Shower pan lead ?

[Valerko]

Found this on Craigslist


3 of them. Probably 150-180 pounds. Paid $75.
Looks to me as pretty pure lead. It's soft , cuts with scissors.
So what do I do. Get 150 lbs of wheel weights and mix it ?

[Defcon-One]

Pure as you will find anywhere!

Mixed 50/50 with COWWs will work for most standard handgun loads. Or, find some Linotype and Solder and make it anything that you want. Unless you cast for muzzloaders, that is the best plan!

Nice find and price!

[runfiverun]

I just melted down a bunch of those and have 2 more that size to go.
I just mixed the ingots 3 lbs to 1 lb of linotype.
the porta-band made nice pot sized chunks out of the rolls in no time.

[Valerko]

I didn't have any WW , but had some range ****. I've mixed that together to give it a shot.
First time I was doing this.


Some fluxing with candle



Does this look about right ?


Wife wasn't happy about ruining one of her pots and muffins pan , but it was in the name of science.

Now , how do I know how hard is it ? Don't really have any means to measure.
My casting stuff should be here soon , so should I just try to cast some boolits and see how it goes ?

Not really looking for super accurate boolits , mostly practice ammo for pistols. Got hooked on IDPA style shooting recently.

[atom73]

Looks good, don't use those handles to lift the pot full of lead though. Not a question of if but when they will fail and spill molten lead all over you. Congrats on your lead find.

[383]

Looks pretty much like the setup I'm putting together for my first smelt. How heavy are the ingots from the muffin pan?

[fryboy]

ummm ..."So what do I do." what do you want to do ? no matter you best get SWMBO some new pans !!
there's a hint of solder in the drain pan ( seams, around the drain spout etc ) but in essence , yeah it's usually fairly soft and close to pure , mixing it with range scrap ( which could be and is anything ) will leave you with a soft alloy ( a lil harder than the pans originally ) that should suffice as is for 45 acp and 38 special type loadings , mixing the mix you have now 50/50 with ww's should make an alloy that will do most moderate rifle and pistol loads , quenching may be required for some of the middle spectrum loads , i use a bit of 4 to 1 ( Pb/ww ) for the lower velocity stuff and while not optimum for muzzle loaders it is a bit more friendly in that regard than the harder mixes , if i water drop a 3 to 1 alloy ( Pb/ww ) i get at least as hard as air cooled # 2 alloy , so as you can see it does boil back down to that question of what you want to do ,
f.w.i.w. when i make a quenching alloy i try to make sure that at least 1 pound of 20 Pb is a high arsenic lead ( such as magnum shot ) granted t's rumored that most clip on ww's have some in them but i like to make sure :P

[Valerko]

And this is why I love the forums. You can't get info like tis anywhere else.

[Valerko]

How about this ?



First ones , little wrinkly.

[a.squibload]

Valerko, that pot looks dull inside &
shiny outside, it's not aluminum is it?
(Hard to tell from here!)
Aluminum is OK for ingot molds but
not for melting.