I'd like to melt down some magnum shot into ingots for future use casting bullets. Planning to add 2% lead as well.

Question is will the graphite coating cause problems? Will fluxing and skimming allow removal, or does it even matter?

Just got through thoroughly cleaning everything out after melting some wheel weights including, unfortunately, some zinc stinkers! Had to chuck the whole twenty pounds.

I'm hoping to not get into another mess... :(

I'd like to melt down some magnum shot into ingots for future use casting bullets. Planning to add 2% lead as well.

Question is will the graphite coating cause problems? Will fluxing and skimming allow removal, or does it even matter?

Just got through thoroughly cleaning everything out after melting some wheel weights including, unfortunately, some zinc stinkers! Had to chuck the whole twenty pounds.

I'm hoping to not get into another mess... :(

Graphite makes a pretty good insulator...will take a good long time to heat up enough to melt.

May find it not filling ut a mold real well...the idea of shot is that it has higher surfacte tension, so it forms into nice round balls...that smae surface tention works against filling in teh smaller details of a mold, so you tend to get rounded corners in place of nice sharp edges.

I'd like to melt down some magnum shot into ingots for future use casting bullets. Planning to add 2% lead as well.

Question is will the graphite coating cause problems? Will fluxing and skimming allow removal, or does it even matter?

Just got through thoroughly cleaning everything out after melting some wheel weights including, unfortunately, some zinc stinkers! Had to chuck the whole twenty pounds.

I'm hoping to not get into another mess... :(


My source of wheel weights dried up several years ago and I switched to chilled shot,(13.00@ 25lb) I've never had a problem with melting or clean up of dross, also i never add any other alloy to the mix. When air cooled they harden to about 12-14 BHN and when heat treated about 19-24 Bhn. altho I havent used magnum shot I can't be sure if there would be a great difference.

I routinely add magnum shot to WW, especially if I am water quenching or heat treating. Any of the mag shot I've seen says 6% antimony on the bag, as well as arsenic, which is real good for hardening as long as you do not surpass the quantity of antimony with tin. If you get a good fill in the mould do not add any tin as you are just throwing in expensive stuff not needed. sundog

I am not aware of a magnum shot supplier that adds graphite to it.

BPI doesn't as far as I know. (and they make ALOT of shot) They alloy to 6% Antimony with their #8 magnum stuff.

Could you please let me know who your manufacturer is? I suppose you could always "wash" it (soap-n-water) before smelting.

I am not aware of a magnum shot supplier that adds graphite to it.

BPI doesn't as far as I know. (and they make ALOT of shot) They alloy to 6% Antimony with their #8 magnum stuff.

Could you please let me know who your manufacturer is? I suppose you could always "wash" it (soap-n-water) before smelting.

The manufacturer/supplier name is West Coast Shot, Inc.
I'm going to do a search on them right now to see if any info is available.

I asked the graphite question because I've read somewhere about shot being coated with it, and the color of this stuff certainly has that appearance. It doesn't look like a lead hue, much more shiny dark gray, hematite or marcasite like, as graphite looks.

All shot is graphite coated, for several reasons.

There is no concern with the graphite as it is copletely inert at normal temperatures. The only way I know of to get it to vaporize on this planet is using it as an electrode in a carbon arc steel furnace or as an electrode for an arc light such as the WWII searchlights still commonly used in nightime advertising. Even then the emissions are not toxic or carcinogenic.

The greater concern with shot is it contains aprox. 1% arsenic. The purpose of this is to increase the surface tension of the melted lead so when it is dropped the droplets round out better, giving a higher percentage yield of acceptable pellets. This also causes a problem in casting bullets, as it tends to make filling the corners more difficult. For this reason it is recommended that no more than 10% shot be used in making an alloy, which also reduces the antimony yield to from .5-.7% in the alloy, sort of defets the original purpose!

The up-side is that a small amount of arsenic is necessary for a lead alloy to be water hardening. If you have no arsenic and are water dropping bullets you are pretty much wasting your time.

Finally, lead-tin alloys form a solution, not a mixture. If you think you need to flux to "re-combine the tin", you are wrong. The alloy is a solution, exactly as sugar in water is a solution, and just as difficult to separate. As a matter of fact, if you do not flux and just skim the alloy will become richer in tin since the lead is the more active metal and oxidizes at a higher rate. Fluxing reduces tha oxides and by removing them helps make the melt more fluid, helping in mould filling.

And to get back to the original question. You do not have to flux to remove the graphite, it will float on the surface. This is actually beneficial, as it helps exclude air and reduces the rate of oxidation. The fine black powder you see is the graphite. It will not incorporate in the alloy, since it will neither mely nor dissolve. It floats because it is much lighter than the alloy, just like a cork on water.

And to get back to the original question. You do not have to flux to remove the graphite, it will float on the surface. This is actually beneficial, as it helps exclude air and reduces the rate of oxidation. The fine black powder you see is the graphite. It will not incorporate in the alloy, since it will neither mely nor dissolve. It floats because it is much lighter than the alloy, just like a cork on water.

If it floats on the surface, then dropping a couple of chunks of parafin/wax should help collect it.

Arsenic, on the other hand, is a bit more difficult to remove. I have been told that re-melting the shot will help to take it out. But, this puts it into the air...which is but one more reason to melt/cast outdoors or where there is plenty of good ventilation.

I have had a very long day today, so what I have read on this thread I may have mis interpreted. So I mean no offense to anyone here tonight.
I usually use straight ww when casting for .45acp and my .458wm, I water quench all of these bullets, I normally get a very hard bullet of near 28bhn, mostly a guesstimate, since I do not have a hardness tester, but I know I have dug bullets out of pine trees from the acp that other than the rifling marks you could not tell the bullets had been fired much less dug out of a tree!
When the molds are not filling out just perfect, then I use about a 1/4 cup of magnum shot to the 20 pound pot of ww, then I water quench these. same thing very hard bullets.
Some people try to make too much of a mystery out of casting, keep it simple and enjoy, have some fun with it.
Halfbreed

Thanks all for tips & suggestions. I've also posted this question on other forums (www.graybeardoutdoors.com ; www.24hourcampfire.com ) and gleaned still more input.

I've done a fair amount of bullet casting in the past, but this was exclusively of virgin lead for use as round ball, heavy bore size conicals, and relatively heavy sabot conicals for only moderately fast velocities, that is 1900 fps and under.

I am now experimenting with hi-end BP replica powder loads and smokeless muzzleloading, for use in hunting combinations. As such harder bullet alloy will be required, but not so hard as to shatter upon impact with hard surfaces such as heavy bone, or doing complete pass-thru with little obturation and shock value in soft tissue.

This is why I am starting with fairly strong shot alloy, which hopefully, will be somewhat 'annealed' by the addition of tin adding greater elasticity and cohesiveness to the alloy, yielding a cast bullet with jacketed bullet like performance at velocities above 2200 fps. That's the plan anyway.

I'm not in the least impressed with pictures of non-lead hunting bullets appearing in ad's and articles showing the noses 'expanded' by multiple petals of hard copper, etc. folded out and back like a flower blossom. It seems to me that a nice, even mushroom of nose metal approaching or equal to twice original bullet diameter would be far more effective in tranfering shock to the intended target.

Jagged saw blade like recovered slugs may be psychologically impressive to a reader, but psychological shock value to the prospective hunter does not equal bullet shock value on game.

I'm also considering experiments with soft-nose cast bullets arrived at by two-part pour tecniques as described by Ross Seyfried in Handloader no. 222, April 2003. These consist of a hard alloy base fused with a pure lead or softer alloy nose.

Hammerspur, For my .458 win mag, I shoot a Saeco 465 grain wfngc hardcast, at about 2350fps, through my chrony.
This is water quenched ww, for hunting purposes I anneal the noses with a torch, put the bullets in a pan of water up to the ogive, then run a torch around the nose til you see the color of the bullet dull, that is enough, go to the next bullet.
At first you will slump some bullets, then you will become much more proficient at it.
These will expand the noses like a partition bullet, But why is such a flat nose needed on a .45 cal bullet to begin with? It is not neccessary at all. There will be an incredible blood trail for a few feet maybe. usually the deer are found right where they were shot. I try to hold my shots with this rifle to around 200 yards. I would love to try it on some Texas boar sometime. I can smell the hams smoking now. Aaaahhhhh.
Halfbreed

Halfbreed, I use a custom adjustable Sching's mold which throws bullets of almost infinitely variable length/weight of a flat nosed, semi-spitzer, boat tailed configuration. With a soft-nosed bullet, a WFN isn't neccessary IMO. If not mistaken, the WFN is intended to give wide bullet path tissue dispersion and hydrostatic shock with low velocity, hard alloy bullets, so you're 'dead-on' :p with your assessment.

By the way, I don't recall who said it or when, but a good quote goes "There's no such thing as overkill because there's no such thing as overdead."

FYI: I just got around to alloying and casting up some bullets.

A 25lb bag of West coast magnum #8 shot, 1 2/3 spool of 95/5 solder, and 5 lbs of pure lead.

Bullets cast from this drop PERFECT right after the mold heats up a bit. Its as close to Lyman #2 that I could find/calculate and I have lots of ingots of this stuff afterwards.

The magnum shot was $21 for 25lb, the solder was $6/lb spool, the pure lead was $1.10 a lb.

total cost is right around $36 for 32 lbs. I have not found it any cheaper (already alloy'd that is) either locally or online.

One thing that is implied here, but not stated explicitly is that only the magnum and "hard" shot have 6% antimony. The stuff you buy for 2 3/4" bird and target loads at Gander Mountain is standard shot and only has 2% antimony. I got this from the horse's mouth, having wound my way through the web to the manufacturer's site.

There is arsenic in wheel weights, along with what is usually around 3-4% antimony. That is why they harden, too. The antimony content varies regionally, because dominant suppliers vary regionally. Who would want to ship them long distances?

Randy Garrett has gone to low antimony hardened bullets because the standard alloys, like wheel weights, will shatter on bone in very cold weather. No problem at normal temperatures, but something to consider. Randy also told me they find that though quenched hardness drops off with time, they've monitored some stock kept at room temperature for 10 years now, and found it is still at around 20 - 21 BHN. Harder than regular cast bullets, so don't worry about this problem unless you keep your bullets in a sweltering garage.

The above statement is not true when the tin content is allowed to exceed the antimony content. Then hardness is lost faster. That’s the reason for the limit.

I have been setting up an experiment. I intend to start with 1% antimony and 1% tin and .2% silver. The antimony source will be hard shot, since I don’t want the arsenic levels too low to harden. I have pure lead for the base material, and a couple of spools of 5.5% silver solder to play with. The silver is supposed to assist in mold filling. I will report on how they harden when I get a chance to finish the job.

I’m not clear why there is concern about reducing the arsenic content of casting alloy? The arsenic is bound in the alloy and can’t get loose easily. They couldn’t sell magnum shot for hunting if that weren’t true. If you’re worried about vaporized lead from the bullet base when you shoot it, use gas checks or P-wads.

The statement that lead oxidizes more easily than tin is backwards, I'm pretty sure. There is an excellent article on alloys and alloy fluxing here (http://www.lasc.us/FryxellFluxing.htm). Also, an excellent article on why you shouldn't obsess about bullet hardness here (http://www.sixguns.com/crew/castbullet.htm).

Nick

Goodluck with the silver. A couple years ago, I cast some bullets using silver. I cast about 100 with 1% silver and about the same with 6% silver. Them was some HARD bullets! I never recovered any from game,but, I hammered one with a 3lb hammer. They deformed, but did not fracture.
PS; I was using 99.9% silver as the alloying metal. If your pot will bring the melt to 1100 degrees f It will eventually melt into the alloy. Be careful, vaporized lead might be a problem at those temps.

Goodluck with the silver. A couple years ago, I cast some bullets using silver. I cast about 100 with 1% silver and about the same with 6% silver. . .

. . .If your pot will bring the melt to 1100 degrees f It will eventually melt into the alloy. . .

What I've heard (not yet tried) is that about 0.2% silver helps with mold filling. Shooting high silver content might get a tad pricey after awhile, but it is good to know what happens at higher percentages. Did you try hammering one that was frozen cold? Also, if you ever have an oportunity to try one of those fractional silver slugs on a vampire, let us know how well it works? ;)

I have pre-alloyed solder to work with, so I won't be getting up to the temperatures you mentioned. I do have a knife oven for heat treating, though, and would use that to make alloy. Probably in a pipe squirted full of argon to keep the oxidation down.

Nick