I am getting ready to stick my toe in the Bullet Casting arena. Have a few questions...

1) Have several hundred pounds of what I believe to be dead soft lead in the form of old water pipes. Also have a turkey fryer burner and cast lead pots. From what I have read, my assumption is that I would probably be better off melting the lead pipe in the lead pots, scrape off the dross, and then ladle or pour ingots. THEN put the ingots into a lead furnace to alloy and cast. Correct assumption ?

2) Lead pipe has been on a pallet rack in the barn for several years. Outside is dry, dry. However, would not bet the farm that there is no moisture on the inside. Anyway to melt the pipe in a manner to minimize potential for steam explosion? eg: All lead in pot at one time. heat gradually? Cutting the pipe into short 3" sections so minimize trapped moisture? Other recommendations?

3) Have also purchased some Linotype. Is there an appropriate percentage / mixture of lead to Linotype that would yield an alloy that is satisfactory for both rifle bullets and pistol bullets?

4) recommended bullet lube for both pistols and rifles? I am not opposed to running a hair dryer to warm / heat the Lyman 450. Would prefer a little harder lube, less sticky vs a soft sticky lube.

5) What is Alox used for? Why do some lubes use it, and some lubes do not?

Appreciate any and all helpful comments !

I'm not trying to be a jerk, but you are sticking your toe into a fairly complex hobby. In this hobby as with all hobbies, you can get by, maybe, with superficial knowledge and effort and get some pretty discouraging results generally. If you want to devote some time and effort, you will find this to be one of the most satisfying and sensible and affordable areas of your firearm journey. I unreservedly recommend handbooks by Lyman and Lee...to learn the 'abc's', then as you begin to understand the craft, go to 'cast boolits' and read the 'sticky's on every segment from raw materials to pulling the trigger. It will save you years of mistakes and learning the hard way. And ...you will end up with useable bullets for any firearm, regardless of political regime changes.

Already have Lyman 49 and the Lee 2nd Edition book on hand. Need to dig them out. Lyman cast bullet book is inbound. Read thru most of the stickies over at Cast Boolits. Appreciate the references.

When you have some time...

http://www.lasc.us/CastBulletNotes.htm

Welcome to the hobby!

1. Thats the way I do it. This keeps the trash out of your casting pot.
2.I would stand pieces of the pipe up in your pot before you light the burner. Any moisture should be gone before the lead melts. 3 inches pieces are not necessary. Whatever will stand up in the pot. 12 inches, 16 inches, ect.
3. Your lead pipe should be dead some, clots to pure. I would start with 10% oe even 20% linotype and go from there.
4. I like the lube sold under the White Label Lube brand. Google with that name or Lars Stuff. He is local to me and makes a good product at a reasonable price. He offers both Hi-temp (hard) lube and soft lube.
5.Alox is just one type of ingredient for one type of lube. It works ok.

Helpful comments in no particular order;
1. Browse through the Cast Boolits site and read the stickies.
2. The link that Digital Dan listed is a good source of info too.
3. Read the books that you have and come back and ask questions.

1. That sounds good to go. Flux and stir right when the alloy goes molten (remember to keep your ladle heated up all the way up the handle).
2. Not necessary if you melt everything in the batch from a solid state; dropping solids under the liquid state creates kabooms.
3. I generally add a pound of type to 20 lbs soft lead and even WW mixtures. I would add some ratio of lino into your lead pipe from the get go/initial melt, if for anything it is a base that works well (WW metal range hardness) that you can experiment with. If you have any wheelweight metal, just add a pound into this mix. This allows for heat treating if you wish to do so.
4. LBT Blue
5. Alox is the standard bullet lubricant going back Pre WWII that consistently worked at modern rifle pressures and velocities. It kind of serves as a yeoman duty, but other lubes today work better and require less to prevent leading, are usually less messy and smoke less.

You don't specify if you are ladle casting or using a bottom pour, or the capacities. If ladle casting over the cooker, I would recommend a thermometer and its not a bad thing even with electric pots.

My advice is to don't buy junk; by the best equipment you can afford. A lot of guys hate casting because they want to do it to save money and end up quitting because it takes too much time. The too much time problem is usually caused by using garbage components and tedious tools.

Good luck and be safe!

Casting bullet can be as simple or as complicated as you want. I began in 1973 with a Lyman 45 Reloading Manual https://www.amazon.com/Reloading-Handbook-Pistol-Muzzle-Loading/dp/0912412003

I had no one to help but the simple instructions of the manual were enough to take care of me for many years. It is not voodoo or magic. Just keep it simple & basic. You don't need to know everything to start. A little common sense will go a long way.

casting is a craft in it's own right. you can get bullets you can't buy anywhere, and size them to fit your specific guns. it's not for the impatient. i started to be able to afford to shoot, with a single cavity lee mould using a pot on a camp stove.

start with one mould and when you start getting a good result, go on to another. what works in one mould may not with another, temp, casting technique etc. there are a lot of helpful sites, but the one i have found most helpful has already been mentioned. cast boolits! also let me tell you , there are lots of ways to flux, just be sure you do it from your scrap so you start with a clean mixture.

wolfe publishing has a good book...casting 101 i think is the title. it is a good resource.

All sound advice IMO. I would add that acquiring a hardness tester would be invaluable if you intend to concoct your own alloys out of other basically unknown alloys. For example, there's linotype and then there's linotype - I've encountered lino (all of it in pig form) whose hardness varied greatly. Standard conversion tables using lino and monotype will certainly put you in the ballpark but when striving to exactly duplicate an alloy then a hardness tester is worth its weight in gold (or tin, not much difference these days!).

I did a dumbass trick yesterday and mixed a pot full of pistol alloy, for .38 semiwadcutters, and ended up with a few hundred bullets that are decidedly harder than optimal - because I used some small ingots of monotype that I thought was #2 alloy to sweeten the pure-ish lead in the pot. Oh well. Debating whether to re-melt them or shoot them and resign myself to removing leading in the barrel, forcing cone, and throats.

I’m going to echo this just cuz I’m skeered. In the case of used pipe with deposits, don’t add any of the solid stock to the molten stuff. Start another solid batch in a dry pot.

Appreciate all of the help and suggestions. Spent New Years Eve cleaning and sorting some stuff I traded into. Boiling sizing dies. Read in one of the resources not to use petroleum based oils on dies due to vaporization. What type of anti-oxidant can be used on dies to prevent rust or freckling, without adversely affecting the quality of cast bullets produced ?

Suggestions on hardness testers and best place to purchase ?

In the interest of honesty, I am hopelessly old skool. So take it with a grain of salt...preservative coatings, sheep tallow from Dixie Gun Works, Fluid Film at any auto parts, Frog Lube at gun outlets. I like sheep tallow because it has so many other uses..from full on bullet lube, patch lube, wood stock care, leather care...and it's dirt cheap.
OK, hardness testers. If I had Gnoahhh's money, I would buy a good'un. But since I don't have Gnoahhh's money, I get satisfactory results with "Mars Lumograph" 12 pencil set by Staedtler for about 5 or 6 bucks on ebay, free shipping. There are a few pages of detailed "how to" and pencil hardness to Brinnell hardness equivalency charts on cast boolits. I am a man of legendary frugality, so you should bear that in mind when considering my opinions.

For a rust preventative I use a locally made product called INOX - it uses lanolin / sheep wool fat and is available in several versions. It is available in the USA.

For a hardness tester, buy once cry once and get a Saeco lead hardness tester.

As a suggestion for your bullet alloy stash, I like to not make finished alloys but segregate into 4 lots, then combine clean ingots to suit what I’m going to cast. This way you don’t waste time and energy melting and pouring into ingots.

Pure or near pure lead - melt, clean and pour into ingots. This generally needs to be melted separately to remove impurities.

Linotype - generally store as is

Scrap pewter - this around 93% tin and useful to have on hand. Tin is a useful alloying agent and necessary to get a nice fill of your mould. It also makes the bullets more ductile.

Range scrap / wheel weights. If you have access to recovered range scrap from a pistol range this can be useful to recover and re-use. The hardness of range scrap and wheel weights can vary somewhat so I like to melt and pour into ingots.

When handling lead you need to be aware of the health risks. One of the guys at our club became quite ill when he was cleaning out the back of the pistol range. There are a lot of fine lead dust particles that can be inhaled when stirred up. Try not to stir up the dust. Also clean your hands before handling food and drink. You see a lot of people at the range that don’t take these basic safety precautions. At a range you are also exposed to lead compounds in primers, so even if you’re firing jacketed ammo you’re still getting exposed to lead.

JFE, I am just in the initial phase of melting down the lead pipe. So, only one pile at the moment. Pipe. However, I understand the logic of not getting too many different variations sitting around.

Spent a couple hours earlier in the week with a set of lopping shears chopping the lead pipe into 4" to 6" chunks. Just finished my first afternoon of melting lead water pipe and ladling ingots. Got into a rotation with two pots and ended up with a little over 60 ingots over a 2-3 hour period. Ingots from my first melt...



I was skimming dross off the initial melt, and then double fluxing. I have a sawmill, so, no shortage of dry sawdust to use for flux. However, even after fluxing a second time, it seemed like I could keep just stirring the pot and have a film of "stuff" form on top of the molten lead. Is this normal? Or do I need to maybe flux a third time ?

that "stuff" may be tin, save it.

Oooh.... I was thinking that old water pipes were pretty much pure lead. Did they alloy some level of tin in the pipe stock?

It’s normal. Lead oxide, not tin. Don’t lose any sleep over it.

DD is right. been 20 years since i melted any lead pipe. still have them in ingot form but no pipe. remember the oxide now. guess mabye i shoud look at the ingots on the back of my stack, they may be growing beards

Cool. That makes sense. Thanks guys !

Or make 357 wadcutters!

Yep, and the hotter you run your pot the more oxidation will occur.

I did buy a lead casting thermometer. Still trying to figure the "eye ball" settings on the turkey fryer ball valve to correspond to pot temp. Obviously all the way open for initial melt. My large pot will hold about 25 lbs of lead. SO, need to run 3 rotations of ingots thru the two Lyman ingot molds that I have for a single melt. After the second flux, trying to balance the temp to have a clean pour out of the ladle without the lead cooling off and starting to string into the mold. Versus too hot. The last melt, while waiting to for second round of ingots to solidify before I dumped them, it was starting to form the "purple/gold" looking stuff on top (too hot). All of that went into a few scrap ingots that I will remelt when I start up again.

Again, I appreciate everyone's input. It is a learning process...

Better too hot than not hot enough. As said, don't sweat the oxide- you're only making ingots.

I started long ago with muzzleloading RBs. Went to bullets for cartridge guns and on to pistol bullets. I haven't heated up the pot for about three years but it is now time. I've been wishing to build up my scrap lead stock. Sounds like the lead pipe is a good source. Thanks for your input DD and Gary. Be Well, RZ.