Home Forums Reloading Bullet Casting the best flux

A friend who was in the best position to know told me, years ago, what the lead-alloy industry uses for flux when it melts its several-ton vats of lead alloys (solders, babbits, etc):

sawdust

I of course then asked what kind was best, and he said that it didn't seem to matter.

BTW, the purpose of the flux is not to keep the ingredients of the alloy alloyed (as so many old references say that it is) but to separate the dross from the alloy.

yes, I'm sure sawdust is good but when your dipping it tends to get in the way.... <img src="/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/laugh.gif" alt="" />

I prefer to use a bit of candle wax, burn it off, skim, and dip.

My caster , a retired old timer who casts and reloads A LOT , uses beeswax.

I use beeswax or regular old canning parafin wax. They both seem to work fine for a small time caster doing a couple hundred bullets at a time in a Lyman pot.

For bottom pours, many of us use a layer of kitty litter, about .5 inch thick. This, being organic, not only fluxes, but helps the pot maintain temperature. For fluxing a dip pot, and also for stirring the bottom pour, a dry stick works best. I generally use apiece of dowel, or old ramrod. The stick, being carbon base, fluxes completely through the mix. It allows you to scrape the sides of the pot, to loosen foriegn material, to float to the top. Using the stick puts the flux completely through the melt. Nothing you put on top of a melt to flux, can do an efficient job, as the specific gravity of the lead, is higher than any flux.

Ric Carter
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