AmericanLongRifles Forums
General discussion => Black Powder Shooting => Topic started by: Kent on July 19, 2019, 12:40:09 AM
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I am going to try casting roundball and wanted to create some small, handy-size ingots. I've read about using muffin pans as molds, but am concerned about the non-stick surface on the pans I've found. Has anyone had problems with contamination of the lead from these non-stick surfaces? Thanks for your help! Kent
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Kent, back when I was "recycling" lead from backstops, I was lucky enough to find some aluminum-foil cupcake molds.
I doubt that the Teflon, or whatever the lining is, will contaminate the lead. Unless you are getting pure lead, most all of it will have one or another "contaminants" in it. Very hard to find pure Pb unless from a scientific supplies store or the like.
But, PLEASE - worry about the muffin tins being contaminated by the lead - it is a persistent heavy metal which can cause all sorts of problems if ingested. Mark the tin with something permanent, like holes drilled around the edge, or letters stamped into the metal.
About 3/4" deep is approximately 1 pound.
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I have done this for years. Instead of aluminum tins I bought a cast iron pan likely for cornbread muffins. Only used for lead and has lasted 30+ years.
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Well, doggoned it, Don! I inherited a cast iron piece with a bunch (6) of hollows that look like ears of corn, apparently meant for corn bread muffins! I could have used that to make corn bread lead muffins!
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I picked up one of those corn bread cast iron molds at a tag sale for $.50. It makes great 1.5# ingots.
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I’ve used a muffin tin for years for making my ingots. It works great, just make sure it’s sitting on concrete, as all the heat transfers to the working surface very fast...don’t ask me how I know... ::)
Mine doesn’t have a non-stick coating, and I’m sure a quick trip to the local flea market or goodwill will net you a similar pan for a buck or so.
Greg
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The muffin tin is what I used and I have a number of ingots stacked up along the back wall of my shop along
with heavy blocks of lead. It's all from Xray barriers and seems to be pure.
Bob Roller
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I'd be cautious with Teflon coated pans. Melted lead is hot enough to cause the Teflon to decompose, which releases a lot of toxic gasses.
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yea burnt teflon will kill a pet bird in a heartbeat. it's used in hair dryers and on irons, window screen and who knows what else
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Now, i'm hungry for some muffins.
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Now, i'm hungry for some muffins.
Lead or corn?
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I use a muffin tin. Prior to that I used a Chevy disc brake piston. Anything will work. The muffin tins cool quicker than cast iron.
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I didn't have very good luck with the one my Mrs. gave me... The ingots stuck in the pan.
Maybe I should've used some Pam. ;D
Mike
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I picked up some muffin tins at a garage sale (the garage was already sold, I guess). The tins did not work for me - ingots stuck hard.
I bought a couple Lyman ingot moulds and have been VERY happy casting ingots since. They are wonderful and heave handles already.
Once hard, tip over and tap- out come 4, 1 pound ingots. With my 2 and Taylor's 2, that's 16 pounds of ingots each pour.
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I've used both muffin tins and mini loaf tins and have had no issues with either - works great ;)
(https://i.ibb.co/TL29ZX4/P1010088.jpg) (https://ibb.co/M6SFbTc)
(https://i.ibb.co/9sqZG00/P1030373.jpg) (https://ibb.co/wMKcYqq)
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Now, i'm hungry for some muffins.
Lead or corn?
Corn or blueberry. My teeth stick in the lead.
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I never had them stick in the cups. Must have been lucky.
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I never had them stick in the cups. Must have been lucky.
or just different material?
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I had miserable luck with a cheap, aluminum muffin pan. It distorted badly but, like I said it was CHEAP and THIN! Much better luck with a steel pan. Abandoned that pan after picking up a Saceo and a Lyman ingot at a local flea market.
J.B.
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I melt my lead I a cast iron pot I bought at a flea market and use a coleman stove hooked up to a 20# propane bottle.
(https://i.ibb.co/XST9H13/casting-bullets-002.jpg) (https://imgbb.com/)
I just dump out the lead after it cools and have my "ingot", actually lots of them from melting range lead, all from BP guns at a range where they hold the Alabama M/L championships and nothing else. All my ingots fit right back in my pot when I want to cast again. They vary from 10# to 20#
(https://i.ibb.co/JQ49YVG/lead-stockpile-002.jpg) (https://imgbb.com/)
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I make muffin pan ingots that fit perfect in my little electric pot that I can pour directly out of when casting. I flux/clean the bulk lead melted in a big cast iron pot on a turkey fried burner and ladle the clean lead into the muffin pan. I candle soot the muffin pan 1st, just like I do my molds. I bought a cheap steel (or aluminum, can't remember) muffin pan without coating at Walmart. I've seen them at goodwill stores too.
I did have one muffin mold separate from the rest of the pan when trying to get an ingot out, before I started sooting it with candle 1st. It was a corner mold so gives me a good way to hang the pan from a nail or peg for storage.
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Thanks for all your advice (and bad jokes). I did find a flimsy steel muffin pan at Target that is good for one use, but is cheap. I got my lead from Rotometals on sale for about $2/lb including shipping. It's advertised as 99.9% pure. I melted it in a cast iron pan over a large propane burner and it's all in ingots now. Thanks for your help!
Kent
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The Lee ingot mold is $12. The ingots fit in pot nicely and are stack-able. I put a damp towel in an old metal pan. After pouting the ingots I put mold on the damp towel to solidify the lead. I spray pain the lead with a spit coat , color coded to that it is, pure or whatever. I also stamp them "P" for pure, "W" for wheel weights etc.
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(https://i.ibb.co/Lp5SS2K/816-F3678-2-E9-B-4414-85-E7-CC4610-FB9-EFA.jpg) (https://ibb.co/C02BBTL)
Makes you eyes red..just looking at it......
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Yea, I use Lee ingot molds, I would rather pay the extra amount than worrying someone may use the muffin tins for baking.
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I bought a couple of ingot molds at garage, and estate sales, and can’t imagine why anyone that wasn’t forced to, would use anything else. It is so easy to feed your lead pot with these small ingots, and not have to wait for some enormous plug of lead to melt.
As a twenty year veteran of the Boy Scouts, I can tell you casting lead in old cast iron cookware without marking it for future generations is just flat irresponsible. After working to rejuvenated an old cast iron kettle, and heating it in the oven to drive out moisture, and get it ready to be oiled, I noticed very small silvery beads oozing from the porous old cast iron, sure enough it was lead. We quit using vintage cast iron all together afterwards.
I am puzzled by the number of times I have been given, or bought lead, only to find that the lead was cast into some of the most awkward forms imaginable. One batch was cast full depth in a 12” cast iron skilled. But the best was a hoard of about 800 pounds cast in an old aluminum corvette valve cover.
Hungry Horse
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Good point about the old cast iron pans and pots. Yikes!
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I bought a couple of ingot molds at garage, and estate sales, and can’t imagine why anyone that wasn’t forced to, would use anything else......
Hungry Horse
Because sometimes even those "small ingots" are too big.
(https://i.ibb.co/Dkxd73r/15648410765714088856143857184598.jpg) (https://ibb.co/d6dZQnm)
(https://i.ibb.co/N6pL97K/15648411084362363318009978873018.jpg) (https://ibb.co/qM9RNxp)
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For a small pot like that, I think I would look for an aluminum gang mold that molds a medium sized fishing sinker. I would suspect that if you tried to cast round balls over about fifty caliber, in quantity, you would constantly be dealing with either lead that was too hot, or too cold. It would be great for squirrel caliber round balls.
Hungry Horse
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These are wonderful. You will never wear it out.
https://www.amazon.com/Lyman-Lead-Ingot-Mould/dp/B07PRJKP3Y
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These are wonderful. You will never wear it out.
https://www.amazon.com/Lyman-Lead-Ingot-Mould/dp/B07PRJKP3Y
I use a similar Lyman ingot mold... But mine doesn't have the handles. However it has a lip that is perfect for vise grips or pump pliers... So easy enough to use it.
I have thought of purchasing the Lee ingot mold a few times... The model that makes 1 lb. and 1/2 lb. ingots. Those 1/2 lb. ingots look like they might be handy for a few things.
Mike
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I like the Lyman mould as I overfill it a bit and all 4 'blocks' are joined for easy handling and stacking.
They break apart very easily with a tomahawk blow or bending back and forth until they separate. The
hawk is fastest.
Taylor has 2 Lyman moulds and I have 2 as well. That means we mould a minimum of 16 pounds (16,
1-pound ingots) each pour. That keeps the tiger torch (on 20 pound bottle of propane) going.
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I like the Lyman mould as I overfill it a bit and all 4 'blocks' are joined for easy handling and stacking.
They break apart very easily with a tomahawk blow or bending back and forth until they separate. The
hawk is fastest.
Taylor has 2 Lyman moulds and I have 2 as well. That means we mould a minimum of 16 pounds (16,
1-pound ingots) each pour. That keeps the tiger torch (on 20 pound bottle of propane) going.
I have picked up ingots like that in a flea market near me... All 4 ingots are joined by the thin layer of overflow. I'm normally hesitant to buy ingots of unknown make. But they passed the thumbnail and thud test on the concrete floor. So at $7.50 a piece I rolled the dice.
Mike
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The lead we are currently using, came from an X-ray room wall. I only bought 300pounds, should have taken twice that.
It was 50 cents a pound. And is the softest lead I have EVER had. Needless to say, it is easy loading in every gun I have
or have tried them in. 10oz denim material (washed twice) and balls .005" under bore size is easy loading. I measure that
material at .0225" with my new calipers, compressed as hard as I can, the jaws between my finger and thumb. It does not
work as well in my .69 with the .682" ball. That one wants 12 or 14oz. denim for it's best accuracy. You have to want to load
that combination. A half-hearted attempt with the starter will leave the ball sitting on the muzzle.
I have used the same patch, for a 5-shot group, collecting it after every shot, re-lubing it and shooting again.
Indeed, we used this material as-in some of my old recovered patches, in one of Hugh's barrels after Taylor performed surgery
on an old Hawken he built back in the 80's.
The before rifle on the right, the after rifle on the left. This was the first time I have shot this rifle after the rebuild. I also shot it
before the work was done.
(https://i.ibb.co/2F658G9/before-and-after.png) (https://ibb.co/qDnx0TS)
This are the targets shot with the reclaimed patches, at 50 yards. Seemed to tighten
up a bit with the increased powder charge. 2F GOEX was used.
(https://i.ibb.co/h8kqgSH/100-8103.jpg) (https://ibb.co/tCSdH9c)
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For a small pot like that, I think I would look for an aluminum gang mold that molds a medium sized fishing sinker. I would suspect that if you tried to cast round balls over about fifty caliber, in quantity, you would constantly be dealing with either lead that was too hot, or too cold. It would be great for squirrel caliber round balls.
Hungry Horse
Actually I'm casting .610 round balls. But, I don't cast 100s at a time like some do. Lead temp seems to stay very consistent, it doesn't get a chance to cool in a ladle from pot to mold and once it has come up to temp and melted what was in the pot from last time, it doesn't take long to melt new muffin ingots.
The biggest issue I've had with the small pot is that it is really hard to flux and clean really dirty lead in so small a pot. Thus, scrap lead I've obtained gets melted, fluxed, and cleaned in a big pot and made into small clean ingots.
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The huge pouring ladle Taylor has, melts about 20 pounds of lead at a time. Set up with fire-bricks & a roaring
tiger torch, the lead melts quite quickly. We fluxed with old pieces of candles - paraffin. For casting, I use a pair
of 20 pound Lee Production pots now, one with bullet alloy, the other with pure lead. Both were bottom pour
originally, but I converted them to dipping method by plugging the holes with a 1/2" #6 self-tapping sheet metal screw
from the inside of the pot. I just ran it in with my impact driver, an extension on the 1/4" socket bit.
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I bought a couple of ingot molds at garage, and estate sales, and can’t imagine why anyone that wasn’t forced to, would use anything else. It is so easy to feed your lead pot with these small ingots, and not have to wait for some enormous plug of lead to melt.
As a twenty year veteran of the Boy Scouts, I can tell you casting lead in old cast iron cookware without marking it for future generations is just flat irresponsible. After working to rejuvenated an old cast iron kettle, and heating it in the oven to drive out moisture, and get it ready to be oiled, I noticed very small silvery beads oozing from the porous old cast iron, sure enough it was lead. We quit using vintage cast iron all together afterwards.
I am puzzled by the number of times I have been given, or bought lead, only to find that the lead was cast into some of the most awkward forms imaginable. One batch was cast full depth in a 12” cast iron skilled. But the best was a hoard of about 800 pounds cast in an old aluminum corvette valve cover.
Hungry Horse
I'm hoping you all that use these muffin pans are dremeling "for lead use only. not for food" on it. Some one going to either sell or give away your gear when you pass on.
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An interesting point, re pans and lead. A serious question here...does lead contaminate a pot, pan, or utensil forever and ever ?? If cleaned up, I just don't see this happening , but welcome an explanation if so
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The cast iron I mentioned was old, had long since lost its seasoning, and was quite porous, by modern standards. I would suspect lack of seasoning, and porosity, were major factors.
Hungry Horse