Isotopes of lead

[jmh54738]

Bill Ferguson put the bug in my ear about lead existing in about 25 isotopes. Is there a nuclear chemist among us who will explain this to a simple guy?? Are we all working with decayed uranium? Perhaps I can find the best pure lead isotope for superior accuracy or is it an isotope blend that has the best performance. I can see my down range ballistics improve with the ever increasing atomic weights of my alloy selection. Darn it, Bill, this thing just stuck in my head.

[cohutt]

Several lead isotope related links down the page

http://www.webelements.com/webelements/elements/text/Pb/index.html

[Ricochet]

Are we all working with decayed uranium?
Yes. :-D

We're also working with supernova ashes. The heaviest nucleus that can be formed by fusion in the core of a normal star is Fe56. Heavier isotopes are endothermically formed in the collapse of giant stars in supernovae. Some of that stuff gets blasted off into space as the rest collapses into a neutron star. Our Sun is a second or later generation star that, with its surrounding solar system, formed from gas containing the remnants of stars that died earlier, some quite violently. We should be thankful for that.

[felix]

I barely understand eigenvalues, and now you guys bring up Hamiltonians. Well, I've heard of falling stars, but mostly via entertaining monster movies. In other words, if it melts with my home 800W equipment, it will be shot one way or another. ... felix

[9.3X62AL]

I know to a certainty that this is the first mention of supernova ashes as casting material on any board I've visited. This sure puts scrounging for wheelweights in perspective.

[hivoltfl]

hmmmmm, I just cast up some 44 boolits today, do I need to see if they are out in the garage glowing in the darK?

[arkypete]

Hey guys
Here's the wheel weight collection explaination for government types and antigun tire changers.
You collecting the wheel weights to check and see if the lead is part of the ashes from a super nova.
Start talking about isotopes, and relative weight of frangability, combined with the lubricy of.............
Home free
Jim

[Lloyd Smale]

If any of those falling stars got lineotype on them please let me know where they land!!

[sundog]

***? Over.

I've been casting .22 boolits all afternoon, and you guys are discussing something that is, well, light years beyond quantum mechanics (didn't do so good with that in college, either).

Depleted unranium is haevier. Isn't it? sundog

btw, what's the melt temp?

[Ricochet]

Yeah, depleted uranium's a lot heavier. Wait around a few billion years and it'll turn to lead. Might be an interesting experiment to cast a few DU boolits and track their Brinell hardness and diameter over 3 or 4 billion years.

Uranium's said to melt at 1132°C, BTW.

[montana_charlie]

Uranium's said to melt at 1132°C, BTW.
Just ordered a new Lee pot to be retooled to reach that temperature.
With Iran and North Korea about to dump their nuclear programs (probably sometime this week) uranium should be cheaper than wheelweights, soon.

Uhh...once I get my first load, how do I deplete it? Same way I deplete my lead supply?
CM

[jmh54738]

I'm still a simple guy and a quick internet search reveals lots of lead isotopes, but this doesn't mean that I understand any of the data. I thought that the question was worthy of asking. Perhaps I am talking to the wrong group

[Ricochet]

It really doesn't matter from a boolit casting perspective, but it's fun to think about where that lead came from. :-D

[GW_45ACP]

Yeah, depleted uranium's a lot heavier. Wait around a few billion years and it'll turn to lead. Might be an interesting experiment to cast a few DU boolits and track their Brinell hardness and diameter over 3 or 4 billion years.


Galactic alchemy! Well, I always think of lead as gold anyway. :-D

[fatnhappy]

Uhh...once I get my first load, how do I deplete it? CM

by firing it at Iranians and North Koreans.

[NVcurmudgeon]

The Confederate side of my family views Hamiltonians as neo-Tory elitists.

[Castaway]

An isotope is simply an atom with the same atomic number but with a different number of neutrons in the nucleus. In the case of lead with an atomic number of 82, that means it also has 82 protons.

[cohutt]

Yeah, depleted uranium's a lot heavier.

Uranium's said to melt at 1132°C, BTW.

My hair all fell out by the time the temp got up to 1120 so i had to turn off the stove.
Put the nuggets in the cats bowl, she dissapeared for 3 months and came back with a half dozen 2-headed kittens.

OK maybe that didn't happen.....

I spent some looong years in Applied Physics Major in college. Quantum physics was one of the courses that shook me out of the tree. Just reading the word "isotope" gave me night sweats all last night. :-D

[Old Ironsights]

The Confederate side of my family views Hamiltonians as neo-Tory elitists.

Don't have to be a Confederate to be an Anti-Federalist...

[Ricochet]

My hair all fell out
Don't let that stop you.

[Bent Ramrod]

There was a blurb in an old National Geographic to the effect that an isotopic analysis of the lead solder used to seal food cans at the time proved that lead from those cans poisoned the Franklin Expedition, whose members all died looking for the Northwest Passage in the 1840's. Apparently, lead from one source can have a significantly different isotope ratio than lead from somewhere else.

Actually, I've been looking for a good alibi for why the 3/4" group of one weekend turns into the 2-1/2" group of the next (especially when I've bragged about it to someone who is now observing). Obviously, a different mixture of lead isotopes affects the barescent skor motion of the boolit in flight. Of course, carbon has three isotopes and so does hydrogen, so the lube would have varying weights as well, depending on its age and distance from the nearest supernova.

[buck1]

I have ran in that myself!! LOL