Smelting wheel weights into ingots for bullet making

Just smelting some wheel weights down into clean lead and pouring into ingots so that I can cast me up some nice looking boolits....

Category:

Entertainment

Tags:

• Bullet casting
• making bullets
• lead ingots
• bullet ingots
• smelting lead
• smelting wheel weighs

[PyR0Star]

im trying to make lead weights to put in my black powder ball mill container! I need a super easy way to make rounds or even cylinders. I don't have a caster, only 5 gallon buckets full of lead car weights, a cast iron pouring spoon, and some muffin pans. I really wanted to make a caster out of wood since I dont need exact measurements just large enough to mill my compositions.

[daywalker627]

@PyR0Star You may look into fishing sinker moulds. Just melt the lead in the cast iron pouring spoon and then pour that into the fishing sinker mould and you will have round lead balls. They make them in many different sizes. I hope that helps.

[chipwit]

Is "smelt" the term commonly used by reloaders for this process? It has attributes in common with true smelting, but smelting is the act of producing a metal from its ore- you are just melting lead and cleaning it up a bit at the same time. Perhaps "refining" would be a better term?

[daywalker627]

@chipwit Yep. That is the term we use. Was what I learned when I started out...

[nhnifong]

Is there any danger of inhaling vaporized lead? Did you have to wear a gas mask?

[daywalker627]

@nhnifong Lead can be very very very bad. I would not recomend standing over it and breathing in as much as you can. I would not fault anyone for wanting to wear a mask. I will say the most dangerous part of lead is lead dust. However, one can not be too safe so I say wear as much protective gear as you feel you need to. Face shield, leather apron, gloves, face mask. In the end, your personal safety is your responsability.

[PyR0Star]

lead is awesome, anything floats on molten lead except plutonium i believe =)

[PyR0Star]

corn on the cob molds nice!~

[AllieMert]

schmeltin XD

[geneticrabbit]

hi there i don't mean to be rude and tell you how to do things but could you not just sort the weights before you melt them i use a regular pair of wire cutters for mine, the lead ones dint really easy while the steel and zinc don't dint very well at all, then you wouldn't have to worry about fishing them out before they melt plus they should have ID markings on them like (Fe) (Zn) (Pb) hope this helps GENETICRABBIT

[savagenomore]

I think they want to get rid of lead has more to do with trying to stop us from smelting bullets...

[DoctorFreeman97]

@rturpening They dont all weigh the same. Some may have bubbles. some may be more dense. If you had one "bad" one and weighed that, then tried to sell it, someones getting ripped off.

[rturpening]

just weigh one and multiply by how many you have, so you don't have to lug 100+ pounds around to weigh it

[FortuneCookie45LC]

Great source for flux - when you go to those dinners or birthdays where there are long candles set out - always ask for the unburned candles - these are usually just thrown away. The candles can just be surface contacted to the lead mix and the wax will melt right onto the lead fluxing nicely. If you want to light the smoke, just use the candle in your hand. Works great, costs nothing. Beeswax is expensive for flux. Agree strongly with daywalker - save beeswax for bullet lube.