Lead

[Robby]

A fellow gave me about seventy-five pounds of lead foil from an x-ray room. Is it safe to assume that it is pure lead? Will my balls glow in the dark?

[Dphariss]

Should be good stuff. High purity. Scrap lead was 80 cents a pound the last I bought so you got a very good deal.

Dan

[William Worth]

I don't know what parts of your anatomy may or may not glow, but the lead you got should be fine.  X-Rays are non-ionizing and won't contaminate the shielding.

[Roger Fisher]

Yes, get all you can it's good safe and soft lead 

[Leatherbelly]

 Prices of lead have gone crazy up here. Last I heard it was $6.00 a lb. Has something to do with the Chinese buying up all our scrap metals. Glad I horded when I did.

[lew wetzel]

i got a bunch of lead from work and it has a sticker on it that says inorganic lead for industrial and commercial use only...i havent melted any down yet,but seems very soft and real suitable for casting r.balls...

[LURCHWV@BJS]

Someone told me to put beeswax in with the lead when melting it, why?  And could you use parafin wax like you would get from crude oil instead?


            RICH

[roundball]

At a club I belong to, our club price of a 25lb bag of #7.5/8/9 shot for trap and skeet has risen from $13/bag to $46/bag over the past few years...I used to shoot all four gauges in skeet and .12ga in trap but have all but quit shooting.  I even recently sold my .20ga 1100 and reloading equipment & supplies...will just use the .410 & .28ga for skeet as they use smaller shot charges...the 1187 trap gun will probably go next

[swordmanjohn]

   Fluxing of the molten lead helps remove impuities in the lead by bringing it to the surface to be skimmed off before you cast. I did some casting yesterday both with a steel block cast and aluminum. The steel works well after many duds that I set aside for re-melt. The aluminum blocks worked well and was faster to work with (matter of preference).  Now I have a few .58 conical minies to try out in my repro 1858 Enfield rifle musket -1 in 48 twist .                                                                                                                                                                                                                                    

Someone told me to put beeswax in with the lead when melting it, why?  And could you use parafin wax like you would get from crude oil instead?


            RICH

[Leatherbelly]

Rich,
 Parafin works just fine. Beeswax smells better,that's all. BTW,I've heard that clean motoroil works too,but can't confirm.

[J.D.]

   Fluxing of the molten lead helps remove impuities in the lead by bringing it to the surface to be skimmed off before you cast.                                                                                                                                                                                                                             

I aways thought the idea of fluxing was to blend any alloy in the mix. Dross will will rise to the surface quite well without fluxing.

[George Sutton]

Lead is now classified as a hazardous material. Some places won't handle it or sell it to you, that's what's making it hard to get.

Using beeswax or parrafin does work as a flux and brings the impurities to the top. I use an old spoon to stir the lead when I drop in a small piece of beeswax, then use the spoon to skim off the dross.

I understand California was trying to ban lead as a firearm projectile and I think they were successful.

Lead used as shielding for an x-ray room cannot be contaminated by the x-rays and is usually pure lead. However lead used to shield radionuclides for nuclear medicine can often be contaminated. Check to make sure what you have.

Centershot

[Harnic]

A fellow gave me about seventy-five pounds of lead foil from an x-ray room. Is it safe to assume that it is pure lead? Will my balls glow in the dark?

X-Ray room lead is excellent for black powder projectiles!  Both the heavy sheets lining the walls of an x-ray romm as well as the lead foil from tooth x-rays.  I've used lots of both over the years & wish I could get more!  It's dead soft... very pure!

[Paddlefoot]

Centershot is spot on the target. Here in the People's Republic of Callyfornya the passed a law restricting lead in "Condor Habitat".  Seems the stinkin' buzzards are too stupid to multiply and the Greenies figured they were dying off from eating all the dead critters that hunters left laying around with bullets and shot in them. Now we have to use certified lead free projectiles (figure the additional cost to get your bullets certified).......Of course that shut down anything to do with a .22 and most handguns since you can't carry any firearm loaded with lead bullets into a Condor Area. We have lost the left coast folks.
 Re fluxing your lead. Try MARVELUX. You can get it from Brownells. 1 can lasts practically forever and it will get more impurities out of your metal than you ever imagined were in there. Last of all; If you haven't done enough casting to know about fluxing you might want to give Lyman's cast bullet handbook a read through for safetys sake. A simple thing like sticking a cold spoon in a lead pot that's up to temp can cause a steam explosion of molten lead from the condensation caused by the temperature change. Not tr4ying to be a know it all or anything, just don't want anyone to get hurt doing what we all love.

[Feltwad]

The price of lead is falling only a few months ago here in the UK lead shot was £76 stirling per 25 kilos which then was $156 American.
Feltwad

[omark]

x-ray lead is superb for casting and shooting. dead soft, expands well and the best thing is it makes tracking cripples easier. just wait til dark, then the critter glows.........

[Dphariss]

   Fluxing of the molten lead helps remove impuities in the lead by bringing it to the surface to be skimmed off before you cast.                                                                                                                                                                                                                             

I aways thought the idea of fluxing was to blend any alloy in the mix. Dross will will rise to the surface quite well without fluxing.

Actually it will not.
Using marvelux or beeswax separates the crud from the metal and allows easy removal.
If you stir an unfluxed pot of lead/alloy you can SEE stuff circulating just under the surface.

Dan

[Daryl]

I always flux when the melt just comes to a full melt but not up to casting temperture.  Fluxing then will cause not only the impurities to separate but also some antimony that may be present but still hasn't melted yet, to come to the surface as well.  This can be seen as granular, chunky specs in the dross that accumulates. I save all this 'dross' as much of it is lead with antimony, to be added to my bullet lead.  I do this only with a slightly unknown mix or one I've inadvertently mixed by mistake. Works for me. Generally, you cannot get straigth WW metal soft enough for small bore rifles, but is OK for larger bores, especially with shallow rifling and slow twists.

[Ohioan]

Daryl,

     My  wheel weight lead always cools larger.  The mold is .490 and the balls cool around .495-.497.  Makes it a little tight getting it down the barrel.  I'm not one of these guys that enjoys hammering the ball down the barrel. 

But I hit the mother load!  A customer at the bank I work at brought me in 45.5 lbs of lead.  Already molded into round ball!  They were all weird sizes..  .57, .58, .360, .400, .60 etc.  Who uses those?  Well, the .60s went to my brother.

[Daryl]

Any alloyed lead will cast larger than pure lead.  I would not try to use WW metal in a .50, although in a slow twist .54, it'd probably work.  You have to use a smaller mould.  WW usually casts .003" to .004" larger than pure lead.  Ohioan, perhaps your .490" mould is a bit larger than the indicated .490". For example, my .684" mould casts .680" in pure lead and .684" in WW metal.

 The reason WW casts larger balls, is alloyed lead shrinks less than does pure lead. The harder the alloy, generally, the larger it casts.  In the States, be careful of WW metal. When melting WW, most of the glue-on weights are almost pure lead, while some of the clamp-ons (& maybe some of the glue-ons) are made of zinc. Including zinc into your melt will destroy the entire batch. It casts poorly, and sometimes will even contaminate the lead pot as well.

[Ohioan]

it casts .490 balls with my pure lead.

[Daryl]

interesting