More on Bullet casting/heat treating

I stopped at the closest scrap metal buying yard, where libtards go to sell the stuff they stole, to buy some lead, preferably linotype and the guy told me they only buy and don't sell. Go figure.

I find it interesting that bullets will get harder over time for a while on the other hand, we get shipments of several tons of 19 ga. strip steel that we punch various parts out of. There are often subsequent forming, piercing and drawing operations. Sometimes during these operations the parts will tear or not form right. If we let these drums of parts sit for a few weeks to "Roomalize", the parts will run normally.

Check the tire stores.
Gunner
"Aren't cats Libertarian? They just want to be left alone. I think our dog is a Democrat, as he is always looking for a handout" Unknown Usnet Poster
Heh, heh, I'm pretty sure my dog is a liberal - he has no balls. Keyton

I stopped at the NTB that does my tire work with a box-o-brushes. The manager's face lit up and I walked out with a 5 gal bucked half full. How should I clean then up before melting them into ingots? I'd like to run them through the dishwasher if I can figure out how.

Not really needed. Drop them in a big pot over a fire and let them melt. The crud will either burn up OR float to the surface. Skim off the dross and ladle out the lead. when you get to the bottom collect the clips and clean out the pot. Visit a second hand store and get a plain cast iron dutch oven to use as you cleaning pot. Also pick up a couple cheap mini-muffin tins so you can ladle the lead into them and create small ingots to use in your good pot.
Now you will need to work up some alloys..... Then comes a copper flash plating rig to stop leading... Then swaging your own bullet shells.

You're risking a steam explosion. I got lucky when I was young and dumb(er). Sprayed the range scrap with a hose to clean off the dirt before I threw it in the pot with the molten lead. The exploding lead hit everything but me. Just lucky, very very lucky to have survived my youth unscathed.
There's a work around to everything. If you really wanted to clean them first, probably the strongest cleaner for all that grease and grime would be the purple cleaner you get in the auto dept at Wal Mart. Then put the wheel weights in the oven for an hour to get rid of the water. Never did that myself, but I suspect the above would work.
Where I live, I just do the smelting outdoors and let the oil and grease burn off in the pot. I use a turkey cooker and a big cast iron pot to do the smelting. I scoop out the dross, dirt, clips, and old tire valves with a slotted spoon. Sawdust from the shop is cheap flux. Keep your melt temp just low enought to melt the weights in order to keep from melting the zinc wheel weights. They're reported to ruin a batch of otherwise good lead if they melt and alloy with the others. I haven't had to smelt weights for quite awhile, but my recollection is that the zinc weights are shinier and tend to be stick ons.
RWL

When will it END??? Do you have a rifling button I could borrow? (don't your steel clips float on molten lead?)

NO WATER! Water is BAD if your next step is to make molten lead. You don't want any loose water within 1/4 mile of the crucible pot!! It will make that hot lead jump right out of the pot and all over you, and that is Very Most Certainly Quite Bad.
(Okay, run it through a caustic hot tank engine cleaner, or an old home dishwasher with a triple-shot of Cascade - same caustic cleaning action, just weaker. DO NOT use your house dishwasher unless you want SWMBO to insist on a new one Right Now... And be sure that the lead is Good And Dry before putting it in the pot.)
Melt it down, the remaining oil and paint and dirt will burn off. Then add some flux (stir it in) to draw all the dross and crap up to the top so you can skim it off with a spoon or a rake tool. Search for lead bullet casdting flux, there are many prepared compounds and even more you can mix up yourself.
Oh, and don't be surprised if the results are not consistent - Some wheel weight lead alloy is 3% antimony, some is 0.6% antimony. You might want to seperate the weights by brand and type, so you can test the resulting melt for hardness before making lots of bullets.
-->--

Dont bother. The dirt will come to the top when you melt em. And be sure to tell the guy that you want every weight they can get you from now on. And not to bother with the self sticky ones with the double sided tape on the back.
(Hit as many tire shops that you can. You want as many wheel weights that you can lay your hands on. Perhaps not now..but for the future. I think Im down to 500 lbs or so..and will be laying in more in the near future.)
When you melt them..the steel clips will come to the top. Let em lay there while you flux the melted lead and stir it up pretty well. Got any beeswax? If not, use a pea sized bit of bullet lubricant and stir it in really well. Then and only then ..fish out the clips with a spoon, drilled with 1/8'- 3/16" holes in the bowl of the spoon. This makes sure the big chunks come out of the pot..but the tin and antimoney stay behind.
I rather like a ready made flux called Marvelux
Its smokeless (unlike the beeswax etc)...oh...if you flux with beeswax etc..simply stick a lit match in the cloud of smoke and it will burn gently..killing much of the smoke coming out of the pot.
Keep that spoon handy. And if you can find one..make up a fluxing spoon out of a tablespoon sized heavy duty spoon. Not a piece of shit tin chicom bit of bendable fluffery. If the heat gets to you..simply slot a bit of 1/2" dowel and make a handle to slide over the spoon handle. Fasten it with a screw, a bit of wire, etc.
Gunner..planning on cleaning up his reloading shop tommorow..no work so far this week, and no money as yet to even fill his gas tank...sigh
"Aren't cats Libertarian? They just want to be left alone. I think our dog is a Democrat, as he is always looking for a handout" Unknown Usnet Poster
Heh, heh, I'm pretty sure my dog is a liberal - he has no balls. Keyton

If Tom is smart..he will get a big "bullplug" and a ring burner from an old menudo cooker and make up a "roughing pot". This way he can prepare 25-50lbs of wheel weights at a time (or more) by simply melting them down, cleaning the crap out of them and melting them into ingots.
This is an ingot mold
They can be made easily by anyone with a bit of 1" L steel and a TIG.
Cut em to about 3-4" long, and weld them side by side in this pattern lVVVVVVVl with a bit of steel across each end to close em up. Doesent need to be fancy..just a box with a series of V shaped moulds inside. When you melt down a bunch of wheel weights, fluxed and clean the lead..simply pour the ingot mould full, wait till it solidifies, then turn it over and bang it and the lead falls out, repeat.
It should be mentioned that if you empty the pot..it takes a long time for the next fill to melt..so only dump half or 3/4 of it before refilling with weights, melting, refilling etc until your pot is nearly full.
I "gave away" a "rough melter" a few years ago..made out of a 14" bull plug. It would melt out about 100lbs of lead at a time and melt it down in about 20 minutes from a cold start. I made it with a bottom pour valve just like your Lee pot...worked great for rough melting ingots. Guy simply had to have it..and Id stockpiled 500 or more pounds of bullets at the time..so loaned it to him.....he moved a year later to Missouri...the bastard.
Shrug..Im down to about 150 lbs of bullets..so will be needing to make up another rough melter. Hummm...Project!!!
Nah...he is a rich guy..let him send em out for plating.
Gunner
"Aren't cats Libertarian? They just want to be left alone. I think our dog is a Democrat, as he is always looking for a handout" Unknown Usnet Poster
Heh, heh, I'm pretty sure my dog is a liberal - he has no balls. Keyton

Ayup..they are usually a 1-1.25" ribbon with double stick on the back. Toss em into a 5 gallon bucket for a rainy day. Pistol bullets CAN be cast from zinc..but its a rather different process in some ways and is NOT compatible with lead based bullets.
Ive cast a few over the years...and found it to be an utter pain in the ass. You have super light, rather hard bullets. Which might..might punch a vest if one uses a nice sharp pointed bullet. Shrug
Gunner
"Aren't cats Libertarian? They just want to be left alone. I think our dog is a Democrat, as he is always looking for a handout" Unknown Usnet Poster
Heh, heh, I'm pretty sure my dog is a liberal - he has no balls. Keyton

I cleaned up 35 lbs. or so of WWs. how come some WWs don't melt? They look and feel like lead. The stick-ons don't melt either. Out of all that I got 22 lbs. of ingots all fluxed and clean. I have a few people collecting WWs for me. I figure I need at least 20 lbs. per bullet casting session and 10 for the pot.
I asked about plating a while ago since we send stuff to be plated all the time. I'm sure my plater would do me a favor if I asked. But, the consensus was not to bother.

I bought a tub of flux made by "Franklin Arsenal" and it seems to work just fine. I'll try sawdust some day as I seem to just happen to have some. It seems you need to clean about 100 lbs. of WWs at a time to feel like I accomplished anything. It's the kind of job you only want to do a few times a year. I'll take an ingot into work tomorrow and put it on the hardness tester.

Whiteish very light gray sugar like material?
Probably relabled Marvelux..though there are a few out there now days.
Oh..dont waste you time using sawdust. If it worked worth a shit..everyone would be using it. Its been around a very long time
Gunner
"Aren't cats Libertarian? They just want to be left alone. I think our dog is a Democrat, as he is always looking for a handout" Unknown Usnet Poster
Heh, heh, I'm pretty sure my dog is a liberal - he has no balls. Keyton

A gent not far from here was beaten to death by his loving son in law about a week ago. His sister was visiting my fathers place the day it happened, and her common complaint about me and my attitude toward guns was "I'll never understand why you have those guns, we live in an area that doesn't have a problem ". George had the same attitude....
(note the comments about the lack of crime in the area) What's that Boy Scout Motto again.....