Pure lead vs range lead

[Tkendrick]

I was having lunch with an old shooting buddy earlier this week and he came up with this:

He takes his range lead, and by fluxing and scooping, he claims he is converting it to pure lead. In other words all this fluxing is taking the tin and antimony, ie the hardeners, out of the allow.

I haven't done much with scrap lead. Does this work?

 

[wtilenw]

No, it does not change the alloy composition. It will just clean it of impuritys such as the dirt picked up from shooting into the burm and other components that are not metal.

 

[roundball]

I was having lunch with an old shooting buddy earlier this week and he came up with this:

He takes his range lead, and by fluxing and scooping, he claims he is converting it to pure lead. In other words all this fluxing is taking the tin and antimony, ie the hardeners, out of the allow.

I haven't done much with scrap lead. Does this work?

Round balls are normally cast or swaged out of pure lead. But I understand sometimes people use wheel weights which are usualy free to hold down shooting costs, but it makes a harder ball due to those other ingredients.
Is that the kind of lead you're referring to that he is getting / reclaiming from the range...ie: balls made from wheel weights?

 

[Mr Hawken]

i read that true lead melts at 620 degrees and if you heat to at least 850 that it will allow the release of harder metals and can be skimmed off.

 

[Many Klatch]

I have worked on a factory that "distilled" old lead into new lead. Removing the antimony and other hardeners requires some pretty sophisticated equipment. Antimony is a nasty poison that requires serious Hazmat controls.

Go ahead and use the range lead, but don't expect it to be pure lead. All he is doing is removing the impurities like sand and dirt and lead oxide. BTW, the lead oxide needs to be handled with care as well.

Many Klatch

 

[bwhoffman]

I was having lunch with an old shooting buddy earlier this week and he came up with this:

He takes his range lead, and by fluxing and scooping, he claims he is converting it to pure lead. In other words all this fluxing is taking the tin and antimony, ie the hardeners, out of the allow.

I haven't done much with scrap lead. Does this work?

This will not make it "pure lead", but will give you a clean lead "alloy". free from most impurities and copper jackets.

with the right patch and a tad more pressure needed to start it down the bore, RB made from this shoots OK for most of our needs.

Reason I mention this is, the lead from this will be harder, thus more pressure needed to embed the patching material in to the ball and also to form the ball to the rifling lands if you typically use a fairly tight ball/patch combo.

This lead your friend is creating also works real well in CF pistol reloads!

I have some, have cast it and shot it. No real complaints.
Use it and wheel weights soley in the smooth bore but do prefer pure soft lead for my rifles just because!

 

[buttonbuck]

so what is the process to separate lead alloy I guess it would be electromagnetic to seperate tin but antimony is a metaloid is it magnetic? When you heat lead over 800F doesn't it release really bad stuff?

 

[paulvallandigham]

I believe the process uses electrolysis, not electro magnatism, to remove tin, antimony, and other trace metals. Electricity is run through a molten mix of lead alloy, through rods which attrack the other metals to the rod. The rod is removed, and then the foreign metals are separated from it with other processes. The equipment required is very expensive, can only be justified in industrial use, and the Hazardous nature of the metals, gases, and oxides requires sophisticated equipement to protect the workers, and the environment from pollution. Purifying lead is not something you do at home.

 

[MSW]

if you're using range lead, what you have is lead of sufficient harness to serve well in centerfire pistol or gas checked centerfire rifle bullets. many folks use wheelweights, but the newer ones have too much int, aluminum and other materials to be of any use in casting bullets.

of course you need to remelt it, and repour it into mold ingots. this will afford you the opportunity to skim off the crud, but that's all you'll do: remelting the mix won't seperate any of the components (i.e. antimony, etc.), at least not at the temps you'll get out of a melting pot.

when you do remelt the lead, do this outdoors, wear long sleeves and leather work gloves, and don't eat, drink or smoke amnything while you're doing it. be sure to wash your hands thoroughly when you're done. stay upwind of the fumes, which can mess you up if you inhale them.

it isn't scary, but there are some inheirant dangers which, if recognizes, can be easily avoided.

good luck & make smoke!

 

[Tkendrick]

That's pretty much what I thought. I guess I should have said I haven't used much range lead. I have been casting cf pistol and rifle bullets from my own mix and wheel weight for years.

I've run into a lot of BS theories and misconceptions from fellow shooters about casting lead bullets over the years, but this was the first time I had been told you could "unmix" a lead alloy.

It sounded too good to be true, and I was pretty sure it wouldn't work. Glad to know I wasn't off my rocker.

 

[vzett]

A fun thread. I recently started 'mining' (with permission) a few of the local ranges for lead.

Great thought on using the slightly harder stuff for smoothbore! I've been waiting to get pure lead to cast RB's for my new .62 Fusil de Chasse, but since I don't have rifling to grab, a mixed alloy is probably fine. The .58 Minies and rifle RB's will have to wait though.

Just to add a couple of reference points based on recent personal experiments with range lead (and sourcing lead on e-bay)-

Batch 1:
30lbs of recovered lead bullets (all non-jacketed) tested out to ~10.5 BHn using the Lee Hardness tester. These were recovered during cleaning of a rubber-based pistol range backstop so it was easy to pick only all-lead bullets

Batch 2:
20lb mix of roughly 70% jacketed bullets and 30% non-jacketed recovered from a mixed-use (rifle/pistol/shotgun) outdoor earth berm. We also recovered an interesting mix of roundball sizes which I'll make the subject of a future post. This tested out at ~8BHn. I've read that lead cores tend towards 'pure'. Next time, I'm going to try to do a batch of all jacketed and see how close to 5BHn it comes out to further test the theory.

Batch 3:
'Soft Lead' buy from e-bay tested out to ~8BHn which makes me to suspect it was probably typical range lead

Batch 4:
e-bay buy of 'pure soft lead' that tested out a 22BHn - so likely Lino or some such alloy! While it delayed by ability to cast round ball, this will work great for alloying GC'd rifle bullets.

- Virgil