The Bullet Casting Info Megathread

DukeInMaine said:
Ok, so let me make sure I have the numbers right. The cylinder (where you place the rounds) has a sizing of .432 (which is larger than the barrel). Almost doesn't matter what the bullet size is there, to a degree. So, you fire the bullet, sized at .433, and that will immediately slam into the barrel, which is only .430. That's a big bullet in a small pipe. A lot of compression making the bullet smaller. Did I miss anything?

So, if that doesn't work out for you, try .001" over the barrel (.431)....

I'm gonna be curious as to how that works out.
Click to expand...

Actually, a lot of people think that the cylinder size is just as important as the groove size and you should be sized .001 over the cylinder size.
I will let you know how it works out. Did you ever hear of the term obturate?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Obturate

It would be difficult to size these down to .431 as the mold drops them as .434.

ETA: You are not going to believe how much lube that .44 boolit is going to take. That is one huge lube groove.
 
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Smelted a bunch of my WW yesterday and ran into a situation that I wanted to make sure casters that smelt their own are aware of....

Was running two smelting setups and one started to get a yellow and purple layer on the top and started generating significant amounts of dross.... Was careful with the temperature so am sure that the melt was not overheated.... Tried to flux the dross/colored layers back in without success.... Tried skimming the dross and as fast as I could skim it, more formed with the consistency of cooked cream of wheat....

Assumed that I had a contaminated batch of WW so dumped the pot (dutch oven), cleaned it and started with a fresh batch of WW.... As soon as they started melting the same thing happened...

In my research this morning found this thread on cast boolits which attributes the problem to bismuth/cadmium contamination originating from fake pewter....

http://castboolits.gunloads.com/showthread.php?t=63550

Stuff apparently has an affinity for both stainless steel (my ladle is covered with it and it can't be easily removed) as well as my cast iron dutch oven.... Both are apparently a toss as a very small amount of contamination is able to ruin an entire batch of WW....

Wanted to get the word out just in case any of you run into the same problem....[thinking]
 
Bob, does that mean that you tossed in some of what you thought was pewter, and wasn't?

I would only ever put pewter, lino, or other additives into the 20 pound pot. The most I'd ever ruin is 20#.

It's easy enough to stir in the +tin additives in the 20# pot.

So, does that mean that your ladle, smelters, etc are contaminated forever?
 
From the research I did it looks like what I added was not pewter but a fake form of pewter which uses bismuth and cadmium in their alloy.... The cadmium is where all the colors come from.... The ladle I used for that batch is now a colorful mix of purples, blues and gold and the pot contaminated a second batch after I cleaned it so I have to assume that the contamination has embedded itself into the surface... All told I figure that I've lost more than a hundred pounds of WW in this exercise....

Luckily this alloy never made it to my 20# casting pot.... The "cream of wheat" consistency which is a by product of the contamination was pretty sure not to meter well through my casting pot no matter how much tin I would add so wanted to limit the damage to my equipment..... Only the smelting stuff has been trashed..... I figure I can make a new pot from an old 20# propane tank and the ladle is short bucks.... Not worth risking any more lead....

DukeInMaine said:
Bob, does that mean that you tossed in some of what you thought was pewter, and wasn't?

I would only ever put pewter, lino, or other additives into the 20 pound pot. The most I'd ever ruin is 20#.

It's easy enough to stir in the +tin additives in the 20# pot.

So, does that mean that your ladle, smelters, etc are contaminated forever?
Click to expand...
 
DukeInMaine said:
Bob, does that mean that you tossed in some of what you thought was pewter, and wasn't?

I would only ever put pewter, lino, or other additives into the 20 pound pot. The most I'd ever ruin is 20#.

It's easy enough to stir in the +tin additives in the 20# pot.

So, does that mean that your ladle, smelters, etc are contaminated forever?
Click to expand...

Hey Duke,
We didn't intend to add pewter, there was just a piece of something mixed into the bucket of wheelweights that looked like lead, but obviously wasn't (found out the hard way). Don't know what it was originally used for or where it could have come from.
 
Sorry to hear your smelting stuff is crudded up. Awful to lose all that lead.

Can you just take the cruded up stuff to the scrap metal place, and have them give you new WW's for the brightly colored "pure lead"???? If so, it's not all that bad.
 
Actually, every time we go now we clean them out of WW lead..... I still have 50# on account that they owe me from the last time I went..... [wink]

I'm sure we will come up with something to use if for...... Just wanted to get the word out so no one else gets caught like we did.... From here on out, only WW go into the WW pot and so on.... Anything suspect will have to get "special treatment" just in case.....

The rest of the smelt went fine.... Estimate 400-450# of the good stuff.....

Started on the MIT range stuff but had to quit because of darkness.... Pretty nasty smelting but the lead came out nice....

DukeInMaine said:
Sorry to hear your smelting stuff is crudded up. Awful to lose all that lead.

Can you just take the cruded up stuff to the scrap metal place, and have them give you new WW's for the brightly colored "pure lead"???? If so, it's not all that bad.
Click to expand...
 
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That MIT scrap wasn't that bad. After Patriot's comment about burning the junk on top that is what I did. There was a pile of what I assume is frangible remains that had a lot of weight to it but if you stay downwind the smoke etc. is no big deal.

I have to say that I like the molds that EC and Goose use compared to the muffin tins. Cornbread shape is much easier to stack and takes up less room.

Edit: I spent a while trying to find the cornbread ingot mold that was used at the workshop with no luck. Is it cast iron or steel? I find aluminum is too light and dents easily.

Saw some old used "stick" molds on flea-bay that would bang out 22 ingots per pour. It doesn't look like they will stack well though.
 
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There was a warning on Ebay about Wilton pewter. Wilton makes a pewter look alike that is apparently some form of aluminum alloy. The melt temp wasn't listed but it could be low depending on what it is alloyed with.

Can you drop your dutch oven upside down in a camp fire for a night or two to see if the fire might clean it up? It'd beat tossing it. I used to oil up my cast iron frying pan and griddle and drop them into a campfire once a year. After a few hours I'd take them out of the fire and slather em up with bacon grease. They turned glossy black and were ready for a year of virtually non stick cooking.
 
Will have to try that when I go back to smelting the MIT lead..... Am thinking I will wait till it gets cold to save my neighbors from the smell.... Pretty nasty.....

The corn bread molds are cast iron but I forget where I got them.....

Fixxah said:
That MIT scrap wasn't that bad. After Patriot's comment about burning the junk on top that is what I did. There was a pile of what I assume is frangible remains that had a lot of weight to it but if you stay downwind the smoke etc. is no big deal.

I have to say that I like the molds that EC and Goose use compared to the muffin tins. Cornbread shape is much easier to stack and takes up less room.

Edit: I spent a while trying to find the cornbread ingot mold that was used at the workshop with no luck. Is it cast iron or steel? I find aluminum is too light and dents easily.

Saw some old used "stick" molds on flea-bay that would bang out 22 ingots per pour. It doesn't look like they will stack well though.
Click to expand...
 
Thanks! That might be the stuff.... Had a low melting temperature so am sure it wasn't zinc but am not completely sure what else was in the alloy.... Am thinking it might be worth finding someone with a mass spec so I can put it to rest.... This stuff really did a number on my smelting gear..... If you follow the cast boolits thread the poor guy that was the OP really got run around the block.... At first everyone was on the "too much temp" and flux it out bandwagon but in the end the melt ended up bonding to everything in his casting pot.... At least I didn't go that far and ruin my casting gear.... Losing the smelting gear is bad enough....

BTW, I do a lot of dutch oven cooking (though not with my casting pot!) with the scouts and have seasoned all my cast iron cooking stuff with high temp BBQ spray after heating on my grill.... Not as cool as bacon fat but does the trick.... Cast iron is cats ass (as they say down south)....[smile]

QUOTE=swampy;1592620]There was a warning on Ebay about Wilton pewter. Wilton makes a pewter look alike that is apparently some form of aluminum alloy. The melt temp wasn't listed but it could be low depending on what it is alloyed with.

Can you drop your dutch oven upside down in a camp fire for a night or two to see if the fire might clean it up? It'd beat tossing it. I used to oil up my cast iron frying pan and griddle and drop them into a campfire once a year. After a few hours I'd take them out of the fire and slather em up with bacon grease. They turned glossy black and were ready for a year of virtually non stick cooking.[/QUOTE]
 
One of the things I loved about being in the "adult patrol" (scouting) was the ferver with which the Woodbadge scouters (I am one) did dutch oven cooking. In addition to all sorts of baking in reflector ovens, we also did a whole array of dutch oven main courses, and desserts.

When I first got into smelting, I had to make a fast decision about whether to use my prized dutch oven for smelting. My decision was that my cooking oven was too special for giving up to the galena gods. So, I bought a cheapo for the purpose.

I'm not so sure that a little campfire heat or smoke will make all the bad metals disappear from your smelter.
 
Agreed.... I've already ruined two batches of lead trying to fix this and hate to put another at risk.... Unfortunately the safest thing by far is to toss the ladle and pot and be more careful in the future....[thinking]

Actually do dutch oven cooking demos for other troops as well.... Am set up for one of the local ones this Friday evening.... Great stuff....[smile]

DukeInMaine said:
One of the things I loved about being in the "adult patrol" (scouting) was the ferver with which the Woodbadge scouters (I am one) did dutch oven cooking. In addition to all sorts of baking in reflector ovens, we also did a whole array of dutch oven main courses, and desserts.

When I first got into smelting, I had to make a fast decision about whether to use my prized dutch oven for smelting. My decision was that my cooking oven was too special for giving up to the galena gods. So, I bought a cheapo for the purpose.

I'm not so sure that a little campfire heat or smoke will make all the bad metals disappear from your smelter.
Click to expand...
 
Bob,

I melt a lot of pewter. The wilton stuff will not melt like pewter. Pewter will melt at a much lower temp than lead. Pewter also has copper and antimony in it. A lot of my pewter will have a copper tint to it. Doesn't hurt anything. As for the 'oatmeal', you should try fluxing the beejeezus out of the mix (I mean a lot of flux) and you might be surprised at what happens to it. You might not have contaminated anything.

Here is my standard primer on pewter: (a lot of it is taken from other posters)

Pewter Characteristics

Tin melts at 449.47 deg. F.

When you get started look for items that have PEWTER written on the bottom.

I pour mine in mini-muffin ingots that weigh 1-2 ozs each, about .125-.25" thick. I weigh each ingot on a postal shipping scale and write the weight on it with a permanent marker.

You'll see stuff that says WILTON or ARMETALE or PEWTEREX on the bottom, or RWP on it. This is NOT pewter. It's got zinc in it and when you try to bend it, it will hardly budge.

If it is tack welded or screwed together, it isn’t pewter.

If it has a rivet, it's not pewter.

Pewter is not magnetic.

When you bend pewter (and it will bend easily), it will not try to return to its former shape.

Some Manufacturers:
Stieff Pewter
Williamsburg Pewter
Old Sturbridge Pewter
Historic Newport Pewter
NFL Licensed Pewter
Etain Zinn pewter

Fine pewter is made of Antimony, Tin & Copper (no lead)
The 1958 standard was 92% Tin, 5% Antimony and 3%Copper
This standard would change in a few years to 92% Tin, 6% Antimony and 2% Copper.
 
Thanks Richard.... Great summary on pewter.....

Unfortunately I did flux like crazy with no effect.... Also ruined my second batch of WW after cleaning the pot so assume a little bit of the problem material has a huge impact on the WW alloy....

Am assuming it was pewter but it might not be.... The only stuff I added to the pot other than WW were two cast parts that looked like lead..... Grey oxidized surface and looked like it was a wall ornament with a small copper hook on the end.... There were two of them and they probably weighed about a pound each.... Looked like lead but was pretty hard (couldn't scratch with my fingernail) so thought I would smelt it with the WW rather than the MIT range lead.... Melted at a low temp at the same time as the WW and the colors came out almost immediately.... Fluxed and skimmed and the alloy started growing the lumps (oatmeal) which historically I would associate with Zinc.... Fluxed and skimmed repeatedly and the lumps/colors came back almost immediately.... Melt when briefly exposed looked normal (silver like mercury) but then quickly oxidized to more colors and lumps....

Colors actually reminded me of Hexavalent Chromium from when I was working with a captive plating line.... Am thinking on getting an assay to see if I can find out what this stuff really is....[thinking]

Patriot said:
Bob,

I melt a lot of pewter. The wilton stuff will not melt like pewter. Pewter will melt at a much lower temp than lead. Pewter also has copper and antimony in it. A lot of my pewter will have a copper tint to it. Doesn't hurt anything. As for the 'oatmeal', you should try fluxing the beejeezus out of the mix (I mean a lot of flux) and you might be surprised at what happens to it. You might not have contaminated anything.

Here is my standard primer on pewter: (a lot of it is taken from other posters)

Pewter Characteristics

Tin melts at 449.47 deg. F.

When you get started look for items that have PEWTER written on the bottom.

I pour mine in mini-muffin ingots that weigh 1-2 ozs each, about .125-.25" thick. I weigh each ingot on a postal shipping scale and write the weight on it with a permanent marker.

You'll see stuff that says WILTON or ARMETALE or PEWTEREX on the bottom, or RWP on it. This is NOT pewter. It's got zinc in it and when you try to bend it, it will hardly budge.

If it is tack welded or screwed together, it isn’t pewter.

If it has a rivet, it's not pewter.

Pewter is not magnetic.

When you bend pewter (and it will bend easily), it will not try to return to its former shape.

Some Manufacturers:
Stieff Pewter
Williamsburg Pewter
Old Sturbridge Pewter
Historic Newport Pewter
NFL Licensed Pewter
Etain Zinn pewter

Fine pewter is made of Antimony, Tin & Copper (no lead)
The 1958 standard was 92% Tin, 5% Antimony and 3%Copper
This standard would change in a few years to 92% Tin, 6% Antimony and 2% Copper.
Click to expand...
 
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Bob J said:
Thanks Richard.... Great summary on pewter.....

Unfortunately I did flux like crazy with no effect.... Also ruined my second batch of WW after cleaning the pot so assume a little bit of the problem material has a huge impact on the WW alloy....

Am assuming it was pewter but it might not be.... The only stuff I added to the pot other than WW were two cast parts that looked like lead..... Grey oxidized surface and looked like it was a wall ornament with a small copper hook on the end.... There were two of them and they probably weighed about a pound each.... Looked like lead but was pretty hard (couldn't scratch with my fingernail) so thought I would smelt it with the WW rather than the MIT range lead.... Melted at a low temp at the same time as the WW and the colors came out almost immediately.... Fluxed and skimmed and the alloy started growing the lumps (oatmeal) which historically I would associate with Zinc.... Fluxed and skimmed repeatedly and the lumps/colors came back almost immediately.... Melt when briefly exposed looked normal (silver like mercury) but then quickly oxidized to more colors and lumps....

Colors actually reminded me of Hexavalent Chromium from when I was working with a captive plating line.... Am thinking on getting an assay to see if I can find out what this stuff really is....[thinking]
Click to expand...

Sounds like those things weren't kosher for your mix. I have a rule about pewter. If it doesn't say pewter on it, I don't use it. I'm not that confident of my metallurgical skills to ascertain what is pewter and what is not just by looking at it. Even if it says pewter I always do the 'bend' test. If it doesn't bend it doesn't get used.

I am surprised by your results though. Some of the casters over on castboolits do add zinc to their melts and seem to be just fine. I'm also surprised by the fact that your pot is 'contaminated' by zinc. Minute amounts of zinc should represent no problem when melting subsequent batches I would think. I'm thinking that you might have got a hold of something that has other properties than just zinc. I'm not at all able to be of any help as this is totally out of my league and experience. I know there is a ton of zinc hysteria over on castboolits but I think a lot of it is parroted by self-acclaimed internet experts.
 
I hope those cast parts weren't something crazy like uranium. LOL Now don't go losing sleep thinking about that!

If you are going to scrap your dutch oven you should toss a canvas over it and give it a good whack with a sledge to put it in several unusable pieces so it doesn't get scooped up by another smelter or some someone reclaiming it to cook in.

From now on I'm going to smelt each individual piece of pewter separately in a small pot. Maybe on a hotplate rather than a big burner. I scooped up a couple picture frames out of a free box at a yard sale Sunday. They are small but heavy. One still had a sticker that said genuine pewter.

Bob J said:
Thanks Richard.... Great summary on pewter.....

Unfortunately I did flux like crazy with no effect.... Also ruined my second batch of WW after cleaning the pot so assume a little bit of the problem material has a huge impact on the WW alloy....

Am assuming it was pewter but it might not be.... The only stuff I added to the pot other than WW were two cast parts that looked like lead..... Grey oxidized surface and looked like it was a wall ornament with a small copper hook on the end.... There were two of them and they probably weighed about a pound each.... Looked like lead but was pretty hard (couldn't scratch with my fingernail) so thought I would smelt it with the WW rather than the MIT range lead.... Melted at a low temp at the same time as the WW and the colors came out almost immediately.... Fluxed and skimmed and the alloy started growing the lumps (oatmeal) which historically I would associate with Zinc.... Fluxed and skimmed repeatedly and the lumps/colors came back almost immediately.... Melt when briefly exposed looked normal (silver like mercury) but then quickly oxidized to more colors and lumps....

Colors actually reminded me of Hexavalent Chromium from when I was working with a captive plating line.... Am thinking on getting an assay to see if I can find out what this stuff really is....[thinking]
Click to expand...
 
Hi Richard,
Was definitely not zinc in any fashion I am familiar with but the oatmeal consistency of the melt is a similar characteristic to that reported for zinc..... This was something different..... Will have to be more careful in the future.....[thinking]

Really felt bad for the OP on the cast boolits thread I posted..... Guy apparently ran into the same thing I did and everyone jumped on the bandwagon with a bunch of advice the essentially resulted in him ruining his casting pot (higher temp, flux more, its pure lead etc).... Anybody who has smelted in any volume would recognize this as very different from anything we normally run into... He posted some good pics though and it saved me from having to do the same....

Part of the reason I wanted to post it here was just to warn folks not to make the same mistakes I did..... Recognize it early and cut your losses.....,

Patriot said:
Sounds like those things weren't kosher for your mix. I have a rule about pewter. If it doesn't say pewter on it, I don't use it. I'm not that confident of my metallurgical skills to ascertain what is pewter and what is not just by looking at it. Even if it says pewter I always do the 'bend' test. If it doesn't bend it doesn't get used.

I am surprised by your results though. Some of the casters over on castboolits do add zinc to their melts and seem to be just fine. I'm also surprised by the fact that your pot is 'contaminated' by zinc. Minute amounts of zinc should represent no problem when melting subsequent batches I would think. I'm thinking that you might have got a hold of something that has other properties than just zinc. I'm not at all able to be of any help as this is totally out of my league and experience. I know there is a ton of zinc hysteria over on castboolits but I think a lot of it is parroted by self-acclaimed internet experts.
Click to expand...
 
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Will do! Excellent advice! Certainly don't want anyone picking this oven out of the trash and using it to make biscuits.....[wink]

swampy said:
I hope those cast parts weren't something crazy like uranium. LOL Now don't go losing sleep thinking about that!

If you are going to scrap your dutch oven you should toss a canvas over it and give it a good whack with a sledge to put it in several unusable pieces so it doesn't get scooped up by another smelter or some someone reclaiming it to cook in.

From now on I'm going to smelt each individual piece of pewter separately in a small pot. Maybe on a hotplate rather than a big burner. I scooped up a couple picture frames out of a free box at a yard sale Sunday. They are small but heavy. One still had a sticker that said genuine pewter.
Click to expand...
 
swampy said:
From now on I'm going to smelt each individual piece of pewter separately in a small pot. Maybe on a hotplate rather than a big burner. I scooped up a couple picture frames out of a free box at a yard sale Sunday. They are small but heavy. One still had a sticker that said genuine pewter.
Click to expand...

That's good advice! You can use a regular stainless pot picked up from the dump as the melting temp is much lower. I've been
using my CI pot for my pewter melt but I think I will use a regular pot from now on just for another 'belt and suspenders' safeguard.
The other thing I can't stress enough is to keep the melt temp low, just enough to melt the pewter. Any of the other stuff will
be at a much higher melt temp. I've pulled out stuff I thought was pewter when I first started with this stuff that did not melt
at the same temp. I'm a lot more particular now about what goes in the pot. If it doesn't say pewter, it doesn't go in the pot.

ETA: Picked up a two pound, 2.1 ounce pewter pitcher today for $3! [smile]
 
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DukeInMaine said:
Ok, so let me make sure I have the numbers right. The cylinder (where you place the rounds) has a sizing of .432 (which is larger than the barrel). Almost doesn't matter what the bullet size is there, to a degree. So, you fire the bullet, sized at .433, and that will immediately slam into the barrel, which is only .430. That's a big bullet in a small pipe. A lot of compression making the bullet smaller. Did I miss anything?

So, if that doesn't work out for you, try .001" over the barrel (.431)....

I'm gonna be curious as to how that works out.
Click to expand...

Shot 64 of these today from my SBHH. A trace of leading just after the forcing cone but I think that is due to the lead I am using
which is just WW with 2% pewter. I think I need to harden these up just a smidge. They are around 10 BHN and I think I will try
to get this up to at least 12, maybe a bit higher. I tried to keep the velocity down but with 18.0gr of AA#9 these things were
something else. It took me a bit to get comfortable with the load as the recoil was not very pleasant. I am very pleased since
the previous boolits/load I was using caused a lot of leading and it was from the forcing cone down to about halfway through
the barrel.

I also shot about a hundred of the MiHec 359-640 mold (see link) and was extremely pleased with how these worked. Barrel of
my SW28 is sparkling clean shooting these with 8.2gr of AA#5 (a little more than min load). Both were extremely accurate at
short distance.

http://castboolits.gunloads.com/showthread.php?t=58932

Next step is to load up some more of both of these and give a longer distance a try. I'm expecting good accuracy.
 
Awesome news Richard..... Glad the new sizing worked out for you.....[smile]

Patriot said:
Shot 64 of these today from my SBHH. A trace of leading just after the forcing cone but I think that is due to the lead I am using
which is just WW with 2% pewter. I think I need to harden these up just a smidge. They are around 10 BHN and I think I will try
to get this up to at least 12, maybe a bit higher. I tried to keep the velocity down but with 18.0gr of AA#9 these things were
something else. It took me a bit to get comfortable with the load as the recoil was not very pleasant. I am very pleased since
the previous boolits/load I was using caused a lot of leading and it was from the forcing cone down to about halfway through
the barrel.

I also shot about a hundred of the MiHec 359-640 mold (see link) and was extremely pleased with how these worked. Barrel of
my SW28 is sparkling clean shooting these with 8.2gr of AA#5 (a little more than min load). Both were extremely accurate at
short distance.

http://castboolits.gunloads.com/showthread.php?t=58932

Next step is to load up some more of both of these and give a longer distance a try. I'm expecting good accuracy.
Click to expand...
 
Is this pewter craze basically to add tin? Richard, I have a few bars of solder that is 63% tin if you want to try some.
 
Bob J said:
Awesome news Richard..... Glad the new sizing worked out for you.....[smile]
Click to expand...

Hi Bob,

It actually worked out better than I thought. I just went to the bench to finish cleaning the SBHH as I had run
a patch of Kroil down the pipe when I got home. I ran a Chore Boy jag through it a couple of times and the bore
is sparling clean. Now I am impressed!
 
Fixxah said:
Is this pewter craze basically to add tin? Richard, I have a few bars of solder that is 63% tin if you want to try some.
Click to expand...

Hi John,

Yeah, it's for the tin. If you can get the pewter on the cheap it is much less than buying tin from Rotometals
($10/lb). I figure I am paying on average about $3/Lb for the pewter. Pewter is about 92% tin but the solder
would work just as good. Is the rest of the solder content lead? You need around 1.5%-2% tin to lead ratio
to help with the fill out so all you would have to do is figure out what the proper amount of the 66% tin would
be.

Actually hunting for pewter is akin to hunting for lead. It's not that productive but when you hit a 'mother lode'
for cheap it's almost as good as hitting the lottery! (I said almost!) [smile]
 
When you want to drop by let me know and you can take some home to play with. It is stamped Sn63BS VACULOY SOLDER manufactured by alpha.
 

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