Cast Bullet alloy with zinc

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  • Last Post 31 May 2015
billglaze posted this 25 February 2015

Gentlemen: As a many year veteran of using Wheel Weights (WW) for casting, I can't help but notice that the buckets of WW's I've been collecting recently are intermixed with  weights of zinc.  In fact, I have been unable to reliably tell zinc from lead weights.  Thusly, I have cast bullets of a zinc-lead WW mix.  I learned this almost accidentally, as I took a great deal of care when separating my WW's, and felt I had eliminated all the Zinc weights. I figured out what had happened almost by inference:  After casting my 311299 bullets that used to weigh a nominal 200 gr., I found the bullets weighing 186-187 grains.  Only one reason I could figure for this.  Zinc mixed.  Further, these bullets were much more difficult when sizing, requiring much more handle pressure.  Final straw:  BHN of 35+ However, on shooting them, they were as accurate, or more so, than my earlier 100% WW's.  Please, keep in mind we're not talking record size here; the groups were from 7/8” to 1-1/8".  About nominal for me.  Occasionally better grouping. Also, I'm not concerned about hunting; as long as they penetrate a paper target, I don't care what happens afterwards. After all the above, the question:  Does anybody have a reliable method to discriminate between the 2 types of metal, short of lab tests?  (sounds expensive) And:  As long as I'm getting results comparable with what I want, and keep improving, is there any reason for getting hysterical because I've gotten some zinc in the mix? So far, the stuff has exhibited some good characteristics; it casts well, and drops well from the mold.  In other words, it seems easy to work with. Well, waiting for somebody to drop the other shoe. Bill

In theory, there's no difference between theory and practice. In practice, there is. My fate is not entirely in Gods hands, if I have a weapon in mine.

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gpidaho posted this 25 February 2015

Bill: When melting down the wheel weights keep your pot temp. below 700 F and the zinc will float. Quickly remove the floaters with the clips. That said, some induce 1% into their mix for hardening effect. You've seen the results. As long as it casts well and doesn't bust the tooling should be fine for paper shooting. GP

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onondaga posted this 25 February 2015

http://castbulletassoc.org/view_user.php?id=5098>billglaze Casting quality gets progressively worse starting at only 1% Zinc in your alloy. Fortunately it is not hard to avoid with some care melting wheel weights. Zinc melts at 787.1 F. If you have a decent thermometer or an outboard PID for your melting pot it is easy to stay 50 degrees below the melting point of Zinc and it will never alloy into your bullet metal and just float up to be picked off.

It is the guys that turn their pots all the way up or use a torch to speed up a melt that get the most Zinc in their bullets. 1% or more Zinc in bullet metals causes surface porosity and poor fill out of detail. The more Zinc you have in your alloy, the worse it will be.

Gary

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18mm posted this 27 February 2015

If you expect to get it all simply by turning the temp down, you won't. Much of that metal stays hot enough to easily melt zinc so when you turn your pot on again, the zinc will ALL float, starting with a cold pot. Save your zinc, it makes dandy 22 bullets.

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runfiverun posted this 01 March 2015

zinc ww's are marked Zn and steel are marked Fe.

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billglaze posted this 01 March 2015

Thanks for the advisory.  Unfortunately, many of the WW's I have, aren't marked with any identifying number/symbol except their wt.  Sometimes, not even that. Having said that, (and not walking 3 stories down to where the stuff is), I'm silling to bet that you're right on at least some of the wts.  I'm willing to settle for what I can get! Thanks. Bill

In theory, there's no difference between theory and practice. In practice, there is. My fate is not entirely in Gods hands, if I have a weapon in mine.

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M. W. Curtess posted this 03 March 2015

Maybe there is zinc and maybe there is “zinc", but I have melted Zn at a pot temperature a bit below 700*. The process is the same as melting pure antimony granules into lead at low temperature. I have read somewhere that the process is called “sublimation". My mistake was leaving the pot before everything was melted. When I returned, there was the zinc (?) weight with random bright empty voids in the surface. Since the damage was already done, I just left it there and in another half hour or so it was an empty shell , now separate from the steel clip. I just diluted this pot into a bunch of ingots I was suspiscious of, and it cast “acceptably” and I eventually used all of it for non-critical handgun bullets. Bullet weight was just enough lighter for me to think: “Hmm! Must be more lino in there than I thought.” I did not think to check the hardness. They shot just fine and I am not fond of soft, “expandable” bullets, anyway.  I would not do this purposely or even (again) carelessly. but it was not the unshirted disaster I expected it to be.

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Ken Campbell Iowa posted this 03 March 2015

heh, i occasionally dig out my old math y physics books from the 50's ... and am impressed with man's ...obsessive ... quest to explain just what the heck is going on out there ...

i am humbled to realize that mothernature just keeps doing her thing and probably doesn't really give a dang if we figure her out or not ...

so here we find out that ....just a little zinc either is a total disaster .... or not ...

i spose one reason for this mini-rant is that i have dug out my old _fouling shot _ issues back to '77 or so ... HEY JOE B:: groups were about 2 inches back then also ....

i propose a toast to mothernature ... what a gal; she done skonked us agin !!!

ken

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Tuner posted this 10 May 2015

Two ways to identify zinc WW's is to 1. Drop them of the floor in my shop, the zinc will have a much higher pitched sound. 2. Try to cut them with side cutter pliers or something similar. Try a lead WW first then a zinc, the difference will be immediately obvious. That is a lot of work so I only use it to identify questionable weights that are not marked.

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Ralph Smalley posted this 20 May 2015

all of the zinc weightsI have seen were rivetted to the clip, whereas lead weights were bonded (soldered, I guess). The weight has 2 pins cast into it that go thru holes in the clip. I still run the pot low on warm up stir to check because I haven't seen everything.  I am curious about using a little to harden the mix. Does it work with plumbing lead or only alloy with antymoney in it? Thanks all, Ralph

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gpidaho posted this 21 May 2015

Welcome back Ralph: My experience with zinc mirrors Mustafa's. While I don't know near enough of metallurgy to purposely add zinc to harden an alloy, I've read of it being done. Also the alloy I assume had some zinc (sort of foamy and very silver on top) cast well enough that I used it up casting RN 45 ACP bullets as they seem to be pretty forgiving of a less than ideal alloy. They were lite and they were hard. They shot just fine. As Mustafa said, they weren't the disaster I've heard they would be. GP

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highstandard40 posted this 21 May 2015

Ralph Smalley wrote: all of the zinc weightsI have seen were rivetted to the clip, whereas lead weights were bonded (soldered, I guess). The weight has 2 pins cast into it that go thru holes in the clip. I still run the pot low on warm up stir to check because I haven't seen everything.  I am curious about using a little to harden the mix. Does it work with plumbing lead or only alloy with antymoney in it? Thanks all, Ralph Not all zinc weights are riveted. In fact, most of the zinc weights I find are not riveted.

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Ralph Smalley posted this 21 May 2015

Thanks for that info HighStandard40. (and everyone else on this thread)

Ralph

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badammo posted this 23 May 2015

18MM, I would like some more info on casting 22's with zinc. PM me or post your method. Duane

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mold maker posted this 25 May 2015

If you keep the pot temp low enough, to not melt ANY zinc, you wont melt much lead. The flame against the exterior of the pot is several K degrees.  Thus the inside of the pot is way above 800 degrees.  If it wasn't, you'd have a hard time transferring enough heat to melt your lead alloy. As stated zinc in small amounts isn't a disaster.  I'm betting as lead WW's are phased out the alloy they use will be what ever they find cheapest, that will stay on the clip.  It very well may have some scrap zinc in it already.  WW's aren't very demanding of the alloy.I don't visit here often, but I'm not new to casting.  Been at it successfully for over 50 years.  My first experience with zinc was purely by accident. I had heard chatter about zinc WW's on the West coast, but had never seen one. As usual I picked up my normal supply and threw out the trash as I loaded the pot.  I put the lid on and fired it up.  After covering the rest of the floor and setting out the ingot molds, I opened the lid and there were still floating weights, so I gave it a stir and replaced the lid. Several minutes later I returned to dip off the clips and flux.  Beneath the clips was a mushy  silver mess that as others describe, looked like silver oatmeal. Thats when I realized that the floating WWs I had stirred into the mix, were probably zinc.It was a Summer evening and I hadn't turned the heat very high.  The batch was small, and the loss was a cheap lesson.  I now pinch every weight that goes into my pot.  It's tiring, and time consuming, but after 3 years, I haven't had another zinc weight in my pot.BTW there are zinc weights cast on the clip just like the regular ones.  My 73 year old eyes can't read through the road grim and tobacco juice, and the weights  are not all marked.   The old timey household slip joint pliers, with the funny jaw that most don't realize was for cutting wire, are as good as anything, for pinching a tooth mark in lead weights. You'll be like the Hulk, if you can mark a zinc or iron weight, but the lead marks easy.  There are also 2 kinds of lead stick on weights, plus some are now zinc or iron.mold maker

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Ralph Smalley posted this 26 May 2015

Thanks mold maker. Ralph

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billglaze posted this 26 May 2015

I tried the business about setting the pot temp. just below the melting point of zinc. I started out with the pot set way too low to melt anything, and just kept upping it 20-30 degrees at a time. Took a couple of hours or more to determine just where the thermostat needed to be. Finally got to where the WWs were just melted; then I put in what I felt was a zinc weight. It bobbed to near the surface (just barely) and it had cooled off the metal around it to a point that I couldn't see it clearly, it was so heavily covered with cooled lead.. By the time I had identified it, and went for it with tongs, half of it had already melted into the pot. Several tries resulted in the same behavior. (Please see statement by Yogi Berra at bottom.) However, after shooting some, I can't say the results were appalling. About the same as the all-WW bullets. Not record setters by any means, but, still, not a total disaster. The Brinnell increased to about 38 or a little more. So--what're you going to do about it, Bill?
Well--I believe I'll still keep trying to eliminate the Zn, but won't consider it disqualifying enough for throwing away 20 lbs. of otherwise perfectly good alloy. BTW: The bullets seem to come out beautifully. Downsides? Harder to size, (probably because they're so hard), wide weight variation, lesser weight than WW's or #2.
And the beat goes on. Bill

In theory, there's no difference between theory and practice. In practice, there is. My fate is not entirely in Gods hands, if I have a weapon in mine.

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onondaga posted this 26 May 2015

I can't believe the problems you guys are having with Zinc.  I think my chronic laziness helps. http://castbulletassoc.org/view_user.php?id=5098>billglaze, you are pretty close to my method, but I am slower raising temperature and lazier than you . This pays off for me. I lift out the Zinc un-melted and undamaged in whole pieces because I am slower and lazier than you..

Gary

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billglaze posted this 27 May 2015

Hi, Gary: The only reason the suspected zinc weight was allowed in the pot, was to see if I could not only identify it, but then remove it quickly.  Obviously, I failed.  So, I continued to fill the pot with unquestioned wheel weights, checked by the side-cutter method, which, while comparatively slow, is pretty fool-proof.  (even whien I'm the fool!) And, i'm getting faster at it, too, making it seem to be less work.Further incentive:  we had a swap-meet/lunch at the range.  I was amused to see a person walking off with a bunch of type metal, (dirtiest, nastiest type metal I have ever seen) and I also saw another bucket of 10 lbs. of absolutely filthy wheel weights that the seller wanted $30 for.  Blessedly, unsold at the completion of the meet.Anyhow, recent bullets from the questioned melt had a BHN of 12, and seemed to shoot as well as I could ask, considering my state of accuracy.  The fun just never stops. Bill

In theory, there's no difference between theory and practice. In practice, there is. My fate is not entirely in Gods hands, if I have a weapon in mine.

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onondaga posted this 27 May 2015

http://castbulletassoc.org/view_user.php?id=5098>billglaze

Ink covered, dirty Linotype blocks is a good sign. The ink is assuring that the blocks were actually used for a printing job and hard enough to do the job on a letter press. Besides, the ink is a flux and makes the melt job easier. I'd take all the inky Linotype I could get.....and grab it FIRST !!

I use scrap Linotype and soft jacketed bullet scrap 1:1 and it reliably makes a BHN 15 alloy very similar to Hardball Pistol alloy that my rifles shoot just like Lyman #2 @ BHN 15. I get the same POI with either.

Gary

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Bob 11B50 posted this 27 May 2015

Hello Gary, How long do you let your Lyman #2 cast bullets set before sizing/lubing before loading to ensure they are at full hardness.  Do you heat treat to increase hardness? I just cast up some 300 .22 NOE 45WFN bullets that came out great.  How long should I let them age before shooting? Hope you are feeling better now and that the after affects of the heart attack have not hampered you too much. Thanks for your help and information, Bob 11B50 

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