Are battery cable connectors pure lead

[sheepdog]

Picked up a few from a trash pile. Besides the steel nuts on it isn't this pure lead?

[cohutt]

i believe so. I've always sorted it into the "soft" smelt pile with flashing and pipe, seals.

[hoosierlogger]

yes sir, I picked up a bucket of them last year at a junkyard. They have a steel band in them that comes out along with a bunch of copper wire pieces and the bolts. Aside from that they are a good source of pure soft lead.

[Ole]

I read somewhere that "just to be safe", you should soak them in a baking soda + water solution for a day or so before melting.

[kendall yates]

The corrosion on them is no worse than paint on wheel weights. I reccomend letting all that stuff burn off while you are not standing by the pot.

[jsizemore]

I was smelting on Tuesday and I had emptied my pot of WW and then stickons. The pot was empty and I had 6 battery connectors. One was real shiny. I dropped all 6 in the pot and watched. 5 of them melted at the same time and shed the steel that was inside. That one shiny one didn't melt when the others did so I scooped it out and put it in the I-don't-know/zinc pile. Poured 2 small muffin ingots with the good ones and checked them against the stickons. Seemed to be the same. That one bad connector was shiny like a new cast sinker and the wire that was cast in it had that brown copper patina.

[Mike W1]

I don't know the content of them but I have a couple hundred pounds of them and sample bullets from those ingots range from BHN 14-20. Obviously I haven't sampled the whole pile though but my virgin lead bullets tested 4-5.

[Shiloh]

High purity, very soft.

Not a bad suggestion about treating with a baking soda solution. Or at the very least, step back from the pot for a few moments while anything on them burns off as they melt.

Shiloh