Home Forums Reloading Bullet Casting new guy question

I am in the process of aquiring all the necessary tools for casting and have never cast a bullet. I just secured a source for wheel weights and am preparing to make ingots.

Do I just throw 'em in the pot, flux the melt and scrape off anything that floats? Or is there more to it? I'll be separating non-lead ww before melting and doing the melt in a cast iron pot, not my furnace (which I don't even own yet).

Do you just fish the clips out of the melt with the slag?

Thanks,

Dan

I ended up checking out a lot of You Tubes videos, it's a great source for information.

Yes and yes.

Wheel weights typically have a lot of road grime on them which will float to the surface. You can brush them off some but I would hesitate to actually wash them unless you give them a long time to dry completely - one little drop of moisture thrown into the pot is a no-no. After they're melted and fluxed it will be obvious which part is the dirt. The steel clips will float as well. Just skim them off. When you're done the melt with have a nice shiny appearance.

After you flux and stir and skim, stir it a little more. I've found that brings more junk to the surface.

Fluxing is your friend. I flux when making wheelweight ingots, then flux again when the ingots are thrown in the furnace for actual casting. It might not alloy the metal any more but it does clean it well and keeps little pieces of junk from getting inside the bullets and unbalancing them.

Adding a bit more - when you first melt the wheelweights the steel clips will rise to the surface. It would be better to stir the mix gently before fluxing to get them to the surface, then skim those off first. That will make it a lot easier to flux.

watch them melt, just as soon as they start to get liquid try to keep it at that temp.

if you have any zinc WW's they will melt at a higher temp. DON'T let them melt with the lead, it's bad. You won't have good lead for casting.

if you get a thermometer try to keep it at 700� or below. Then the zinc won't melt in with the lead, it'll float and you an skim it off.

Sell your slag to the scrap yard. get some good money for the clips and stuff.

I prefer to melt, flux and clean ww's in a sepperate pot and make up a pile of ingots to turn into bullets. I have melted down ww's in my bottom poor furnace to cast bullets when I've ran out of ingots, but it's tough to get all the crud out of the furnace. Also smelting ww's into ingots gives off quite a bit of smoke from the dirt, dog pizz, and whatever else falls on the floor of the tire shop so is an outdoor activity. Clean ingots can be cast in a shop w/o smoking and stinking it up.

I also use a different pot for smelting. I try to only use clean stuff in my bottom pour pot. My smelting pot is a high pressure valve cover from a railroad tank car, about the size of a 20# propane bottle, only thicker. It and a homemade fish cooker make short work of a pile of dirty wheelweights! Some casters use a cutoff 20# propane tank for a pot,and others use a dutch oven.

I'll dump a couple of five gallon buckets of wheelweights in and light it up. When they start to melt, I'll skim the clips with a large spoon, then flux a couple of times. After that, I'll start casting ingots. I run several ingot molds, as they will get hot and you will have to wait to dump them.

Needless to say, use caution! Safety glasses, long sleeve shirt, long pants. Keep children and pets away,too! Never add lead to the melt, only add to a cold pot. Make sure your ingot molds, ladle, and skimmer are very dry.

I need to do a smelt pretty soon! I'll try to post some pics when I do.

Oh yeah, congrats on finding a sorce for wheelweights! Lightman