Hello all I am getting started on casting my own. I have access to a large quanity of lead wheel weights and I got a furnace and sizer for virtually nothing. So after doing a little reading about the subject I had a few questions.

1. When it comes to melting wheel weights into ingots. Is it better to just use a colman stove and a iron pot. I am just thinking of keeping my RCBS melter as clean as possible.


2. What is the best temp for turning wheel weights into ingots.


3. I am just going to be makeing plinking rounds for mild pistol calibers. If I just use wheel weight ingots and drop them from the mould into a bucket of water will they be hard enough to use in pistols at about 800 to 900 fps. Or will I need to add something to the mix. I don't know if when the cast wheel weights weather or not they add any tin to the mix.



4. When it comes to dies I was just looking at the Lee 2 cavity aluminum dies. I am just target shooting so will these cast a decent bullet or should I spend my money else where.


Thanks for your help

Dan

1/ Use the Coleman. My ancient Coleman can melt 30-40 lb of wheelweights at a time. Turn the heat down once the weights are melted as you don't want the melt too hot.

2/ 700°F is hot enough. The right heat is when the lead flows out to the edges of your ingot mould without puddling.

3/ You don't need heat treating for subsonic bullets. You may need 1-2% tin for good mould fillout.

4/ Lee moulds are fragile, but cheap enough to toss.

Bye
Jack

Welcome to the forum Dan. Rules are simple, be nice and join in.

Well lets see, first I need your address so I can move in next door. No not really I'm just kidding. Lets try to answer some of your questions.

I've been casting and shooting both wheel weights and linotype for near 45 years now.

For question #1.

Yup the Coleman stove and an old cast iron pot is the cats meow to make up ingots. It's easy to skim off the stuff you don't want to cast cause of the size and easy to flux. Just use an old candle for wax to flux your pot when making ingots.

Don't worry about the temperature as you really don't have a lot of control over that with a Coleman stove anyway. Just keep your lead pot half full, when it gets down to half full add enough lead to fill it up, this makes the lead melt faster. One of the propane 29 buck turkey fryers is even better and you can usually get them on sale at Wallyworld after turkey season is over and they hold a lead pot better than the Colman.

I use a stainless steel dipper like you use in the kitchen to fill my lead mold and a pair of vice grips to turn it upside down on the shop floor to dump the hot ingots. I got my old Dutch oven pot and the dippers at a thrift store for a total of 8 bucks. Do your ingot casting with the garage door open or in the driveway if it isn't raining or snowing. You don't want any water in that hot lead pot.

Don't use your lead pot or any of the utensils ever ever for cooking anything you want to eat.

Queston # 2.

Just keep it plenty hot, your going to go thru a lot of lead making ingots and you want it to melt the added lead quickly once it gets to melting. At this point your not worrying about filling out a mold, just getting the lead into usable sizes. I have two ingot molds and it goes fast. I tap them out on the concrete shop floor and just let them cool there. Leave yourself plenty of room.

Question # 3.

Frankly I just drop the bullets into a folded towel. I know folks that do the water thing, but for most use it's unnecessary and any water around a casting outfit can be extremely dangerous. Wheel weights, or for that matter any lead that isn't so soft that it's easy to dimple with your thumb makes great bullets for under 1200-1500 fps.

Question # 4.

I've been casting with the Lee dies for years and have just exceptional results with them. It's important to follow the directions with the dies and smoke them to get the best bullets.

As a followup get the liquid alox and do the tumble lube thing. You can buy gas check bullets and shoot them without the gas checks for the velocities your talking about and then get the Lee sizer and use it to gas check them for velocities above 1200 fps. I shoot several of the new tumble lube bullets and just lube and shoot as their dropped out of the mold.

Good luck Dan.

Jack your quicker than I am.

Dan lots of us have been casting here for years, your going to get a bunch of good advice.

Thanks guys for all the info. So do you not need to run your bullets threw a sizer dye.
And what did you mean bye (Just use an old candle for wax to flux your pot when making ingots) do you mean to coat the inside of the pot before I start or I thought flux was used to seperate some of the dirty materials during melting and bring them to the surface.
I have a rcbs sizer luber that I recieved from a friend. Should I not really use that to lube the ring of the bullet and try the liquid alux instead.

Thks
Dan

Kenny1 get your ww melted get the clips out with a magnet take a piece of wax throw it into the pot to flux it with then scrape the junk off I have used every thing from old motor oil ,a paint stick , a hand full of old dried leaves candle wax,bees wax,marvelux (which I would not recommend )I don't know what kind of moulds or what cal you are shooting so the best advice I can give you is to use your RCBS lube sizer Forest Punch

You are on the right track. Process your weights into ingots in something oither than your casting pot, if possible. Lee molds work well, but need to be treated carefully. Aluminum molds will not tolerate rough handling, let alone abuse. Don't drop them, don't tap or hammer on the blocks themselves to get bullets to drop. Do smoke them and lube them as per instructions.
Absolutely no need for a water quench at the velocity you are aiming for. You want your bullets appropriately hard for the role you are going to use them. Harder bullets are not better, in most circumstances. Bullet fit to the bore and lube are far more important than bullet hardness, IME.
Many Lee designs (and others) can be loaded and fired as cast, without sizing.

. . . get your ww melted get the clips out with a magnet. . . marvelux (which I would not recommend ). . . use your RCBS lube sizer Forest Punch
I haven't tried getting the ww clips out with a magnet, I use an old strainer spoon which will pick up a lot of clips. Marvelux, a lot of people swear by it and others at it. My gripe with Marvelux, IME, is that it attracts moisture out of the air and anything which has come in contact with it needs to be washed in water and dried or will start to rust. It left water drops on the rim of my lead furnace from just sitting overnight which had to be wiped off with a paper towel. Your RCBS lube sizer uses bullet lube which has a consistency similar to soft wax whereas tumble lube uses liquid alox. Bullets lubed with liquid alox have to be set on their bases and allowed to dry before using. Just my dos centavos.

The Lee molds throw really great bullets and often you don't need to size them, but slugging the bore of the gun your going to shoot them in will tell you what size you really need. Don't forget to measure the throats of the cylinders. Better yet get Marshall Stantons's Tech manual on shooting lead bullets. It's an education on getting max accuracy out of any weapon you want to throw lead out of. It's available here on the Beartooth bullet side, just click on the tab at the top of the page.

The lubra-sizer it a good tool, it will size and lube any grooved bullet. I used one for years before I discovered the liquid alox swirl lube method Lee sells. Then the lubri-sizer went down the road. The Lee method is quick, easy and inexpensive. Tied in with the sizer Lee sells it's about ideal for my use. Some bullets need to be sized and if you use gas checks the only way to install them is with a sizer of some type.

When I'm melting lead for ingots I use a little piece of wax to flux the melt. Fluxing just keeps the lead mixed with the non-lead stuff in it like tin and other additives. A piece of wax the size of a small marble will flux a whole pot and only needs done once per new pot of lead, i.e when your down to half a pot or so and add enough lead to fill the pot up flux it, stir well and skim off the floating stuff. Like one poster said I use an old stainless strainer spoon and a regular spoon to clean out the metal wheel clips and the other dross that floats to the top after I flux and stir good. Go to the local thrift store and pick up a stainless steel dipper or two, a strainer spoon and a regular big stirring spoon, try to get the one with wood handles. I paid 25 cents each for mine and it's cheap to replace when one finally gives up the ghost. You don't want to use the ones in the kitchen and then try to sneak them back in when your done.

the reason I use a magnet it seems easer to me what I did was go to the junk yard and get 4 old magnets out of old speakers then I cut a piece of flat metal just a little smaller than the magnet then welded a rod to the middle of it with a t handle on it I don't put the magnet in the molten lead just above it clips come right out then I either dunk in water or set aside to cool I save my clips which I get 4 cent a lb for at the junk yard which usually pays for my gas to get there then I flux and skim the junk off oh the t handle is about 18 in long so I don't get my hand close to the lead then I ladle out into my ingot moulds that I made out of old bead frames the ingots weigh about 3 lbs each and that how I do it Forest Punch :cool:

Welcome to the Forum,Keny1
As you see,we have abunch of helpful folks here.
There is'nt much that I can add.I wll say that,for casting ingots,Iuse a deepfryier gas stove.It allows me to use as big a pot as is necessary,with enough heat.
For ingots,my favorite is now,muffin tins. Just lay them out,close together,and pour.There is verylittle spillage.
Frank

I want to thank you all for shareing your advise. I will have many more questions in the comeing days as I get started.