Lead

[TontoG]

I have no doubt your trouble was not an alloy composition, all things equal, castings, especially smaller castings will turn out better if you had tin and or antimony in the mix. Most alloys need a bit of fluxing and if you use salvaged wheel weights and had some impurities or even worse, a zinc weight in the mix, you would have trouble with details filling in. I didn't read about this, this is from bullet and lure casting experience involving hundreds, perhaps a couple thousands of pounds of molten lead and lead alloys. I stick with the purest and softest of lead only for muzzleloader balls, the rest get an alloy of some sort depending on application. And that pure lead melts at the highest temps and requires high mold operating temps to avoid wrinkles. Small castings using high tin/antimony alloy will have sharp detail and look like silver jewelry. I've cast a lot of linotype for this very reason into 22 caliber rifle bullets. And it melts noticably lower than pure, soft lead. Many lure casting instruction with sinker molds just plain are wrong. I suspect some liability issues are the cause.
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