Now I have a gallon and a pint of ice cream to eat, but finally got a big square container for tumbling LLA or 45:45:10 Recluse for larger batches of bullets. I'm just finishing up casting 1,000 RanchDog TLC-460-350-FNGC bullets in Lyman #2 clone alloy for my summer .458 Win Mag shooting.
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Tough duty to eat all that ice cream but somebody has to do it.:P
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I just got done casting up 18 lbs. of the same bullet, for my H&R 45-70. I like the square corner idea, got to have ice cream anyway, right? On the larger bullets or any long enough to hold onto I've taken to dipping much of the time, rather than tumbling. I've never cared for the lube all over the nose look, although they do shoot fine. Most of my RD .45-70s will go minus a gas check at reduced velocity. With a 50/50 pb/ww alloy they come out right at .461 and just fall out of the mold. The RD molds are Lee's best work, in my opinion. Quite a mold for low dough.
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lets see the pics of the bullets en masse... much more interesting! Nothing like the sight of lots of lead!
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Here is some of the 1% matched by weight. They are checked/sized/lubed.
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very nice shot Gary. Nothing like seeing a pile of great cast bullets as motivation for getting the lead pot out!
Here's a shot of my very sophisticated smelting operation:
The bricks are a wind guard and also concentrate the heat of the triple gas ring.
Very basic and very cheap, it does the job and can take about 30 pounds of lead.
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Nice potful, I use the 4-20, have 2 of them but occasionally go big outside too!
Gary
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Biddulph,
Is that a pot full of wheel weights you are smelting? Are those still available down under? Our EPA is working to get rid of them here in the states. I believe in some states they are already banned. I've never seen an explanation of why that will save us (getting rid of WWs) but if it makes life harder for shooters it looks like a good idea to bureaucrats.
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Ah yes, the old nanny state is alive and well!
Here in Australia we are normally about 10 years behind the US and normally thats a bad thing. However, when it comes to lead I reckon I've got about 9 years of good wheel weight time ahead of me yet!
We are moving away from lead wheel weights and when I pick up my 20 litre drum of weights from my favourite tyre yard for $50 I do find the odd zinc or steel weight in there. Normally places which do truck tyres are more likely to use lead as they tend to be bigger weights and most of those are lead.
Photo: other side of the smelter.
Has anyone tried battery 'recycling' yet? Yes, I know its 'bad' but I have read that the lead alloy used in them contains a lot of antimony. If this is so then breaking them down and 'responsibly' disposing of the acid etc may be a way out once the wheel weights become unobtainable.
I used to do this when a kid to melt lead for sinkers and my memories were that it worked ok
Another thing I've done is melt down the stick on weights. In regard to the stink from the burning glue/rubber etc I save them up and take them out on one of my camping trips then just pour them into the fire. When the fires cold I dig out the big ugly ingot and take it home to casting into ingots.
I got myself an inexpensive set of number and letter stamps and use this to mark the ingots with the alloy. I was using zip top bags but they tend to break after a while and things got mixed up. This way no problem.
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Having retired from a state “EPA” agency within the last 6 months let me add this:
California found lead compounds along the sides of the roads. It must be bad. It must be from lead wheel weights. Lets ban them. Environmental scientists found that it was from tetra-ethyl-lead, used in auto gasoline from 1927 to 1972. Made no difference, banned. So Washington state did the same thing; “if California is doing it it must be good".
Batteries you can do, but only the old style “high maintenance” ones, the ones you put water in every tank of gas. The new ones have calcium in them, the lead binds to the calcium and it all becomes doss. Sorry.
Ric
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Over the week end I wanted to T/L some 400 200 gn 358's. {Saeco 356} I took a large plastic bowl <1 gal> and took very course sand paper and scowered the inside to keep the bullets from just sliding around when I swirled them around. Bullets were put into 2 old pots and placed in the oven at 220*
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Gallant effort Wayne, But I'll offer some constructive criticism. A square container won't need the abrasion and the abrasion itself will attract and hold your lube, making it less available to your bullets. That held lube will also dry and flake onto the next batch giving it spots.
The warm setting on most ovens is about 180 degrees, just hotter than hottest tap water. Your 220 degrees is hot enough to very rapidly evaporate the solvents out of your lube before it can be spread effectively and clumping of lube is likely from your high temperature.
The Parchment paper is very porous and will readily suck warm lube right off your bullets.
Try setting your oven lower at “warm” immediately put the bullets that are in an aluminum brownie pan right into the oven and set timer 5 minutes. Before the 5 minutes id over you can microwave a small 4 0z container of lube 1 minute and maybe another 30 seconds and it will be warmed as your bullets are heated.
Square milk 1/2 or 1 gallon milk containers, coated fiber or plastic, make a fine tumbling container for tumble lube. Cut the top 1/3 of the container off with a scissors. Just put the bullets, in squirt a little lube, tip the container 45 degrees and rotate gently for 1 minute. No shaking that dents bullets is necessary.
Dumping onto Wax paper is effective, it doesn't pull lube off the bullets, the bullets dont stick to it and then the wax paper is cheap and disposable after the job. I can't think of a grocery store not selling wax paper, It is cheap and easy to find.
I do occasionally clean the tumbling container by spraying with WD40 and wiping with paper towels.
Gary
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Having retired from a state “EPA” agency within the last 6 months let me add this:
California found lead compounds along the sides of the roads. It must be bad. It must be from lead wheel weights. Lets ban them. Environmental scientists found that it was from tetra-ethyl-lead, used in auto gasoline from 1927 to 1972. Made no difference, banned. So Washington state did the same thing; “if California is doing it it must be good".
Batteries you can do, but only the old style “high maintenance” ones, the ones you put water in every tank of gas. The new ones have calcium in them, the lead binds to the calcium and it all becomes doss. Sorry.
Ric I was always wondering why ww were being banned. I'm also glad I don't live in California.Seems like everything causes cancer there, according to most warnings on packages
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I was reading one of Ranchdogs old posts (don't remember where) as to how he tumble lubes his bullets. Seems that he doesn't lube-size-lube using the alox twice. He simply puts his bullets on a tray & gives them a light spray of WD40 then sizes/seats gas checks and then he uses the Alox. So I did exactly that this afternoon. I gave my bullets a very light spray of WD40 & they sized easily without sticking in the die. I lined a cookie sheet with foil & put the bullets on it and then into a 180 degree oven for about 10-15 mins. I warmed the Alox in a pan of hot (not super hot) water. There were only about 100 bullets. I had a square plastic container that I put the 180 degree bullets in. It only took a very little Alox as it was hot & runny. Got a nice, even, almost transparent coat of Alox without the buildup of lubing them twice.
If someone else had of done to me what I did to myself . . . I'd have killed him. Humility is an asset. Heh - heh.
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There is lots of ways to do it. RD thick coats them with thick lube then lets them drip and dry. I do it a lot differently!
Less is better is the school I follow. Liquid Alox and 45:45:10 can both be thinned any time evaporation of the solvents allows the lube to get thicker than Hersheys syrup and has no ill effect. Thinning with odorless mineral spirits is the most pleasant. Warmed bullets plus warmed correct consistency lube and tumbling dries easily in less than 5 minutes with no dripping unless you have used too much.
Gary
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about thinning 45-45-10 ...... has anybody got it so thin it didn't do it's job ...( whatever that might be . ) ... ??
might be interesting to try .
ken
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Ken I have gotten it too thin, it sticks to the bullet just as well but controlling how much you squirt on a batch becomes complicated and then easier to over saturate and make a mess. When thinned too much it runs off the bullets into the container and you can easily see you have used too much. In that case you can tumble longer to evaporate if everything is warm. If they are dripping and warm, I don't spill them onto wax paper, that is a mess. I tumble longer to evaporate so the bullets are just coated enough that the lube stays put. Then I spill them onto Wax Paper.
When the bullets and lube are warm and I put the right amount of lube on at syrup consistency, tumbling 30 - 60 seconds will start the lube to have a haze because it is drying in place. That is exactly when I spill them.
For the over thinned stuff, I left the top off and let it evaporate to Hershey syrup consistency again, took 3 days. I had over-thinned it to like lantern fuel consistency. The handling properties went right back to normal after I let it evaporate back to syrup.
Gary
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thanks gary ....apparently a little thin is not a terminal disaster ...
ken
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There is lots of ways to do it. RD thick coats them with thick lube then lets them drip and dry. I do it a lot differently!
Less is better is the school I follow. Liquid Alox and 45:45:10 can both be thinned any time evaporation of the solvents allows the lube to get thicker than Hersheys syrup and has no ill effect. Thinning with odorless mineral spirits is the most pleasant. Warmed bullets plus warmed correct consistency lube and tumbling dries easily in less than 5 minutes with no dripping unless you have used too much.
Gary Gary, I borrowed from both you & Ranchdog in tumble lubing. I have always liked the way your bullets looked after being lubed . . . a nice, even almost transparent coat of lube but I didn't want to lube twice. Ranchdogs method of spraying with a light coat of WD40 worked great! The WD40 seems to disappears quickly. That's when your method of heating the bullets to 180 degrees comes in along with setting the bottle of alox in a pan of hot water. Yes, Ranchdog uses an incredible amount of alox on his bullets. Looks real messy but . . . each to his own. Thanks to the both of you for sharing your info! I have always had a dislike for alox but doing it this way makes it real simple without messy gummed up bullets! Pat
If someone else had of done to me what I did to myself . . . I'd have killed him. Humility is an asset. Heh - heh.
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Pat, those look nice and evenly lubed with no clumps or running. They are very dark in color, personally, I never use that much, but you got it working for one thick coat. I'm glad you got a chance to see that with warmed bullets and warmed lube, you can see evaporation begin before your eyes while tumbling. I bet you had to tumble more than a minute to get the evaporation drying started before you spilled them out to dry. That is a lot of Liquid Alox! They look real evenly colored and smooth, that is a well done look.
Gary
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Pat, those look nice and evenly lubed with no clumps or running. They are very dark in color, personally, I never use that much, but you got it working for one thick coat. I'm glad you got a chance to see that with warmed bullets and warmed lube, you can see evaporation begin before your eyes while tumbling. I bet you had to tumble more than a minute to get the evaporation drying started before you spilled them out to dry. That is a lot of Liquid Alox! They look real evenly colored and smooth, that is a well done look.
Gary The bad lighting in the pic makes them look darker than what they really are. They are actually quite light. It was really only a very little squirt of alox . . . really! It's amazing how little one needs when both the bullets & alox is are warmed. The square rather than round container enables the bullets to “tumble” rather than slide (as in a round container) guaranteeing good lube coverage. Pat
If someone else had of done to me what I did to myself . . . I'd have killed him. Humility is an asset. Heh - heh.
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I was reading one of Ranchdogs old posts (don't remember where) as to how he tumble lubes his bullets. Seems that he doesn't lube-size-lube using the alox twice. He simply puts his bullets on a tray & gives them a light spray of WD40 then sizes/seats gas checks and then he uses the Alox.
So I did exactly that this afternoon. I gave my bullets a very light spray of WD40 & they sized easily without sticking in the die. I lined a cookie sheet with foil & put the bullets on it and then into a 180 degree oven for about 10-15 mins. I warmed the Alox in a pan of hot (not super hot) water. There were only about 100 bullets. I had a square plastic container that I put the 180 degree bullets in. It only took a very little Alox as it was hot & runny.
Got a nice, even, almost transparent coat of Alox without the buildup of lubing them twice.
I found an even better way of getting my bullets ready for sizing rather than the WD40 spray. Roll them across the lube pad. Works great!
Pat
If someone else had of done to me what I did to myself . . . I'd have killed him. Humility is an asset. Heh - heh.
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My girlfriend wasn't real big on my heating my bullets in the oven and tumble lubing them in the kitchen. Then of course leaving them on the waxed paper on the counter overnight to dry. Soooooooo. Had to do something different. Out in my shop I have a oil filled electric heater. Looks like a miniature version of the old steam radiators. We've all seen them. I had some left over sheet metal in my basement from whatever project I was working on at the time. I made a simple tray that would set on my heater to hold my bullets. I lay my little bottle of Alox on it's side in the tray too. After about 10 - 15 minutes everything is warm. Perfect!
If someone else had of done to me what I did to myself . . . I'd have killed him. Humility is an asset. Heh - heh.
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Another pic.
If someone else had of done to me what I did to myself . . . I'd have killed him. Humility is an asset. Heh - heh.
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