That's some Alaska iron seasoning right there. Extra spicy.

Sam especially the ones that seem like they will be 😂

I have one and have not experienced that at all. Batteries old?

This is typical of spool guns. They will normally not use the wire feed speed on the machine and use only the speed control on the gun. On push pull setups, they use both the feed rolls on the machine and the feed rolls on the gun and they push the wire all the way from the machine, unlike the spool gun just using those little 4" spools. You can get a good idea of ipm of wire by cutting the wire flush to the nozzle and setting a timer to 6 or 10 seconds. Then at the same time as you pull the trigger, start the timer and let the trigger go as soon as the timer is up. Then measure the wire that came out from the edge of the nozzle. Multiply that length by 6 if you fed wire for 10 seconds, or by 10 if you fed wire for 6 seconds. That number will be your inches per minute. Once you get used to how your spool gun runs, you will likely just pay more attention to the dial on the gun and just know where to start, rather than be worried by ipm. But this is a good way to be able to know where your spool gun actually is in ipm.

I use aluminum bronze and silicon bronze quite a bit.

It's possible. Sometimes I do with bronze.

Not a dumb question. I would bet that you are floating crap up to the top of the puddle and the cleaning action is eventually taking care of it, somewhat, It won't completely clean it. It is porosity that you are seeing, and you need to be careful as you may just be covering it. Aluminum oxide melts at a higher temperature than the aluminum underneath, so it can apear as bubble if it floats up.

Ben Coody you will likely be able to get a lot better weld on it with that, even if you're a bit green. I would suggest you get a piece of 1/4" scrap and start playing with it, you might get confident a bit quicker than you think, and might avoid burning up your tig torch!

Ben Coody Do you have a mig welder? Or is that your only rig right now?

How's the project going?