boati

zinc's in nearly all the scrap lead. Castboolits forum says that sulphur stirred into the lead will remove the zinc, but your tin and antimony go with it. The fumes are now really bad for you when casting, much worse than when zinc was not an issue. No more casting indoors and even outdoors, better have a big fan blowing the fumes away from you. Sulphur fumes are deadly, too.

John in AR

It's a little bit of a hassle, but the zinc ones are fairly easy to sort out. I just set the full bucket of weights next to an empty bucket and a coffee can. It's a one-at-a-time thing, checking each one with a pair of dykes but doesn't take too long; takes a half hour or less per 120-lb bucket, and half a coffee can or so of zinc weights per bucket typically.

Basically a half hour or so of time, gets me enough zinc-free weights to get around 78-83 lbs (usually) of useable lead. I'm okay with that, to avoid the cost of buying lead.

John in AR

Side thought - zinc could actually be worth looking into as a bullet material, if wanting to maximize velocity since the same bullet size & shape would be substantially lighter. The same mold for a 115-grain 9mm bullet will throw around 70 or so grains if done in zinc.

Zinc is also a LOT harder than lead (around the same as copper), and so could stand up to much higher velocities than cast lead bullets as well.

gripper

And THIS is worth looking into... especially if one could increase the velocity to such a level that would Improve both in flight ballistics/flatten trajectory,boost penetration on barrier material without1) dangerous pressure increases 2) too rapidly shedding velocity and 3) without encountering any significant brittleness (antimony often got used as a hardening agent in cast lead bullets intended to be pushed hot,but it also increased the brittleness-I don't know if zinc has the same property).
As an aside, would it be possible to go with a HIGHER density in a zinc bullet? While keeping within OAL limits for the cartridge and chamber combination?

John in AR

I considered it briefly, primarily thinking about loads for magnum-handgun-caliber carbines like .357 & such. The main paradox I encountered was the weight. Just as solid copper bullets are lighter than lead bullets, zinc is lighter again than copper; around 20% lighter than copper and 40% or so lighter than lead. So a mold for 140-grain .357 (lead) bullets would throw the same bullet only 88 grains or so in zinc. For close-in handgun use that wouldn't be a huge problem, but for rifle-intended loads, that greatly-reduced sectional density would greatly decrease usable range and probably greatly change its flight stability as well. The range thing is inevitable, but the stability problem is just wondering on my part; I've never tested them.

For close-range handgun purposes though, zinc could be useful if a person really cared about maximizing velocity and energy in an easy manner. Being harder than lead it could stand up to the added speed, and its melting point is very close to lead as well, so anyone who already casts bullets has everything they need to do it. I've actually considered it for my woods revolver (a .45 caliber) to fire lighter bullets extra fast; partly since I just end up throwing out the zinc now instead of using it for anything. But never have pursued it since there are plenty of more than adequate normal bullets in .45 caliber. Some day if I ever retire I may check into it or may not; no telling.

BigEd

Didn't someone somewhere at sometime advocate the use of zinc split nosed/prefrag bullets in 9mm?
Just don't remember clearly now.

John in AR

I've heard gunkid recommend copper, aluminum, and tin, but don't recall zinc being mentioned. Could have happened; don't recall. I did a little testing probably 11-13 years ago with bullet jackets filled with epoxy instead of lead and ended up getting something like 2400fps with 70-80 grain bullets from a 7.5" revolver while staying within 'ruger only' load limits. It was interesting, but didn't chase it too far down the wormhole; just decided to live with the normal (and hugely capable) loadings that already exist for the .45LC without looking too long for some magic solution to a problem that I didn't have.

John in AR

Fwiw, I dug up that old thread; it was late 2006 and early 2007 that I did the experimenting. The best (seemingly-best, at least) result was with XTP-Mag jacket, which when filled with epoxy came to 82 grains, loaded with 10.0 grains of TiteGroup. It ran 2459 fps from my 7.5" ruger, or a hair over 1,100 ft/lbs of energy, not bad for a .45Colt revolver. According to QuickLoad software generates just 17306PSI; so above the 14,000 PSI of standard 19th-century 45 colt loads, but still not much more than half the 30,000 PSI pressure of "Ruger/TC only" 45 load data.

That bullet penetrated 3/4" plywood, three layers of 7/16" OSB board, and more than an inch into a 6"x8" timber used as a backstop; so over three inches of solid-wood penetration.

https://armslocker.com/reloading/365...t-bullets.html

BigEd

Back in the Patriot Network days he used to be expounding on zinc alloy of some sort.
Again a fantasy imho, later here he correctly states zinc fumes are toxic; well duh!

Sometimes I wonder if a good chunk of his troubles are symptoms of lead or other heavy metal poisoning?

Back to PN wish that data,of the whole site, wasn't lost. Many people, including several here, contributed a lot of great info and experience there; before it went full bore tin foil hat.

John in AR

Remember “The Battle of Jake’s”..?

BigEd

Not really but I found it online. I'll re read it if I get the urge.
What gave me belly laughs was mrostov's "Many Deaths or GK."

John in AR

The ‘Many Deaths’ stories were not only funny but sometimes cautionary as well. Since MRostov never said anything about copyrighting them, I actually saved and printed them out. Have them somewhere, but haven’t seen them since we moved a couple years ago.

BigEd

I had them on one old hardrive but that was several computer crashes back and I never backed them up or printed them.
The one with the little girl armed with the .22lr bolt action was hilarious at the end.

John in AR

The ‘many deaths’ threads are still here. At least three of them are; not sure if there were more than that. I thought there were more but not sure. There was one story that was set in a junkyard (living in a spiderhole or dugout of some kind under an old washing machine iirc) that turned out to be a sad/funny dream sequence, and it didn’t come up. Maybe it wasn’t one of the ‘many deaths’ stories; not sure.

If you search for ‘threads started by user’ with mrostov as the user, they come up.

BigEd

Thanks John, it's been so many years back I couldn't remember which discussion board it was on.

boati

I found steel weights, aluminum weights, the adhesive, much too soft kind that create lots of dross on the melt, etc.

boati

Zero bullets used to offer zinc .38 bullets for lead reduction on indoor ranges. the fumes from the stuff is very toxic when melted. so I dont want anythign to do with it. it also contaminates the melt, causing frosted, wringled, un-filled-out bullets. it's crap

boati

how would you increase density? you're stuck with the same size if casting and can't increase length much with auto loaders, due to box mag size limits. Brittleness in handgun bullets is not an issue, guys. That's a load of crap put out by NIH syndrome twits who are too lazy to actually test ideas put forward by other people. and if you believe that 1" thick wallet of credit cards stops 4" barreled 110 gr 357' jhps, I urge you to hold the muzzle of such a 357 to your chest, with such a wallet in between. and fire it. You'll be perfectly safe.

boati

it's MUCH easier to just turn such bullets out of aluminum rod, which you can buy at any lowe's or Home Depot. 3/8" rod means you dont have to turn down much OD at all with your drill, holding a dremel and cutoff disk to the short chunk of spinning rod.Once you get it within 0.003", you switch to holding a flat file on the spinning rod, and then crocus cloth (backed by the file) for the final 0.001" of OD reduction. After you get the right OD, shape the nose, cut cut it off, create the large, conical hollowbase cavity that lets you load another 2 grs of bullseye and thus, safely get another 200 fps. If you want to cheap and easy check the pressures and velocities of such lw bullets, save yourself some time and money. Only alliant Bullseye has enough "octane' to cycle the slide. with such lw bullets (ie, 45 grs in 9mm, 70 grs in 45. ) If you make the bullets by melting the lead cores out of ball bullets, replacing the lead with epoxy, the bullets are even lighter, as in 35 grs in 9mm and 60 grs in .45. getting them over 2000 fps, safely, is dead easy, even in 3" barrels. but you'll have to use a LOT more Bullseye than you're comfortable with. Start with 1.5x more than the max loads in manuals for the lightest bullets listed, work up 1/2 gr at a time, using heavy leather gloves, or firing the gun remotely with a string, the grip panels removed, no magazinie, with each increse in charge, check for a matching velocity increase, if you see none, STOP, back off the powder charge by half a grain and that's your max safe load with those components in that gun.

Also, of course, look for damage caused to the case rim or the primer by the firing pin, extractor, ejector, due to too-violent ejection, Look for black marks around the primer or a pierced primer. Mike the case at the web. If the new load'cases are bulged more than cases of plus P factory ammo, fired in the same gun, back off the load 1/2 gr of powder and stop there.

Never work up a hot load in a cold gun or in cold weather, cause the additional pressure of hot weather and a hot gun can make your 'max safe" load VERY dangerous. This is how factory ammo was worked up before pressure testers existed. Theyd' work up such a load, call it a 'proof" load and then the factory load would be offered at about 2/3r'ds to 1/2 as much pressure/power. Of course you dont practice with such loads. Instead, you fire 50 of them to check POI, functioning, etc, and then 50 more of them will last you for a decade.

John in AR

That could certainly work. There are multiple approaches; two of which listed below:

Option A (your approach):
- Buy aluminum rod and cut it into sections,
- Spin one of the sections in a drill, and using a Dremel, by hand, sand it down while continually checking diameter with calipers, until you get it sanded down to within three one-thousandths of an inch of desired diameter,
- Switch from the Dremel to a file-backed crocus cloth, and continue to sand, again continually checking diameter with calipers until you get to the exact 0.001” tolerance desired,
- Shape one end of the sanded-down aluminum rod into a bullet shape,
- Cut it to desired length
- Drill a hollow cavity into the base


Option B:
- Melt free zinc in a $2 consignment store pot,
- Dip the melted zinc from the pot into a bullet mold with a small ladle or large spoon,
- Drop the finished bullets out of the mold

In what way is Option A the “MUCH easier” approach…?