What am I ending up with here?

[tazman]

I acquired several 5 gal buckets of scrap lead from an indoor range facility recently and have cast some of it up after smelting.
At first try it didn't fill out very well at all no matter the temperature. I added approx 1/2 lb of type metal per 10 pounds of range metal to the mix. Now it casts beautifully and shoots well.
I water drop because I don't have room currently to spread boolits to cool. They will not quite scratch with my fingernail but don't feel as hard as straight type metal.

Most of the range scrap is either jacketed or cast. There is also a considerable amount of 22 rimfire in there. Definitely no rifle, shotgun, or magnum pistol rounds(not allowed at this range).
I do not have a testing ability at this point other than my finger nail. It hasn't been important to this point.
Mostly just for the sake of curiosity, I would like to get opinions of what I might have for an alloy here>
Thanks

[btroj]

Probably around 1 to 1.5 percent Sb and almost zero Sn.

My range scrap is mostly jacketed bullets but it has enough cast to give 1.8 percent Sb and .25 percent Sn.

[mikeym1a]

There is a thread here somewhere about testing alloy hardness using different types of pencils. What little I have read of it, it seems to work. I have not personally tried it. here's the link.

http://castboolits.gunloads.com/show...s-with-pencils

[Buffalo Arms Co]

Any objection to a hardness tester? Never a bad thing to have around if you're pouring your own with unknown alloy.

[Love Life]

Keep on trucking with your fingernail scratch tests. I've cast for several years now never having a hardness tester or thermometer. I cast nice filled out bullets that don't lead and shoot accurately.

Leave the unicorns to frolick in fields.

[tazman]

I cast up a second run of boolits using another bucket of the scrap from the same range collected the same night. Both batches were cast in the same mold using the same techniques and lead pot.
The mold was a Lee 120tc single lube grove 6 cavity mold.
The first batch weighed right on 120-121 grains. The second batch weighed 125-126 grains.
Apparently there is a significant difference in alloy depending on just what goes into that particular bucket.
Fortunately it doesn't seem to matter to my pistol as they all go in the same group at the distances I shoot. Still no leading with either batch.
Obviously there is a difference in the alloy. I was just curious what it might be. Probably less tin in the second batch.

[RogerDat]

Have used the pencil test and it provides a pretty decent idea of hardness, and one can test the relative hardness between batches. Less than $10 for the pencil set.

If you want consistency from your range scrap I think you would have to melt a few buckets, cast into small ingots like muffin pan, then cross mix ingots from multiple buckets to cast. Keep the ingots from each bucket separate than one ingot from each goes into the melting pot.

If you wanted to do it as one big job then one pile of muffins from each bucket, then one muffin from each pile to create same number of new mixed piles, then re-melt each mixed pile together. Should be consistent then, and ready to go.