I melted and cleaned a batch of about 50# of wheelweights about 6 months ago. Seemed normal. I tried using them today. Could not get decent bullets. I tried running up the temperature as far as it would go (enough for the surface to start turning blue). Didn't work. Sweetened it with some pure tin. Still didn't work. Then tried to cut it with pure lead. No luck.

The bullets would not completely fill out in some of the small details (such as a sharp leading edge driving band). It also seemed to have a much MUCH larger percentage of ones with inclusions. I cleaned and fluxed it over and over, but they still kept showing up. It almost seems like I got some zinc in the wheelweights.

Anyway, after fiddling with this for between one and two hours tonight, I drained the pot and scraped it. Then I put in one pound of monotype to two pounds of pure lead. It cast perfectly as soon as everything was up to temperature. This should give a Bhn of about 14 or 15.

It is a Lyman 375167 mould that is new (old stock). The bullets cast at 0.379"OD and 271-1/2gr + or - 1/2gr. I will be sizing them to 0.376" or 0.377" for use in the 9.5x57 Mannlicher Schoenauer. If I stick the forward lube groove out the front, it is the same length and shape as a factory jacketed bullet.

Any suggestions on what to do about the wheelweights?

You mentioned the deadly "blue color" of zinc contamination. Did you see any roping of the pour from the bottom spout or did you notice a thin "lead film" showing up on top of your sprue plate after casting for a while?

If it is zinc contamination, you can try to keep the metal moltem for a long period of time, not stirring and not fluxing but just quietly removing the thick blue film that will appear on the surface as the non-amalgamated (non-alloyed) zinc drifts to the top. After an hour or more of melt time (scraping it off only about three times) the blue will begin to thin out a bit.

You can never get the small percentage of fully alloyed zinc out of your melt, but you can separate the mechanically mixed-in zinc out as it will eventually float to the top as it is a bit lighter than true lead alloys.

Now, pick a BIG pistol bullet mold that fills really easily and simply cast all that ill-acting metal up in those big easy to fill bullets. Don't pick your favorite target round, pick a heavy plinker bullet that you won't feel bad about "wasting" the sorry lead and your time making plinkers out of them.

You will have to cast it very hot to get it to fill at all, it will never perform well for being wrinkle free and for sharp clean bands fill so don't expect it to. You are making up a bunch of plinkers for the kids to shoot up, that's all.

I've got a bunch of 260 grain and 310 grain .44 bullets cast up in advance for plinker loads from the last time I had some zinc contaminated metal.

Now I take great pains in carefully separating out all my wheel weights and I lay aside all the painted ones and ones that feel "light" as I don't want to go through that mess again.

You can always give away zinc contaminated metal to somebody who is making fishing weights. I don't think they really care all that much about perfect fill on those saltwater sinkers.

Oldfeller

Oldfeller; Thanks for the tip. I have run into that problem but never knew what it was. Since it was only for 44 or 45 slugs it wasn't that critical but the info is useful and welcome. derf

When you melt your WWs, the easiest way to not get Zinc contamination is to keep the temperature down.
WWs melt at ~600F.
Zinc or Zinc alloy, ~787F
Zinc Die cast ~715F.
So if you keep your temperature down on the origonal melt, the impurities, including the clips and Zinc impurities will separate out, floating to the top where you can easily remove them.
GEt yourself a good thermometer for both cleaning your WWs and to cast better bullets later with clean metal. - Lew

Lew, that is a very good suggestion. On the slag melt just turn the heat up enough to barely get it to melt period, then scoop off the floater weights.

I just wish my bulk melt station had better temperature control. It is just a gas fired pot.

If I had a zinc weight low in the melt mass it would see too much heat and melt before the top of the massed WW even began to melt. Too much temperature variation in the full pot of tangled weights.

I'm stuck with sorting them carefully by hand, I guess.

Oldfeller

I did see that the bottom pour stream was not smooth. It was not exactly "roping", but it was not smooth. This happens some times when the pour spout gets a little clogged up. However, I ran a wire up into the spout several times and it did nothing.

If I find any fishermen who cast, I will offer it to them for free (or if anyone is within driving distance of Omaha, NE). I am not going to try to save it. It is not worth the time or effort.

Harry, did you post this question on Greybeards forum last week? I'm just curious.

Oldfeller

I am about to have a massive WW melt done for me.
I saw some very suspicious WWs that were very shiny and very brittle. I thought I finally had the mythological "Zinc" WWs.
I did an oven melting test with some obviously lead WWs. They both slumped/melted at the lower temperature!
The suspicious WWs were cast hard and lacquered to look shiney, but were still lead.
Another false alarm for me.
I suggest you melt some of the "zinc?" WWs in the oven where you can closely control the temperature, and see what temperature they melt. - Lew

Oldfeller: No, I did not post this anywhere else. I tried to register on Graybeards once, but for some reason, it would not let me in. I only post on Shooters and Sixgunners. And after Shooters died, I signed on here.

Lewis: All of them are melted and cast in ingots. Too late to do any tests. I don't know if they actually have any zinc in them or not, but I do know that it won't cast worth a darn.

........I had a bunch of alloy i suspected of being contaminated with zinc. I cast hot, then VERY hot, then so cool the melt was grainy on top. Switched moulds, smoked moulds cleaned moulds, added tin. All to no avail.

I did what Oldfeller advised above and had the pot cranked up to 'incinerate' and used all the alloy to cast Lee 452-225 RN's. At the time I owned a Norinco 1911 copy and that dismal POS shot just as it always did. That would be crappy. Yet it shot no worse (hard to think of THAT) and these were definately the boolits to waste :-)

.........Buckshot