Fluxing Your Lead Alloy

You have added the lead alloy into your melting pot and while it was melting down you prepared the mold for casting as demonstrated in this “VIDEO” ( provided by Lee Precision, Inc. ). There is one last and very important step left that must be performed before you can cast bullets. The lead alloy must be fluxed.

You will see a gray scum floating on the top of the melt. This is mostly your costly alloys and not waste. When you melt the lead these alloys ball up into tiny spheres that float to the top. They do not join in with the lead because of surface tension between the molecules. Flux defeats this barrier and allows the metals to alloy. There are many fluxes available but most are very corrosive to steel and will badly rust your melter. Bees Wax works very well as a flux and is not corrosive.

Roll the flux into a ball about 1/4″ ( large pea size ) in diameter and drop it into the melting pot. Stir it in with your lead ladle. The smoke can be burned off with a match. This can create a large flame so care should be taken. When the pot of alloy is fluxed properly there should be nothing but a dark grey powder floating on top. Skim this off and discard it. This waste can cause lead poisoning so you should not let it accumulate.

With your melt properly fluxed you are now ready to cast bullets.