Here in the suburbs, every tire shop I�ve been to has a contract to some recycler, but one guy gave up on his rounds, so I just scored 130 pounds of wheelweights and 20 lbs of trash - free! Trouble is, as I was sorting through them, some rang like little bells, some clunked, and some were somewhere in between. I remember going through ww topics on the Shooters forum, but didn�t pay enough attention because I was using only pure -paid-for lead and lino and tin. Now I want to refine this stuff, but I�m concerned about getting some zinc contamination and ruining the whole batch. I have about 25 lbs of stick-on ww�s and 105 lbs of regular ones, and about 10 lbs of questionables. I�m planning on melting the good stuff down all at once in an cut down propane tank. What do I have to look out for in sorting these Lyman's in the rough? Thanks, Stan

Howdy, Stan.

A couple years back, with EXACTLY the same concerns you express, I ran a little experiment.

My wheelweights come from shops located on I-80, which as a major Interstate highway sees all kinds of traffic...new cars, old cars, import cars, big rigs etc., which also means the shops get a vast variety of different WW types. If ever any "oddball" WW were going to get into a bucket of used ones, it would seem likely that shops located on an Interstate would be prime places.

I took a whole bucket of used WW fresh from the tire shoppe, about 140 pounds, and sorted out all the suspicious ones....granular looking, painted, plastic-coated...ANYTHING out of the ordinary. After I had them sorted I got to wondering about just how "bad" the rejects really were, hence my experiment.

I fired up my RCBS furnace and cast a bunch of bullets from the "good" wheelweights in that bucket, and then cast another bunch from the "bad", or rejected, oddball-looking wheelweights. I then compared the results of the two batches of bullets.

There was NO APPRECIABLE DIFFERENCE in "castability", in weight, in diameter, or in appearance. So....now I don't bother sorting them at all, although I do pick out the soft stick-on weights for muzzleloaders and alloying purposes. I certainly would get rid of any WW that floated on the top of the melt, or behaved in any other strange fashion, just for piece of mind. Apart from that, I don't concern myself.

In smelting at least several tons of WW for my personal use, I have yet to encounter any problem with contamination.

Regards from BruceB (aka Bren Mk1)

Stan,

it sounds like your going about it the right way. Keep every thing in marked ingots. I use a die mark pen to identify them later. I don't remember my last batch of WW having that high a percentage of stick on one's. Suppose more and more people are getting alloy wheels that require them. I think they'll be quite soft, but seperating that backing can be real fun. That's an outside job, as the caustic smoke is terrible. Should run this by Felix, but I wonder if that adhesive is toxic?. Be careful with the skimmings and the dust in the bottom of the pot, thats heavy stuff!!...Geo