the alloy!!!!!!
On the other hand RidgeRunner...you have no real experience in bullet casting according to your post on Sept 22nd stating you are going to try your hand at casting... I have over 30 years worth of experience in the casting field!!!!! How can you possibly make any statements of "fact" in a area you know nothing about??
It boggles the mind!