Tommorrow i am going to start melting down the buckets of w.w. i picked up. I have read where some guys put tin into there ingots. Is this necessary, or is this for special type applications? Also, i have a pound of flux that came with my order of casting supplys. How do i use this, and when.

Greg....Do it outside and look carefully for the cut off rubber valve stems. Makes a heck of a smoke as does the grease on the weights.

I'd try the WW alloy as is. Some batches need tin and some don't at $5-6 a pound, don't use it if there's no need. The tin can be added as required at casting time.

On the flux, skim off all the old clips, paint skin and junk. Add a small amount of flux...a pinch...stir, let the melt sit for 5 minutes or so and skim. You'll need to do this later when casting but this will get most of the crap out.

Pour into ingot and mark with a magic marker as to contents. I have lino, range scrap, pure and WW ingots on the bench and it's hard to tell if you don't mark them./beagle

1 suggestion-turn back before its to late

Depends on what you are doing and the batch of WW whether you need added tin.

Wadcutters and midrange pistol almost always do fine with straight WW as long as the mould fills out properly. Hot pistol and all but the mildest of rifle loads will need the added tin.

I don't agree the rifle loads will need added tin. With water quenching, I'm shooting at over 2400 fps in one rifle with no leading, and commonly shoot 2250 in three other rifles. The only time I've needed tin in many moons was for casting some .22 calibers for a friend, just to get good fill out.

Beagle's right: Try casting with plain WW's. If your molds fill out and give perfect bullets, then don't add any tin. If not, and if melt temperature isn't the cause of poor quality (because the temp. is too low), add no more than 1% Sn, which helps casting considerably. Moreover, if bullet hardness is an issue, heat-treatment or water-dropping (see Waksupi's post) rather than more tin will do the job. ...Maven

Just be careful when adding more ww to an already melted batch. Some weights have road salt and moisture in them, caught under the clips. When added to the molten lead can lead to a very unpleasant eruption of the pot.
Can never be too careful with molten metal.
My .02

my suggestion? buy an old cast iron pot at a garage sale, and melt them down in it, over a coleman stove. There is nearly always dirt and debris on ww... and it will leave your casting pot cleaner if you do the preliminary melting down somewhere else. I agree with Waksupi.. who probably has forgotten more about casting than most of us know... if you drop your straight ww cast bullets out of the mold into water, they will be hard enough for nearly anything. I've heard that it's best to either not size them after quenching, or run them thru a sizing die that doesn't reduce their diameter, as this is supposed to damage the hardened surface of the bullet. Anybody else heard that?

Without any proof, I feel the hardness goes deeper than the surface. If it was only the surface, it wouldn't be so darn hard to size them after they hardened.