I had a casting problem last week! Need some help! had run a successful batch of wheelweights which i had mixed some bullets I had found at the range on a lead gathering search. with the price of lead so high and no further wheelweights in the near future this was a first for me. when I threw in some jacketed bullets in the wheelweight brew it went fine. However when i was done casting decided to throw in my whole bullet find in the hot pot to cast into ingots the copper jacket melted with the lead making a real mess. The brew was orange not the color of lead and even when i threw in wheelweights still glowed orange ended pitching the pot into the ground as it cloged up the spout. I didnt know copper would melt with the lead whats the melting point of copper? What should I do to the pot to purge the remainder of copper out? Any suggestions Thanks

From my little bit of research, Pb melts at 632 degrees F while Cu melts at a temp of 1985 degrees F. You've got your pot waaaay too hot is what I'm guessing. Get a thermometer for the pot if you're just relying on the thermostat.

Melting Point: 1357.77 K (1084.62 °C, 1984.32 °F)
I doubt your melting pot gets that hot. I'm wondering if you had some of those very thin copper coated bullet, perhaps even the copper coated cast bullets like from National Bullet ( I believe) that got mixed in your pot. If the copper looking stuff floats on the top just keep skimming it off and discarding it. There are lead, tin arsenic alloys that are blend with copper to made bearing, but you can't blend that in a cast bullet melting pot.

Thanks Joe Mack and Starmetal! Yea i couldnt fiqure it out either . The whole mess in the pot glowed orange and i couldnt skim as it seemed mixed together thats when it went on the ground as the spout got cloged. I will say that the pot is on its last leg and i have bipassed the thermostat as it burned up. But that was 5 years ago and I have been casting successfully as I throw more lead in as im casting. No I dont have a thermometer dont those cost 40 bucks or so? Ive casted thousands of bullets with the thermostat bipassed as I usually left it turned up anyway as i add lead periodicly. The mess on the ground looked like lead and copper mixed. I cant believe the pot got that hot without burning up. Any one else have any ideas? i heard zink can messup a pot any zink bullets out there?

I melt a LOT of range scrap that includes jacketed bullets of all types.. When tin got pricey I lucked into tin-silver-copper solder to alloy with. Never a problem with an electric pot. Chances are your thermostat died and would not heat beyond the lead alloy sludge stage which gave you a molasses-thick looking grainy mixture with lots of yellow oxide covering pot, melt surface, dipper, etc.

Maybe so but how would you account for copper color mixed with the lead , looked like copper lines in the lead i threw on the ground.

when pure lead is melted it takes higher temps and you will see reds and yellows on the top of your melt. What it is is oxidized lead. I dont think you could get your melt to a high enough temp to melt copper or brass. You probably just had the temp up a little to high and were oxidizing the lead.

With new VIRGIN foundry lead you almost always get a surface film with the most beautiful peacock and gold colors, especially at higher temps. That is from basic element oxides in minute amounts. I thought your problem was the temperature did not allow good casting and that yellow sludge.

sure appreciate all the help!! I guess when ive casted wheelweights for 15 years with success I guess i knew it all ha sure didnt so you guys know a lot more for sure. Now that weve established that the copper didnt melt what do i do to purge the pot from impurities? when the thermostat was bipassed as it burned up I would periodicly unplug the pot to cool it down. I didnt this last time as I was adding lead ingots fairly often to the pot. Also what made the spout clog? this hasnt happened before. I have 1 and a half ingots before the spout clogged that look funky. When i did straight wheelweights ive never had a problem. Also the range bullets had a lot of clay dirt mixed , just thought it would float to the top for skimming. could that have messed things up? can too much marvellux mess things up? Put in a marble sized piece.should i just put in my 1 and half ingots and heat the pot again periodicly unplugging it? and try to skim again? adding more marvellux? thanks again for all the help!!

Just read a post on zink contamination . a gentleman named Allan Degroot says one of the worst contaminatied pots was one with a copper mix from range copper washed bullets!! so I guess that a copper washed bullet could contaminate a pot. Any help here would be appreciated

The help you need is a new pot! Trying to figure out what happened to a smelt in a pot WITHOUT a thermostat is futile at best. Then to not know the temp is guessing and conjecture.

I can understand being on a restricted budget, been there done that, got the T shirt!

lee pro 4-20

lyman thermometer

I cast blind for 40 years, relying on the numbers on a 10 pound lee pot. Last year I got a Lyman thermometer, now I'm sure of the temp. Does that make better boolits? Nope, still getting good, well filled out boolits.

BUT keeping records of which alloy cast at which temp with which mold will allow you to return to a certain mold at a later date and cast them like you did before.

I moved up to a pro 4-20 a couple years ago, best move I've made in quite a while.

Even with the thermostat working I kept it a t full throttle as I kept adding lead periodicly ok. When the thermostat went out ( its a rcbs pro melt) about 50000 bullets ago I bypassed the burned out thermo and it worked great with wheelweights until i got the grand idea of picking up some range lead and mixing it with the pot. My big question here is can copper washed bullets with the thin coat of copper contaminate a pot that wont go over 800 degrees turned up all the way? I have anew rcbs in cold storage from years ago when they cost 229 instead of 300 plus. I would like to determine what went wrong here so I dont do it again with the new pot also wouldnt mind using the old pot and purging the impurities out any ideas? Thanks!

quote:

Originally posted by Philbilly:
Even with the thermostat working I kept it a t full throttle as I kept adding lead periodicly ok. When the thermostat went out ( its a rcbs pro melt) about 50000 bullets ago I bypassed the burned out thermo and it worked great with wheelweights until i got the grand idea of picking up some range lead and mixing it with the pot. My big question here is can copper washed bullets with the thin coat of copper contaminate a pot that wont go over 800 degrees turned up all the way? I have anew rcbs in cold storage from years ago when they cost 229 instead of 300 plus. I would like to determine what went wrong here so I dont do it again with the new pot also wouldnt mind using the old pot and purging the impurities out any ideas? Thanks!

NO

I think maybe you might just be seeing that copper wash floating on top the mix. Should have just skimmed it off.

Tried skimming and adding more lead it made a bigger mess!!! The spout clogged thats when it went to the ground and copper was mixed thru the lead in streaks on the dirt! thinking about getting a lead thermometer anyone know where i can get one at a good price? thanks Anyone else have this problem? Its apossibility that there wasnt any wheelweight lead when I thru the range stuff in the pot and maybe it did get real hot however I would think It would burn up at 1400 degrees.

There is no way that pot got that hot.

Some of my babbit metal has copper in it. Makes great bullets.

Jim

if you want to remove copper. Just heat your pot up to casting temps then shut it off as the lead cools the copper will float to the top and can be skimmed off. You may need to repeat this a few times to get it all.

i agree with Jim. Copper in very small ammounts is actually a good thing for casting. It helps make bullets harder and also more ductable.

quote:

Originally posted by arkypete:
Some of my babbit metal has copper in it. Makes great bullets.

Jim

Thanks LLoyd will try when It cools a bit outside! Again I dont think I have traces of copper when It clogs the pot big time and the lead looks red when skimming! Ive never seen anything like it. Will any kind of clay which was on the bullets I threw in the pot cause any problems? would it be better to spray the clay off and let the lead dry for a few days then add to the pot? Thanks everyone for contributing . I assumed the clay would all float to the top.

I would have to guess that the colars you were seeing was just caused by oxidation on the surface of the lead. It was probably more prevelent due to the contaminations from the dirt ect on the range lead. I doubt if it will hurt a thing.

Your RCBS Pro-melt has a lifetime warranty. Why not call RCBS and ask for a replacement t/stat or instructions to ship? You say you get good results with a bypassed t/stat but i am sure they are far from uniform. Fix the pot and you fix your troubles. Gianni

thanks MT and Lloyd ! Ill call RCBS Didnt know they had a lifetime warranty on a lead pot. You know this is a great company My RCbs Lube sizer went on the blink and they sent a new part free of charge. RCBS is great period !!

Have a look at Allan DeGroot's post under "Zinc what actualy happens to bullets?"

quote:

Tin does oxidize much more easily than lead but the surface area interface with the air is relatively very small, you think of area but realize that that thin layer is only a few atoms thick....

Seperating zinc out is EASY and doesn't "ruin" the melt metal OR the pot it's melted in.
It just requires a bit of extra work.

Keep it melted but turn down the temp the Zinc will crystalize and float, skim it. keep repeating.

what keeps zinc partially in solution with some melts
is a metal that will mix with both Zinc and lead, copper.
Copper is the REAL "Boogeyman" of lead casting as it does most of the things that Zinc gets blammed for.

The worst thing copper does is it "steals" tin from the melt, because tin has a great affinity for copper
but so does Zinc...

The presence of tin makes using zinc to remove copper less effective and takes tin with the copper.

The worst batches I've seen for copper contamination have been recovered (indoor) range lead, particularly if a lot of
copper or brass washed 22LR bullets are included in the mix.

this material requires long repeated tedious processing, but it is far from hopeless and can be made far easier by dealing with the metal in larger quantities.

I do my smelting in a 6quart dutch oven (with a lid) over the burner from a Brinkmann Cajun cooker/smoker.

Hell I keep my skimmed dross in 3lb coffee cans and I later recover the lead from that as well.

I recover that lead by "baking" the can in my coal stove
and draining the lead out for reprocessing.

I guess id have to ask why if copper is such a bad thing it an alloy do they add it to babbit that is used in high speed bearings. If they just wanted the bearing harder for wear they could add more antimony. they pour these bearings and and use them in some of the most precision machines out there. I wont say that an alloy with copper in it isnt a tad bit harder to cast with but a minute amout in your mix isnt going to hurt a thing. I add babbit with copper in my alloys for the tin and if you figure that a guy is adding a lb of it to 20 lbs of lead and figure that the babbit is about 2 percent copper your final mix has such a small ammount of copper that it probabaly doesn help or hurt a thing. Now zinc is another problem. Any ammount of it will hurt your casting and although it can be removed by heating and cooling and skimming you are never going to get all of it out of an alloy no matter how many times your repeat this. I dont know how many bullets Alan has casted but mine count is well over a million and ive casted with about any alloy you can think of and even pure zinc. Most times i see guys claim that copper is causing there pot to plug i can usually show them that what it is is trying to cast with pure lead or a softer alloy that just needs more heat. Most of the complaints i hear about colars on the surface can be attributed to the same thing. Pure lead or softer alloys take much more heat to melt and this cause more oxidation on the surface and its that oxidation that cause all the pretty colars on the surface. I know guys that actually want copper in there alloys, especially for rifle bullets. It gives a bullet added strenght without adding brittleness that antimony will add when the antimony percentages of your alloy are higher then the tin levels. If your nozzle is freezing up turn your pot up or add a little lineotype to increase the tin and antimony and ill about bet it stops. Just as tin and to some extent antimony help lead to fill out a mold better by making it flow better it will do the same for it allowing it to flow out of your pot easier.

I'm not going to get into a pissing contest or big lengthy chemistry explanation, but little bit of zinc in lead won't ruin it for casting bullets and it actually can make your alloy quite hard....just as Idahosharpshooter tried to tell everyone in another post somewhere else.

ive done it myself. If you run your pot wide open and cast fast you can make a presentable bullet. But if you weight them you will find some pretty big varirations. I doubt if your going to get any kind of precision accuaracy with them but for shooting a deer at 25 yards theyd probably work. To me it isnt worth the headaches. If i get a comtaminated batch i bring to to my buddy who fishes and he makes downrigger weights out of it.