I have some lead that is supposed to be 99.97% pure. I bought it from a company on the web. I started to melt some and I am getting a huge amount of crap off the top. The dross is yellow, blue, and green. The yellow dross is almost clear. The rest is heavy. When I pour bullets this yellow junk is making flaws on the surface of the bullet. I have tried to cook it off and I just get more. Am I doing something wrong? Ron

Strange colors are common with pure lead but you might have some contamination too.
Turn on the pot and get it to the spot where the lead just melts, about 600*. Then skim everything off the surface. You will not hurt pure lead because you will not get rid of wanted alloys.
When casting, pure lead needs more heat then an alloy but don't over heat it. All that does is oxidize more lead. Try casting at about 800*. It helps to flux once in a while to clean the surface.

If you have the lead in small ingots try this. Lift the ingot about ten inches off a concrete floor. Drop the ingot on the floor. If your hear any tinging when it hits the floor then it has something in it. If the lead makes a "thud" then it is more than likely pure lead. This may sound silly, but it works. Tom.

quote:

Originally posted by HEAD0001:
If you have the lead in small ingots try this. Lift the ingot about ten inches off a concrete floor. Drop the ingot on the floor. If your hear any tinging when it hits the floor then it has something in it. If the lead makes a "thud" then it is more than likely pure lead. This may sound silly, but it works. Tom.

Head is correct,
Pure lead sound distinctively different than harder alloys.
I have ingots of 60-40 tin lead, 63-37 tin lead and wheel weights. They all ping when dropped.
Lead just goes thud.

The lead just thuds when it is dropped. I cooked some down this weekend. I got a lot of crud off of it. Most of it looks Blue,yellow,and green. After I got some rendered down a couple of times I poured some bullets. The weight was right on for that mould. The oly problem is the bullets are blue at the bottom of the mould and some are blue up one side. I fluxed the lead with candle wax and I did it again with solid ALOX. Is the blue color going to affect the accuracy of the bullet? I am thinking that I might need to melt it again and skim more junk off of it. When I sized the bullets they were soft. I am questioning the blue bullets. ANy ideas? Ron

Ron,

Generally, unless it's a muzzler loader mould or black cartridge mould in some instances, they are cut to throw their indicated weight with an alloy blend such as Lyman #2. Some mould companies today cut them to throw the prescribed weight with wheelweights. When I cast with a Lyman or RCBS mould for example, I weigh my bullets bare, that is no lube or gas check and compare the weight with what they are suppose to weigh. Heavier means too much lead, lighter means too much alloy.

When you melt pure lead and skim off the top layer it should be shiny silver, but if you let it the batch get hot, it will get a blue looking film on top. Now I've never had cast bullets from lead have blue on them anywhere. Casting say round balls, they come out pretty shiny. After letting them sit for months they get that dull lead color...you know like a medium grey.

When you fluxed you reblended any of the alloys in that metal back into the lead.

What exactly are you casting for? What caliber. I'd only use pure lead for blackpowder firearms.
It sounds like whatever you have is mostly lead if it thuds when dropped and the bullet are very soft when you size them. To answer your question about whether the color on them would hurt your accuracy I would have to say no. So people cast with their furnace or pot running so hot that the bullets drop from their moulds with a frosted look. That doesn't hurt anything either.

Joe, no way in the world to get a frosted pure lead boolit. Need antimony.
To keep pure lead balls or boolits from oxidizing in storage, spray them with Sheath or any other good anti-rust spray.

quote:

Originally posted by bfrshooter:
Joe, no way in the world to get a frosted pure lead boolit. Need antimony.
To keep pure lead balls or boolits from oxidizing in storage, spray them with Sheath or any other good anti-rust spray.

bf....yes I know that....I was just using that for an appearance occurrence on a bullet that would not affect the accuracy of such bullet. It was in reference to the blue on his bullets.

These are Muzzleloader bullets. I am using a 459-405-HB, This one is for my 45 fast twist rifle. The bullets are paper patched. I have poured a lot of bullets from a lead I got from my grandpa. I can't ask him what it was cause he is gone.
This new lead is so soft if you drop a bullet it will have a flat spot down the whole side if it lands on it's side. Funny thing is this mold has never thrown a 405 gr bullet. 388 is the heaviest I have ever had it throw. This lead was virgin lead 99.9% pure. As I look through the bullets now almost every bullet has a blue color in it.
I fluxed but when I fluxed it weent back to having blue, green and gold dross.
I am wondering if the lead was too hot? Ron

Well you said the weight was on and now that we know these are muzzleloader bullets and those should be pure lead...you sound ok. I wouldn't worry about the color of the bullets. There are times if you cast pure lead at a low temperature it won't fill your mould out. You can try lowering it, do you know what your temperature is set on now? How are your bullets filling out? No wrinkles or outside voids?

Some do have spots where it didn't fill out. On my lee production pot I have the heat set at 8 to 9. I have some bullets that look like there was some crud stuck on the mould "voids I think"
I looked at the mould and nothing was on the mould to make the spots. I was thinking it was some dross that had not came out yet. Ron

Perhaps Dr Phil could counsel those blue bullets.

i had similar problems with lead rope when i melted it down. my ingots were blue. i mixed these ingots 50/50 with wheel weights and have had no problems with accuracy.

I don't know if this will help or not. You said you started with candle wax. Many of us who shoot black powder muzzle loaders use pure bee wax. This may make a difference.

I found out what the problem was. What I did was I got the lead hot and skimmed the crap off of it for a while. The top turned yellow, red, blue, green, you name it. Then it turned kind of a off brown, and then I added a 250 gr bullet that was poured out of lead shot to every 5 pounds of pure lead. The bullets have SPG type lube on them. The hard lead in this and the lube homogenized the lead and it cleaned up perfectly. Some guys have said it would have done the same thing if I would have added tin or 50-50 solder. Anyway the blue is gone, the bullets are at target weight for the mould and the wrinkles are gone. Life is good, and I poured 100 new bullets and melted the blue ones back. I am waiting for the weather to get better to shoot. Ron