Wheel weights for casting

The larger tire stores use steel weights now, "going green"
Mom and pops use lead or reuse whatever they can find.
If you come across an interstate battery truck ask the driver, they pick up the old weights from auto shops that they sell their batteries to, they melt em down for their batteries. May be able to buy a bucket off of them.
 
Boric Acid. Its not for fluxing. Its for holding the dross surface tension. Old school way of doing something to help out the caster.
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You don't want to add borax or boric acid because you don't really want to sequester the oxides. You want to reduce them back to metal -- that's what carbon-containing flux (like wax or sawdust) does. The oxides contain a lot of the tin and antimony, and you want to keep those.
 
I was about to start a thread asking how to sort out lead wheelweights from other, but it looks like it's been answered here. Thank you.

The test I was thinking of applying was the "bash it with a hammer" test. If it flattened, I was going to call it lead. If all it did was score, probably not.
 
You want to toss out the weights that are *obviously* not lead. With some of the painted ones, it's not obvious one way or the other.

The real test is whether they melt or not if you keep the pot below about 750 degrees.
 
Being a mechanic is a huge advantage for learning to cast bullets and reloading in general. With good mechanical inclination and good knowledge of hand tool use, you have a good start (you can prolly tell zinc from lead wheel weights just by holding them in your hand). So much of casting and reloading is just common sense (and most mechanics have a bunch of it). I've been paid to fix everything from chain saws to 125 ton hydro-cranes for over 35 years so, casting and reloading ain't no challenge, just follow safe, common sense practices...

BTW; I tried Boric Acid a few years ago, I read about it somewhere. Huge mess. Gummy, gooy, sludge on top of the melt and it took a lot of wire brush scrubbing to remove it from the pot.
 
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