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Military Firearm Restoration Corner

End Of Lead Bullets?


gun nutty

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Thank God for wheel weights.

 

Oh, wait, those are harming wildlife too. I'm sure those will be copper now.

 

Nope, they are now Zinc, grab all the lead ones you can find. But don't mix the two. Zinc will ruin your bullet alloy.

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Nope, they are now Zinc, grab all the lead ones you can find. But don't mix the two. Zinc will ruin your bullet alloy.

There are still some lead wheel weights being manufactured but they are being phased out in favor of zinc and steel. I have already ruined a pot of more than 20 lbs of lead with zinc wheel weights. It turns bullet casting alloy into an oatmeal type texture alloy nearly impossible to cast with. Fishing sinkers are also now being made with zinc and cast iron.

 

As long as there are automotive batteries there will be plenty of recyclable lead for bullet manufactures but because of the deadly fumes the home caster does not want to use battery lead. I'm just a high school graduate and never studied chemistry. Some kind of chemical reaction between sulfuric acid and lead in a modern low maintenance car battery causes the lead plates to emit deadly fumes when melted. The line "don't try this at home" applies here. Melting down lead plates out of car batteries was popular in the 50 and 60's. A change in the composition of modern battery lead plates now makes it dangerous to recycle. A good rule of thumb, old car batteries made with hard tar cases might be safe to salvage the lead. Plastic case batteries should be avoided. At best the few pounds of lead in any automotive battery is simply not worth the risks involved.

 

 

During peacetime or our current limited war the lead supply is sufficient but that could easily change. During WW1 the streets of Berlin were dug up to salvage the lead pipes supplying the city's water supply. Lead is no longer used in water systems but in a national emergency lead and car batteries could become as scarce as automotive tires were during WW2.

 

I lost my supplier of lead wheel weights. My neighbor's son was working at a tire shop but got canned after failing a piss test. I did manage to get a 5 gal bucket full and so far it is about 60% lead.

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Here is a You Tube video showing a bullet caster sorting lead from zinc and steel wheel weights.

 

 

My method is to visually inspect each and every wheel weight. If I'm not 100% certain it is lead I scrape the weight on my cement carport floor. Lead will feel like writing on a blackboard with a piece of chalk. Zinc and steel will feel like scraping a rock. The guy in the video taps the weights on a hard steel surface and can distinguish the different sound. My 63 year old hearing is not that good.

 

As a final safeguard I set the temperature on my electric temperature adjustable lead pot to slightly above lead's melting point. I don't recall lead and zinc's melting point. Before starting I jump on the net to be sure I have the temp correct. As the lead melts and I've picked out as many steel clips as I can with needle nose. I stir the alloy briskly. Zinc, steel and wheel weight clips will float to the top. I use my ladle to fish out the small items like clips and zinc stick-on weights and let the liquid alloy run out the nipple back into the pot. I again use needle nose to get the larger items. After I'm fairly certain I have all the non lead items out I vigorously stir the mix again. Every now and then a steel clip or zinc stick-on will float to the top.

 

If one wants the mix close to pure lead before cranking the heat up. Skim all the crud of the top. If one wants a harder alloy and take advantage of the tin and antimony alloyed into clip-on weights. Crank the heat up way up, stir and flux the crud on top into the mix. The tin portion will easily melt, antimony's melting point is likely higher than your lead pot's max temp. Some of the antimony that is like dust or alloyed may or may not melt into the mix. After stirring and fluxing at max temp what ever floats to the top should be scraped off very carefully while wearing a face/dust mask. The crud on top may contain arsenic, if melting down shot shell pellets you can be certain there is arsenic in the dusty substance. Treat the crud on top of the mix as though it is deadly and properly dispose of it.

 

My latest batch of wheel weights a good portion of zinc and steel are marked. Again I don't recall the element's designation and check the net ahead of time. Zinc is Zn and I think iron or steel is FE but double check on the net to know for sure. There is no govt regulation requiring the weights be marked so you can't count on it being stamped into the weight. My biggest problem are zinc stick-ons. They bend easy and if they are not marked I have to scrape them. In haste every now and then one might sneak its way into the pot. So being carful not get the pot's temp setting above lead's but below zinc's melting point so far with one exception I've managed to keep zinc out of my alloy.

 

I cussed like a drunken sailor over the one pot I ruined. Believing I had it right I alloyed in about 12 bucks worth of tin, a portion of Roto Metals hardener bar and close to, two hours of time. Even with the temp at absolute max, mold heated with a torch, the mushy alloy would not fill the mold properly and cooled castings were way under sized. A friend took the bad alloy claiming he could use it in his shotshell pellet maker.

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