A local place has some unknown Lead ingots for $1/lb. they don’t know the make up but it’s cast in small ingots 2x3. A buck a lb seems alright but what if anything should I look for or be careful of.
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A local place has some unknown Lead ingots for $1/lb. they don’t know the make up but it’s cast in small ingots 2x3. A buck a lb seems alright but what if anything should I look for or be careful of.
myself i stay away from ingots made by somone els at the scrap yard you have no clue what they are made from.I keep more to things i know what they are.
the local scrap yard will/should have an XRF reader, maybe not a very accurate one but it should give you an idea what the lead alloy consists of
I would take my hardness tester. If the ingot was 12bhn i would buy them all. Tey to haggle down to less than a buck a pound.
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A scrap yard with NO XFR gun???????? They must be very small!!!!! All my several yards have XFR guns. Otherwise how will they know what they are buying or selling?!?!?!?!?!?!?
Hardness will tell you everything you need to know...........about HARDNESS!!!!!! You can harden up Pb with Zn! Not something you want. Only a shoot from an x-ray gun will tell what you want. I never buy Pb without one. Take some HCl with you in a small dropper bottle to test for Zn content.
Those ingots could be almost anything.
Banger
Yes scrap yards with no XRF.I dont know of one that has one in my area.This can be good and bad.Good when they get something with alot of SN and SB in it and they do not be better and seel it for the same price.bad for us being we dont know for sure either.
I agree on the hardness if you do not know wha is makeing the lead hard can be bad news.
If I really needed or wanted it I would go back with a small bottle of acid and an eye dropper and test for zinc. If it passes the zinc test you can then determine if its soft or hard. But you're not going to know the alloy by hardness.
ZN is not all bad as long as its not a high percentage. Run the pot hot and cast away. As long as the bhn is around 12 i would use and find a way to make it cast. If you that scared of a touch of ZN just melt flux with the blue copper crystals or sulfer.
I think the lead i am casting with now is ZN contaminated. Bullets are still good. Just a little slower casting and finnicky to get good bases.
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