What do I have?

[Any Cal.]

I traded into a chunk of lead that was boat ballast. It is fairly old, and was quite hard. It looked like concrete, and scraping it with a knife does not gouge it deeply. At first I tried breaking it with a digging bar, but it is tough and not very fluid. I've been cutting it with a chainsaw, but it is slow going, even with a sharp chain. Recipro saw was slow too. My best effort so far has been cutting 1/2 way through and hitting it with a maul. It takes quite a few hits, and then when it breaks it looks like powdered metal along the break, still solid but with that look.

I cast a few bullets with it, and 158g bullets come out at 137 and really shiny. All my ingots are noticeably lighter as well. Any ideas about what it may be, or how to cut it? I still need to make 2 more cuts.

Thanks.

[runfiverun]

try a drop of muratic acid on it.
if it bubbles you have zinc.
that's awful light.

[Any Cal.]

I don't have any acid that I know of. Seemed to cast fine mixed with range scrap. I did get it into chunks, fwiw.

-Edit- accordng to fryxell's pages 13-14g difference should be about right between lyno and lead in a bullet that size. Wonder if the other few grains might be due to different casting temps or something. My range scrap didn't get to 158 in the same mold, it was still a bit light.

[Sasquatch-1]

You can pick up the acid at any hardware store. It's used for cleaning concrete.

[Jim]

Sail boat mfgrs. are not known for using the finest lead available in casting ballast. They buy the junk from scrap yards, melt it and cast it. There's no tellin' what might be in that mix.

[gbrown]

For the acid, I use a pool test kit refill I get from Wally World. Somewhere around $3.00. 2 small bottles, one with yellow cap, one red. Yellow is marked OTO. It's a mild muriatic acid. It works fine. A drop on zinc and it bubbles a lot.

[fatelk]

Maybe linotype or even babbit? If it makes good bullets I can't imagine you have a zinc problem.

Being that light I would suspect babbit.

[Rangefinder]

^^What he said--likely have a high tin content to run light, and plenty of antimony to run that hard... And THAT being the case, you have yourself a very good find! Out of curiosity, about how much did you end up with?

[Longwood]

I found these at the recycler today.
New guy,,, had to go to the office to see how much to charge me for 68 pounds of these and a big hunk of roof flashing from around a pipe.
When he said twenty five cents, I was surprised. The best deal I had got there previously was forty cents.
These are a little harder than pure, but a wheel weight ingot puts a good dent in them.
I wonder if they came from sinks and what happened to the sinks if they did.
They weigh about six pounds each

[Any Cal.]

^^What he said--likely have a high tin content to run light, and plenty of antimony to run that hard... And THAT being the case, you have yourself a very good find! Out of curiosity, about how much did you end up with?

That is what I'm thinking at this point. It was a 103 lb chunk, but the bottom of the cast had lots of sandy dross on it' probably 15+ lbs after smelting. My ingots are all super smooth on the bottom, and hard.

I am wondering if the line where I broke it looking powdered is due to high antimony.

Due to where the lead came from, it could easily be 40-50 yeats old, if it makes any difference.

[midnight]

I found these at the recycler today.
New guy,,, had to go to the office to see how much to charge me for 68 pounds of these and a big hunk of roof flashing from around a pipe.
When he said twenty five cents, I was surprised. The best deal I had got there previously was forty cents.
These are a little harder than pure, but a wheel weight ingot puts a good dent in them.
I wonder if they came from sinks and what happened to the sinks if they did.
They weigh about six pounds each

Those are from sinks in a hospital or chemistry laboratory. I have seen many of them. We went to glass in the sinks and traps because the azides used as preservatives in some saline solutions formed lead azide in the traps. Lead azide is explosive when subjected to a hard blow much like fulminate of mercury.

Bob

[Any Cal.]

After reading Felix' article on babbit on lasc, I am pretty sure it is a tin based babbit. Apparently they are considerably lighter than lead, and the presence of copper will make them "sheet" until you dilute with lead, which it does. I think this will be perfect for sweetening range lead, which is my primary source right now, and a little should go a long way, as they start at 60%+ tin. I do know that when I cast bullets with it into a bad mold, they would fin almost until the melt froze back up, where my range scrap would not even when hot, so I think it fills well.

[fatelk]

Very nice! That much babbit should last a long time. Excellent find!

I missed out on a huge stash of babbit about three years ago. Over the years I had gotten to know one of the gate guards at work. He was an old time boolit guy who lived on a piece of property out of town that had an old mill site on it. He had been renting the place for some 30 years, and had scavenged any babbit he could from the old mill, hundreds of pounds. IIRC he said he had three or four thousand pounds of lead and babbit hoarded, all in carefully separated and marked ingots. A couple different times I asked him to sell me some but he adamantly refused; a true hoarder.

I heard one day from his son (who worked in our office), that his place had been sold out from under him and he had to move right away. The next time I saw him at the gate I asked him what he was going to do with his lead stash. He got a real funny look and said he had just hauled it all to the scrap yard the day before......for 12 cents per pound!!!

[runfiverun]

it could be a babbit.
when melting it if it goes all to melted at once and freezes the same way you have a eutetic alloy[linotype] which melts at 515*- 550*- 585* somewhere in there.
it could be mono or something else they grabbed from a print shop too.
you can quite often break the higher antimony containing alloys off at the crimp groove.

[Any Cal.]

It didn't melt like a lead ingot. I couldn't melt the end of a large chunk off. Even with some melt in the bottom, I had to wait for the whole piece to get hot and soft. There were a couple pieces that just didn't want to melt, and some that stayed hard even after they got up to temp, and had to be broken apart. I saved the dross becuse it is quite heavy and I have a suspicion that there is quite a bit in it.

[bruce381]

Very nice! That much babbit should last a long time. Excellent find!

I missed out on a huge stash of babbit about three years ago. Over the years I had gotten to know one of the gate guards at work. He was an old time boolit guy who lived on a piece of property out of town that had an old mill site on it. He had been renting the place for some 30 years, and had scavenged any babbit he could from the old mill, hundreds of pounds. IIRC he said he had three or four thousand pounds of lead and babbit hoarded, all in carefully separated and marked ingots. A couple different times I asked him to sell me some but he adamantly refused; a true hoarder.

I heard one day from his son (who worked in our office), that his place had been sold out from under him and he had to move right away. The next time I saw him at the gate I asked him what he was going to do with his lead stash. He got a real funny look and said he had just hauled it all to the scrap yard the day before......for 12 cents per pound!!!

did yah tell him how much money he threw away NOT selling you any