Lead wrapped electrical cable

[jumbeaux]

I have asked this before but did not receive any replies...a friend has a quantity of lead that was used to wrap copper electrical cable...it was a "shield" that was then wrapped with another armor material. Anyone have any experience with melting and casting ? Primary use would be for muzzleloader round balls but I was thinking about 38 Special and 45 Colt also...thank you very much...

rick

[lwknight]

I have had some of that. Its pretty soft as best I can remember.
Probably would need to add a little tin. That was a long time ago.

[bangerjim]

It is mainly dead soft lead. Treat is as such. If it still is on the cable.....that's a lot of work stripping it off for a small amount of lead!

I agree, you made a bit-o-tin to make your round balls look good. Definitely at last 1-2% tin for those cals you mentioned.

banger

[tchepone]

jumbeaux: Is it "electrical" or "telephone" cable? I have used many hundreds of pounds of lead sheathed telephone cable and it is great material. I have found it a bit soft, about 6 BHN. Mixing it with 50% wheel weight and 1-2% tin makes a nice pistol bullet with a BHN of 9-10+. I have used a bit of the electrical cable shielding and it is also quite soft. Makes nice .45 & .50 caliber round balls, for a muzzle loader, works great as is. You may also mix it with wheel weight or lino-type to harden it.

[cdet69]

Just remember to melt it down outside. I still have some and boy does it stink when you smelt it.

[jumbeaux]

It is electrical cable...it has been stripped already and is in pieces. Thought about melting and pouring into small "biscuits" utilizing cup cake pans...then melt and cast as as needed.


rick

[454PB]

Years ago, I stripped several hundred feet of 1 MCM high voltage wire. This stuff contains 61 strands of #10 copper and is about 1 1/2" in diameter. As I recall, each foot of cable yielded 3 pounds of dead soft lead.

The best method to remove the lead is to lay the cable out on concrete and use a sledge hammer to split it, peel the lead of, then pull the copper out.

[Gtek]

If it is close to nothing, or free GRAB IT! Frog Licking tree huggers are not far behind. Gtek

[GlocksareGood]

Sounds like PILC if it was medium voltage. Paper insulated lead Cable. It is usually soft in the 6-7bn range. I have a pile of it but have yet to use it for casting.

[cdet69]

Even with nothing attached to it ie: insulation or what ever it still stinks when smelted. Even when fluxed and cast I can still smell the difference in my ingots when using them.

[lwknight]

The stuff I had was (memory coming back) a 2-12 solid without ground. It was easy to strip. I got started with one conductor exposed enough to get a good grip on and just pulled against the shield.
It ripped open all the way ( several hundred feet) . The second wire was easy to pull because the shield was already open from the first rip. It was dead soft pure blue lead.

[dikman]

To the best of my knowledge when they used to protect cables with lead (in the "old days") it was pretty much pure lead. There was no need to add anything to harden it. Certainly the case with the communications cables we used here.

[BruceB]

[QUOTE=dikman "To the best of my knowledge when they used to protect cables with lead (in the "old days") it was pretty much pure lead. There was no need to add anything to harden it."[/QUOTE]

This is absolutely correct. I melted-down (and used) several miles of lead-sheathed telephone cables in the early days of my casting. Usually it was mixed with a bit of linotype, which was the only other source of bullet metal readily available to me in that far-North location. I had no trouble casting good target-quality pistol bullets.

[imashooter2]

Dad was a Bell Telephone Lineman and we turned literally tons of cable sheath into .38 wadcutters in the 60's. Simple lead tin alloys work great in low pressure cartridges like the .38 Special and .45 Colt.

[dikman]

When I think about all the lead cable I used to see lying around (in my job) I get a bit depressed! We never worried about it, as whenever I needed some for fishing sinkers I just grabbed a bit. If I'd only known what I'd end up doing, I'd be set for life.......

[imashooter2]

When I think about all the lead cable I used to see lying around (in my job) I get a bit depressed! We never worried about it, as whenever I needed some for fishing sinkers I just grabbed a bit. If I'd only known what I'd end up doing, I'd be set for life.......

When my father had his addition built, all the cable sheath he had stored under the old back porch had to go. I took about 600 pounds and all the rest, maybe 2 tons, got hauled off to the dump. I cry about it now, but back then 600 pounds of pure was a big stash. WW were better suited to my needs anyway and every gas station in town was more than happy to have Bob carry that bucket of trash out to your car for you. Free lead was everywhere. No sense in having huge piles of it laying around.

[sljacob]

I have several hundred lbs of lead form scraping out submersible pump cable used in oilwells.
It is not as soft as pure pb but close enough to treat it as such.

[TheGrimReaper]

I've heard thru the grapevine that is is pure.

[duck hollow pete]

dead soft (solder joints 40sn 60pb) they wipe them they use alot of it I pickup them every chance I can

[Call Turner]

The stuff I got was about 2" around with 3 large paper wrapped cables inside. It is pure lead wrapped. I cut it off with a angle grinder with a metal cutting blade, then pry open with screw drivers. I got over 1000 lbs of lead but had to return the copper to the guy I got it from. A fair trade for free lead which I melt into ingots outdoors .