fishing sinkers

[ebb]

The next door neighbor has a metal detector and goes looking for treasure at many local beaches. He gave me all the lead sinkers he had the other day and some more yesterday. I have almost a 5 gallon bucket full. Are they a known hardness or alloy or are they what ever the maker had on hand?

[Winger Ed.]

Almost all of the commercially made ones are quite pure, and usually swaged or maybe extruded rather than cast.

The homemade ones ya run into are probably a mix of whatever they could scrounge up to cast with.
The ones I've run into are usually some alloy along the lines of tire shop stuff that's mostly clip on wheel weights.

If they are a year or more old, the pure-ish Lead ones will usually be a medium to dark gray.
Ones cast from wheel weights tend to stay more silver looking for several years.

I've got some I cast about 10 years ago from wheel weights, and they're still a pretty bright silver color.

There's also some new generation Lead free ones out there.
The bass chasers use them, and they're kind of expensive.
You can spot 'em since they are much lighter for their size than Lead ones.

I wouldn't be in a big hurry to melt them all down.
They're worth much more than just ingots.
I've traded a bunch of cast & scrounged sinkers for beer.

[ebb]

They are going to hit the furnace. I think with all the unknowns with my lead i am going to need a hardness tester. the guy that gave them to me takes his metal detector in the ocean and most of the weights are big salt water types. if they were nose weights for a rubber worm i would use them. The neighbors scrap man that he sells to told him that the sinkers are hard, but I see no reason that they would cast them hard.

[Bloodman14]

I think I would separate the saltwater ones from everything else, and smelt them by themselves; God only knows what the alloy is. Most of the dive weights I had were high in antimony. They give a very high pitched 'ring' when dropped on a concrete floor. Almost sound like mono/lino/stereotype.

[GhostHawk]

Will your thumb nail mark them?

If it won't, I would blend with range scrap, lead pipe, or similar soft until it just will. At that point in my experience they work very well for casting boolits. If your casting for high speed rifle you might want to try some hard unalloyed.

There is also a system that uses graded pencil hardness to determine lead hardness.
Along with some somewhat expensive hardness testers.

Also softer lead when bounced on concrete has more of a soft thud.
Harder lead/zinc has more of a ring to it.

[MT Gianni]

Several small sinkers I have purchased in the last two years have been lead free. I think they are zinc.

[Bloodman14]

Most likely tin, MT, zink would be too light.

[fcvan]

I always wanted to get a mold for lead head jigs, but I haven't fished to ocean for quite some time. It used to be a local barber shop that sold jigs, gear and stuff, big rack of fishing rods and reels. Loved that place, gentleman retired.

I've got a 32 cal RB mold for split shot, and a 69 cal RB mold for fishing off the jetty. I keep forgetting to get some stainless eye hooks for the bottom swivel. I may yet get that lead head jig mold, I've got about 100 pounds of dead soft lead I can use.

[GregLaROCHE]

While we are talking about fishing sinkers, is there a movement to ban lead for fishing sinkers, like banning lead shot?

[44magLeo]

Yes, Here in New York. Any sinker under 1/2 oz. can't be lead. They claim ducks that eat stuff from the bottom ingest these smaller sinkers and die from lead poisoning.
Leo

[Drm50]

I have all kinds of fishing tackle molds, 100+, more than that bullet molds. I have never had a hardness tester. I don’t do HV rifle with cast. Handgun and the vintage rifle cartridges. I never cared about hardness. Only accuracy and leading. Never have had leading and a pure lead bullet will kill as well as a hard one on deer or smaller game. Harder alloys will kill anything normally encountered in North America. I go by uniformity.

[ebb]

The hunters around here that do black powder season had the problem of the pattern getting to big to kill a deer when the range got longer. So they took buckshot and split it like a split shot sinker and made a loop of wire fishing leader and clamped the shot around the loop and stuffed it in the gun barrel. I don't know how well it worked but the pattern could not get any bigger than the loop.