As a bullet caster, my dreaded time approaches!

Targa

Targa

Member
Joined
Oct 22, 2019
Messages
1,840
Location
Unfortunately, the once great State of Colorado
I have been slacking the last six months or so, due to shoulder surgery mainly and just realized I am out of processed lead for casting. I have a couple five pound buckets of range lead that I need to process.
For me, it is the nastiest, dirtiest, most toxic process in my reloading endeavor that I subject myself to but it is worth it, right now anyway. I can certainly see myself possibly forking up the coin in the future and buying a 1,000 lb pallet of lead ingots, which would easily last me the rest of my life from one of the online distributors. Just musing a bit, really no point to this thread.
 
Last edited:
I'm with ya, just a necessary evil.

I run two different alloys to cover most of my uses. The softer of the two is mainly for all things under 1100fps, so I don't use as much of it as the other which i have run up into the low 2000fps range, but mostly is used for around 1300'ish and my magnum revolvers. That said I put up a bit over a hundred pounds of it a few weeks back. And yes even though all of my alloy is pretty clean going in and cleaner coming out it is still a chore. With the blending comes fluxing with sawdust, and that comes with smoke, and LOTS of stirring. Then skimming, and pouring the ingots. After they cool, it is marking them and stacking them away until ready for use.

It is however nice to be able to plug in a cord, grab up 3-5 ingots, and sit down and pour up a few hundred nice bullets in a short matter of time. Not to mention the dozens of jig heads, slabs, and blade baits we pour up as well.

Oh yeah, don't think I haven't been considering one of those pallets as well. I just ain't got anywhere to stack it "yet"...
 
I assume you treat this like a camp fire and process the lead out in the open, letting fumes blow away from you? I tried it once in a shop. I’ll never do that again. 🙂
Click to expand...

I have a screened window on my shop door that is a perfect fit for a 20" box fan. I can set up inside if needed within a couple feet of the door, have the one fan blowing outside and another behind me blowing towards the door. With both on low, even with a handful of sawdust thrown in, the smoke heads right out.

Mostly though, I prefer to go outside due to having a bit more room.
 
I process out under a shade tree myself. If I need a hundred or so pills and it's raining, I have set inside the barn door threshhold w/ the door open but roof ventulators are open and nothing lingers in the air. Either way its not good to huff up any fumes rolling off the top of the smelter.

I have a couple buckets of mixed WW to go through but likely will only get 10-20# of decent lead weights to process. Just don't drop any galvanized pieces in the mix or the whole batch will turn into gritty slag.
 
I recently rendered several hundred pounds of wheel weights along with some old purchased CWW ingots. It's a dirty chore, but I actually enjoy it. Melting stuff is fun!

I generally work in my barn, just inside the door. There is plenty of ventilation; the old barn is nowhere close to airtight.

The only problem is the amount of time required. I have to schedule in a day with nothing else happening, which is getting harder to do.
 
I enjoy processing scrap lead into ingots. I bought and sold over three tons of lead and will be buying another thousand pounds here again shortly.
I do it outside and use a five quart cast iron Dutch oven.
Cupcake tins for molds.
Seventy pounds ready to cast $120 shipped.
The mail deliery people hate these boxes of lead.
 
I rendered many a 5 gallon bucket of stinky, smoky wheel weights. Now that wheel weights are pretty much dried up in my area, I just buy scrap lead from RMR. I drop it straight into the bottom pour lead pot. No more smelting and casting lead ingots. There is only a little smoke from the oil residue left over from the swaging process. It works well for my pistol bullets.
 
The first time I processed a bulk batch of range scrap lead I was pretty nervous. I hadn't processed anything before that and learned a lot from that first trial.

This last fall I did around 230lbs of COWW and the second go around was much smoother. One thing I added that really helped with keeping things tidy was a cloth painters drop cloth under my burner and ingot scrap plywood. Kept any little specs of lead on the cloth which I folded up and put away until it's time for another melt. Now that I've got a MO down for processing I don't find it particularly messy, just a bit of a strain on the back. Always wear your respirator, goggles and gloves!

Ingot processing

Ingot processing


Getting 2 extra Lodge mini cake cast irons sped things up a lot too. Last time I only had the one to pour ingots with.

Came out with 186lbs or so with a bit left in the deep skillet for melt prep in the future, maybe 8-10lbs worth in the bottom.

Ingots

Ingots


These are all cast up and coated, save for 26ish lbs of 254gr 38-55 casts left to be coated. I casted enough of everything to liberally estimate a full calendar year of shooting, but I'll most likely trend less than that.

I figure if I do that for several seasons I'll stock up enough cast and coated bullets that I'll never run out before it's casting season again. I pick up on average 5lbs of COWW a week from my local tire shop, which is more weight than I put down range per week, even after accounting for processed weight. With 270lbs stashed and many weeks left until November I figure I'll have something around 440lbs of raw weights to pull from for next melt.
 
Hartkopf said:
I assume you treat this like a camp fire and process the lead out in the open, letting fumes blow away from you? I tried it once in a shop. I’ll never do that again. 🙂
Click to expand...
Yeah, outdoors is necessary. I live in a neighborhood so only do it on cold & slightly windy days when the chance of people smelling the noxious fumes is minimal.
 
My farm produces a good deal of scrap iron in a year's time. I take it to our local scrap yard and sell the scrap and buy lead. Usually in ingots...sometimes in roofing lead or plumbing lead if I need soft stuff.
I shoot more hard cast than soft lead.
We are lucky to have a scrap yard that has lead....especially already in ingots.
 
WeekendReloader said:
I rendered many a 5 gallon bucket of stinky, smoky wheel weights. Now that wheel weights are pretty much dried up in my area, I just buy scrap lead from RMR. I drop it straight into the bottom pour lead pot. No more smelting and casting lead ingots. There is only a little smoke from the oil residue left over from the swaging process. It works well for my pistol bullets.
Click to expand...
That's how I get lead most of the time. 38 and 45acp bullets straight one for one. 357 mag bullets get 1/3 of a bar of superhard. I'm still trying to figure out on paper if 45c can be just rmr lead. I'm thinking so.
 
Meh, I just burn the junk and sticks left over from a wood pile and and bark and what falls around the yard.

We just replenished the ready to use pile for this today picking up sticks in the yard. Pretty much a garden wagon full and then I split any thing big enough to be irritating in about ten minutes. I cut it and break it all to be short and fall down the shute in to the fire box. I bury a double edge axe in a firewood round and then split everything on that with a home made mallet. I figure that wagon load of trash will process two buckets of wheel weights.

That is about 8 inch tubing. Just small enough the dutch oven sits on top with nothing else holding it and poke sticks in the fuel box through the corners so long skinny sticks are great to it.

It is SUPER EASY to control the heat on that. I've thought about setting it up near the garage and just pour straight from that in to the Lee bottom pour to make bullets so I don't have to heat it up twice. Saves a LOT of wear and tear on my back to, compared to smelting on the campfire.
 
Last edited:
I don't make bullets, but used to make A LOT of fishing sinkers. Used to be a part time income for me before the utilities I work with got REAL touchy about scrap lead and I got the raw material for free in large quantities. Still sitting on a few hundred pounds of telecom and conducter lead that I'm saving for personal use. Really pure, nice stuff, with just the right amount of tin already in it. I can cut it with nasty range lead or unknown alloy 50/50 and still fill the small jig and sinker molds. No idea the BHN, but as pure telecom lead it is on the soft side. Non issue with sinkers, although with jigs and sinkers for personal use I cut it with some reclaimed shot as I find harder sinkers and jigs to skip off the rocks better. There's a certain lake I fish in MN where I use pure linotype jigs and sinkers for trolling walleye. Amazing how well they do on the rock piles! When they're gone, I'll probably have to buy some hardball or similar, as Linotype is a thing of the past.

Back to the point of the post, I'm processing (used to anyways) some really nasty lead. Possible PCBs, asbestos, etc. My go-to was a converted water heater burner and a large cast iron pot. I'd load it up outdoors, fire it up, and watch from a distance until it quit smoking LOL. Then flux, skim, and pour very clean lead into ingots. Worked like a charm, and no breathing any sort of fumes. I would deliberately choose a breezy day to dissipate the fumes, and the burner had plenty of Oompa to do the job!
 
Last edited:
I cast on rainy days with a slight breeze in front of an open garage. Personally, I think the fear of lead of overrated because lead fumes is caused from excessive heat bullet casters don't encounter. I take precautions none the less. Don't forget, for those old enough, our old fillings had lead and mercury. And in science class we played with mercury with our bare hands. I still have my hair and teeth..
 
I think the dust in the bottom of a bucket of WW is more dangerous than the melting lead. I clean the wheel weights dumping them on my gold panning classifier over water first just to let the dirt and dust through the screen and take a pre - sort of the valve stems and lug nuts.
 
I'm not sure if I deal with lead dust. First, I cannot get wheel weights. Second, I obtain range lead. I first pick out and separated the jhp and large lead pieces. Then I wash and separate the remaining lead from light debri in an oil pan. Heavy particles collect old towels that act as a filter. i roll up, bag, and toss the towel. The remaining lead is scooped up, drained, and melted to fishing weights. The large pieces are separated and melted into ingots and PC'd bullets.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.

Similar threads

J
Am I correct in my alloying plan for Pedersoli Sharps replica rifle cast bullets?
2 3
Replies
69
Views
2K
JimGnitecki
J
LAH
  • Locked
Flux: For fellow casters
Replies
1
Views
741
Paul "Fitz" Jones
P
anothernewb
  • Locked
lessons from the fallout from the last 8 years - and some humor
2 3
Replies
55
Views
3K
Dudedog
Dudedog
B
  • Locked
casting your own
Replies
15
Views
1K
kBob
K
TBL65
  • Locked
My journey into loading and testing coated lead bullets for 9mm!
Replies
18
Views
3K
GarrettJ
GarrettJ
Back
Top