[crazyace85]

Straight wheel weight casting.

This is a question for the folks casting ww. What kind of hardness do you get with plain ww and not adding anything. Will ww alone make good boolits. Is the any type of ww that doesn't need to make it to the pot. If so how do you recognize it. That's all the questions I can think of now if you got any other info that you feel a person that doesn't cast(yet) needs to know post it. I'm looking at just using ww. To buy lead and other ingredients would defeat the purpose of saving money. As others have said Missouri bullet sales em cheap.

 

[msredneck]

Re: Straight wheel weight casting.

Straight WW are fine for a cheap pistol bullet...You can mix a little lino in to help em pour better and make em hard. Gas check em for a slow rifle bullet....Heat em in the oven for a couple hrs around 400 degrees...makes em harder...

The bullet will cure for about a week after your pour it.

I try to always size em shortly after I pour em to make that job easier

The "real deal" PB WW's are getting hard to come by...Lots of zinc being used now.....

I imagine in a few short years, PB won't even be in WW any more

find them when you sort through the stems, cig butts and assorted other trash that might be in there prior to melting them down.

You can flux with a wooden spoon works real well as you stir

Like reloading...casting don't really save any $....just lets you shoot a lot more...

Lots of fun rolling your own...Learning new things is half the reason I get up every day

There are other sources of PB besides WW's...If you have a plumber friend who renovates old houses...old lead pipes can be melted down

I'll let Captain-03, Subgunfan and Beladran and Hammer chime in with a few more details...

all this has been talked about before in earlier threads...

 

[Beladran]

Re: Straight wheel weight casting.

straight WW is terrible! send them to me for disposal!
Here is my take, if i cast a 45 in WW i can take my thumb nail and actually cut lead from the nose. Now if i add just a little tin and antimony i cant do that. Straight WW is about a 8-9 on the bhn and usually cast a bullets they kinda turns a light dull grey.(you can also water drop them for a few extra BHN points) If you spike the bullets they are kinda shinny silver. I really want my bullets to be between 12-18 bhn. To me i have less leading when i get their hardness up and my accuracy is a little better.
I used to deer hunt around grenada and you should still be seeing good PB ww there. Keep you a couple $20's in your pocket and hit some of the mom and pop tire shops check out Mcoys or Tire Shop if they are still in business. Assuming you get "good" WW's your looking at 1/2 a cent per bullet you cast. Now to ID the zinc ww i like the THUD test.. drop them on the concret and if they go thud.. its lead if it goes ting its zinc. At our last melting party we resorted to scratching the surface with a flat tip screwdriver to see if they were good or not.

 

[captain-03]

Re: Straight wheel weight casting.

95% of the time I use straight WWs for most revolver and pistol applications. I do add some tin (or lino) when casting small boolits like .224/.225.

Drop the straight WW directly from the mould into water -- you will get harder boolits -- as hard as you need for most revoler and pistol applications. It is the trace of antimony that will give it the hardness. Tin is soft or softer than PB and is used to help mould fillout.

The thud test for zinc works with large WWs .. with the smaller ones it is difficult because of the steel retaining clip - that is what you hear most of the time when dropped. Best way is to keep your temp down low until all the lead is melted - the zinc will float. Believe me, a little zinc is no big problem when you are casting 9mm and above calibers - it is a realy pain when cast the "little" boolits. The real problem is when you miss a lot of them -- your melt will become "crusty" and "thick" and will not cast very well.

Be mindful that accuracy can actually suffer if your boolit is too hard and leading can occur with a hard boolit if not properly sized for the barrel.

 

[Doug Bowser]

Re: Straight wheel weight casting.

I use straight ww for pistol. It is better and more accurate to mix pure lead and tin for rifle bullets. This included rifle bullets with smokeless powder and black powder.

Doug

 

[crazyace85]

Re: Straight wheel weight casting.

Thanks guys. I've been acquiring a few buckets of ww for when I start casting. I've been racing a couple others in town to get em. One guy has gateway on lock down though. He is paying $35 per bucket. I decided to pass on those. I like the free ones.

 

[Beladran]

Re: Straight wheel weight casting.

i was informed today this is a group based in jackson that is paying $85 a bucket for WW what the heck is going on lol

 

[DieselDoc]

Re: Straight wheel weight casting.

I saw a 5gal bucket almost full at local larger metal reclaimer while walking through and asked about a price and the owner told me $125. I spazzed and made mention of the metal clips and such and he told me straight away that clips included that was the price he would get for it when he sold it otherwise. He admitted that most tire shops haven't realized the scrap value. Having worked in a larger tire shop at one time, it is difficult to police all of the weights up and get them in a container and out of the garbage when a tire line is wide open working. After all it is a tire buisness and wheelweights are a byproduct, as are the brass valve stems which are worth even more.

 

[Evil Zim]

Re: Straight wheel weight casting.

In Greenville yesterday and tire shop wanted $60 for bucket of weights

 

[captain-03]

Re: Straight wheel weight casting.

In Greenville yesterday and tire shop wanted $60 for bucket of weights

Does not surprise me at all .... insane!!