I believe I contaminated 3 pounds of lead with aluminum foil...

So I was melting some little bits and pieces along with a handful of culled bullets when my neighbor brought me a ball of what looked like lead? I quickly took the torch to it and sure enough it quickly got soft and began to run so I threw it in my pot. As it started to melt I could see what looked like silver ribbons. I went to pull them out and they began to fall apart. Don't know why there would be aluminum in a ball of lead, but I grabbed my bear up mold and poured some bullets. Once cool, I checked weights with other bullets I casted with the same mold using pure lead and sure enough the weights were quite different. Even the sprues didn't frost over like normal and the surface looked a lot like orange peels. Luckily I was just cleaning up and wanted to consolidate what scraps I had laying around. I also did the finger nail test on the new bullets and old bullets. I am thinking it was either aluminum foil or some kind of candy wrappers.

I doubt it was aluminum. The melting point for aluminum is over 1200 degrees.

It’s 3 lbs, if you think it’s bad just toss/recycle it.

Choot it.

Do not toss it make some sinkers for fishing with it.

"Looks like lead" isn't good enough; you end up with a Kitchen Sink alloy. Before it goes into your pot you want to know what it actually is.

tin is lighter than lead, what if it was tin foil vs aluminum foil? just throwing that out there...

Yeah, it was only 3 pounds but it took very little whatever it was to ruin the batch. If it was aluminum foil, would it still melt at around 1200 or could it possibly melt at lead temps? Also, in the past I have left lead cool in the same pot but was able to flip it and it would come out like a pancake. With this stuff, I had to scrape it off and it was a lot more difficult than it seems. I'm taking trapper9260's suggestion of pouring it into sinkers. I have plenty of verified lead for my uses, however, I thought I would share my mistake in hopes that it would save someone some trouble down the road.

Lots of very small amounts of higher melting point metals can get dissolved into lead like antimony, copper or aluminium. If you reduce the percentage of aluminum or whatever it is to an insignificant amount than it will have little to no effect on what you cast. Pretty sure it won't hurt the bore of your gun. Sinkers or weights is a good thing too.

Should have mentioned that dental x-ray foils look a lot like scraps of aluminum foil. They mix into lead pretty easy though and don't leave streaks.

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Originally Posted by THE_ANTIDOTE

SNIP>>>

With this stuff, I had to scrape it off and it was a lot more difficult than it seems. .

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Well, it does sound like a lesson learned, cuz who knows what that could be?
I wonder if it could be the foil capsules from bottles of boose?

How about turning the pot off and skim the top as it cools. There's no telling what I put in my pots over the years. If it doesn't mix pretty quick I dip it off. Looks like welding slag.

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Originally Posted by JonB_in_Glencoe

Well, it does sound like a lesson learned, cuz who knows what that could be?
I wonder if it could be the foil capsules from bottles of boose?

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Jon that would be tin if it was. I routinely toss them in and then the plastic floats.