Howdy folks,
This is my first post on the Accurate Board. I was a daily lurker at Shooters for a long time.

My wife had some of her girlfriends and their husbands for a cookout a couple weekends ago. Got to talking guns with one of the husbands. He's not a shooter, but found it fascinating that I load my own ammo and cast my own bullets.

He works on high tension lines and said he might be able to get me some lead. He brought over a couple "phase weights" to see if I could melt them down. They weight just over 25 pounds each and LOOK like lead, however, I've got some suspicion.

First, they are extremely hard. Linotype won't scratch them. Also, when whacked with a hammer, they have a sort of "clink" to them. Sort of like when you hit a chisel with a hammer. This being opposed to the "thud" I expect to hear if I were to wail on a piece of soft lead.

Anyone ever heard of a "phase weight"? If so, are they some super alloy of lead, or are they zinc or something? The guy can get my plenty more if I want them.

I'm going to try and post a picture here of the two weights. Wish me luck....
Jason


[ 10-03-2003, 16:49: Message edited by: JRD ]

Zinc alloy? Melt in a coffee can over a coleman and see what happens. Do NOT apply a torch directly to the alloy, because there might be some bad fumes from boiling it. If it melts too easily, or not at all, then we need to dig a little deeper. If it melts OK, sorta' like normal, try casting with it by the ladle method. Report results. ... felix

JRD,

Looking forward to the results of your test. I have a friend in that business too.

If that really is lead, it could be a great source of new boolits.

Regards,

Thanks Felix. I'm not sure when I'll get the chance to try and melt it, but I'll be sure to post back the results.

If this is lead, then great, but who you really want to get to know is a guy who does underground cables for the electric company. A few years back my father had a friend who got him a whole bunch of cable sheathing. I guess they wrap underground cables in lead sheets. It's coated with asphalt or tar as well so it was pretty smelly to melt down into ingots, but they were nice soft lead.

I guess that the underground and high tension guys at the power company are totaly seperate operations. At least here anyway.

Jason

Test with a magnet - if magnetic it's steel or iron. Probably zinc. Agree with not heating it unless very careful about fumes. Zinc and CI weigh about the same. Probably zinc because it's corrosion resistant.

Phase weight - power at high tension voltages is transmitted in 3 phase power. All sinusoidal waveform, each of 3 starting 120 degrees apart.

Lines from pole to pole are brought up to a specific tension. (Actually tested by thumping the line and measuring the number of cycles in a given period of time.) The weight, therefore is part of the mechanism to apply the right tension to the line.

Probably Zinc, but all is not lost. You can make some wild bullets out of zinc. The NRA's casting guide talks about it. No lube, very high velocity, very light bullets.

JRD, I'm a lineman and came into 2200 lbs of "jumper weights" and they are a good alloy. Those halves are 50 lbs each. I treat them like wheel weights. They cast like WWs, have a a BHN of 10, bullet weights are equal and will heat treat very nice. I got a cheapie dutch oven and melt two at a time over a Coleman stove. The conductor groove has a liner and nails that you need to remove with pliers prior to melting. Sometimes the stainless steel washers will stick in the bolt holes also. Get all you can.

About the only time to play with a zinc boolit is when you have a gun with a very, very fast twist and it won't shoot anything correctly but condoms. Then, there might be a payoff for screwing up your utensils. Better yet, get seperate everything when playing with KNOWN zinc. Zinc ruins lead, in general, and their pots and pans too without excessive cleaning afterwards. ... felix

The phase weights weigh only about 27 pounds each using Mrs. JRD's digital bathroom scale. If they were lead, I'd expect them to be much more. Maybe the 50 pounds that pbshooter alluded to.

Pbshooter there are probably many different kinds of phase or jumper weights out there. I don't doubt some are lead, but these sure aren't.

TRK, thanks for the great explaination of what phase weights are used for.

I've got enough good lead alloy where I can not have to worry about messing with zinc bullets for a long time. I have thought of maybe melting the zinc down into cannonballs. My dad has a cannon with a two-inch bore that he uses for firing salutes. I've wondered about trying to sand cast some balls. TRK, you're a cannon guy (at least mortar). Have you ever tried that?

Jason
PS, what is CI? I haven't had chemistry since my freshman year of college. Is it a compound? I don't recall that symbol.

Underground cable sheathing is lead used by Phone companys rather than Electric co. As I remember it was out of date in the early 70's. Ben would know if he is here. Gianni.

JRD -
I haven't tried casting zinc personally. The 4.5" ones I have were cast by Pattern Services (which serves two nearby founderies). They were sand cast, using a matchplate. Diameter was irregular, shrinkage took it's toll.

2" may work. Size appropriately (with clearance) so they'll fit. Cast oversize is a pain. Expect irregular size. Shrinkage is a pain.

Others have suggested use of centrifugal casting or pressure casting for larger sizes. I wonder what a tall sprue and risers would do. For SOME sizes that should do the job - but how large would they get before they did not?

Tim K

You could easily measure the density of that metal. Fill a container level full of water and then either weigh the water that overflows when you put the metal in, or weigh the container before and after to see how much water went over the rim. Weight of the metal divided by weight of the water equals density. Lead = 11.35, zinc is 7.13. Since the lead is hard, it is less dense but should still measure much more than zinc.
Leadsmith