lead fishing sinkers

[copdills]

hello pards:

a friend just gave me about 15 to 20 lbs of fishing sinkers , he just wanted to get them out of his way ,he got them at the beach years ago , we don't know what kind of lead it is but do any of you melt sinkers down to make boolits with and if you do what are the do's & don'ts

Thanks copdills:castmine:

[C1PNR]

I'm usually going the other way. I use some lead for sinkers, soft lead for "egg" type that double for slugging bores.

Hard to say what's in those sinkers, but if they're commercially made they well may be pure lead.

Melt them down and turn into ingots. See what you think about using for boolits, or maybe for use with the "Holy Black.":drinks:

[jonk]

If you can scratch with your fingernail they are soft lead or close to it. Further test is if they melt and have a bluish or bluish red tint.

Otherwise they are some alloy.

I never look gift lead in the mouth, I can find some use for it.

I used to cast a lot of sinkers myself when I did mainly shore fishing and got a lot of snags. Since switching to boat fishing I rarely get a snag and if I do usually lose the hook and not the sinker, as I generally make hook leaders from about 6lb test and use 8 on the main line. Some just might say that is kind of backwards but hey, for perch fishing I could get by with 2 lb test. I only go that route because the little perch hooks have small eyes and fat line won't readily fit through them, and don't go even lighter on the line as you do occasionally hook a nice bass while perch fishing in Lake Erie, to say nothing of catfish and sheephead (which are fun to catch but I don't care if I lose one per se...)