Years ago I bought around 1600# of indoor range salvage. No sand or dirt, but plenty of shotgun wads and other crap.
I borrowed a 120# propane fired pot and turned it all into 6# ingots with around 7% loss from the dross and such.
- lead recovered from traps is basically shattered with an enormous amount of surface area, so it oxidizes readily.
At the time I was shooting around #450 200 grain H&G 68 a week, and figured I had a ten year supply of lead.
Then a mechanic friend gave me several five gallon bucks of WW, and a friend who was moving gave me 1000# of WW 1# ingots.
Sold half of it before I left Commiefornia, but I still have around 700# of range salvage ingots, and perhaps 800# in ~1# wheel weight ingots.
I've found the straight up WW lead to be just fine for non-magnum handguns. It has enough tin in it so that the bullets don't readily tarnish, and it flows well into molds.
For the range salvage I use Foundry Type to add about 2% tin and 3% antimony to the mix. Makes nice, shiny, easy to cast and non-tarnishing bullets. I've got nearly 100# of Foundry Type from Mr. Greene, likely enough to last me around the 20 or so years I expect to be around.
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I've got a Visual Basic program I wrote years ago as an exercise to learn the language, using formulae obtained under the tutelage of Arthur Greene, a Beverly Hills metallurgist with a couple of Master's degrees, who dealt in lead scrap lead and lead alloys, now deceased.
My program ALLOY:
Run a virus scan on the installer package before you install it if you like (I would!)
- I used to write software @Hewlett-Packard for a living and would never screw around with somebody's computer.
~~~~~
If the forum managers would like to make the link to my software sticky, they should just do it.
- It will be at Dropbox until long after I have passed.
I thought about selling this software years ago when I wrote it, but decided the time to support it just did not make it worthwhile.
It runs on every Windows version I have tried it on, even W10.
FYI: I wrote the software that has tested the antenna assembly on the last half dozen or ten GPS satellites that have launched.
---> THAT was COMPLICATED!
---> ALLOY was child's play to create.
pcmacd