My first lead score!

[pomofo]

I checked out an estate sale in my neighborhood today that advertised tools, on the off chance I might find something useful like gardening pots. There were about five other guys in the garage grousing about how everything had been picked over and it was all junk. It was dark inside too, but thankfully I had my flashlight and starting poking around some of the little nooks and crannies. Stumbled across something that looked like a huge wheelweight, then two more, then another big weight that looked like maybe a harder alloy. All were pretty soft against my dull knife. Total for 27 pounds plus a little drink coaster from Germany was $8. Definitely wasn't expecting to see lead of any sort in this area. I have no idea what hardness or alloy it is, so I figure I'll melt it down, cast a few bullets for hardness testing and turn the rest into ingots in the meantime.

[Outer Rondacker]

Nice. We will take it where we can get it. Well done.

[Scooby]

welcome to the addiction. the one on the bottom looks like a linotype pig ingot. should be hard. the others look like the lead that was used for filling cast iron pipe bells, or could be Babbitt. However as most will say you don't know exactly what it is til you test it.

[frkelly74]

Those ingots might be solder. You might want to get them checked.

[pomofo]

The bottom ingot was definitely a lot harder. It would scratch with a knife but not with a thumbnail. I'll try to test these volumetrically first against identical weights of known alloy to see what their density is, but they feel pretty darn dense for being able to fit in the palm of my hand. Worst case scenario, I'll have to start reloading for my shotguns and turn these into buckshot.

[lightman]

Nice score!

[Red River Rick]

The bottom piece with the eyelet is Linotype, the other ingots are more than likely plumbers lead (pure Pb).

RRR

[oteroman]

Nice find