I know nothing about swaging, little help here please

So I got a spool of lead wire given to me. Approx 1/4" thick and the spool weighs about 40 lbs. I know the guy used it for swaging because I found some half done buulets in a bucket he gave me.

So am I to assume it is pure lead?

Can't say for sure but usually the lead wire used in bullet swaging is soft. however harder lead wire is also used. Find someone with a hardness tester to be sure. Iron whittler

If you have access to an XRF machine you can test relatively quickly and accurately the metal content. A local university or metals distributor/recycler might x-ray a small sample for a 6-pack. It doesn't hurt to give them some idea what they're looking for besides lead in the alloy content.

Just don't insist on holding the sample while they're running the x-rays over it. :shock:

does the spool have in labels or identification (part #) on it ?
you may be able to request info from the original company?

I doubt this helps, A few years ago, I bought some lead alloy wire on a auction. two different sizes, I don't recall the exact sizes right now, but somewhere between .200" and .400". The label said it was 97% Lead and 3% antimony.

Unfortunately there is not much left of either end of the spool.

I guess I have to sneak in a hardness tester.....

From what little I know going back to my high school earth science class..... pure lead should be about what? 5 BNH? As I recall your finger nail is 7. If you can easily scratch the lead with your finger nail chances are it is pure lead or less then 7 BNH. I would venture to guess it is most likely pure lead anyway even without any testing.

When I melt the lead into 1lb ingots you can tell pure lead from an alloy mix by the sound/thud it makes when dropped on a concrete floor, if it goes "thud" its pure, if it has any sort of "ting" to the sound it has some additional alloys in it.

BT