I've read the smelting but need help

[mbat]

Hi guys,
I was smelting lead in my lee lead furnace (i know not the best thing to do).

I found an old stash of lead from years ago in my late father in law's barn. Something was in there that turned the lead funky, it got sort of "grainy" and the melt was high. It wouldn't pour as good and the boolits had very heavy flow lines. I put more tin in and it did not help.

I scrapped the batch in fear of using up all my expensing tin. The items put in were just varying scrap lead objects, all soft enough to be lead. I tested hardness on everything I put in and it ranged from very soft to linotype range.

I read on here of using lead sheet (which I have) WW, and so on..

I guess my questions are:

1.) What do I add to the soft stuff to get the bhn up? (there seems to be more soft than hard)

2.) if I get heavy flow lines on the boolits and my melt is usually very high 700f, and my mold is preheated, and i have cast 10 cycles, do I add more Tin?

3.) has anyone tried using lead acid battery lead? (car and tractor battories)

Please help and thanks!

[zdogk9]

I'd pass on the batteries. Lead is not the only metal used and the other crap is truly evil. Beside that, by the time a battery is worn out it's not worth it to go after the remaining lead from our standpoint.
Regarding 2); I'd guess that you have some oil on the cavities of your mold. Take Hot water, a toothbrush, and dish washing detergent to it, should help, least it seems to work for me.
Antimony which seems to be priced slightly, (but not much), below unobtanium is what you need to harden things up. There are movies that are reputed to have the same effect. Try using magnum shot which has a fairly high % of antinomy or ingotize the soft stuff and trade it for ingotized wheel weights.

[AdamN]

For most general handgun shooting even plain WW are hard enough. I soot a LOT of WW and pure lead mixed 50/50.

Dont use batteries, two words, poisionous gas .

If youre using 50/50 WW lead and still getting poor bullets, like Zdog said, clean the mold, I use brake cleaner but about anything that will remove oil will work.

What mold are you using??

[Oreo]

I already asked about smelting car batteries a while ago. (Can't remember if it was on the old forum though.) The response was overwhelmingly negative. Negative enough for even a hard-head like me to take heed & forget the idea. There were a multitude of solid reasons why smelting car batteries would be a horrible idea.

[Anvil]

The grainy lead was actually antimony. Lead and antimony look the same but melt at different temps. You just didn't have your lead temp up high enough. You may have set your temp high but if you're not melting the antimony and tin then your thermostat may be going out.