Ingot I.D.

[Frosty Boolit]

Just got some lead bars that weigh between 60-70 pounds each and measur about 18" long by 4" high and 4" wide tapering down to about 3" wide. when looking at one of the long sides in 2.5" letters is casted "LC" on most and "LRS" on the rest. I'll bet some of you have seen these before.

[bbs70]

"LC" Long Colt
"LRS" Long Range Shooting. :kidding:

Yeah, I know , there is always got to be one wise a#$ in the bunch.:bigsmyl2:

[Frosty Boolit]

I thought maybe Lake City for LC but no guesses for LRS

[onondaga]

You are going to need a big pot or a welding torch!

If you are going to cast bullets with the alloys, you should at least find out the Brinell hardness of it to determine if it is useful as is or if it needs to be alloyed with something to be useful. . If you are lost there, PM me for info to send me a pound of each and I will test it for you. I would only need a little of each to tell you the Brinell hardness number.

The size you describe sounds like they came from a print shop and could be high tin and antimony content lead alloys. These are valuable for hard alloy blending for high velocity and higher pressure loads..

Have you tried the thumbnail scratch teat?

Gary

[Frosty Boolit]

can scratch with thumbnail but it is not easy so I'm guessing it's not pure soft lead.
was just reading a thread about seafab and the 62# pigs they sell are exzactly what I have but mine have the letters as described cast into the bottom. I thought maybe someone would know which foundry they might have come from to help me identify the alloy.

[Frosty Boolit]

any commercial casters ever seen these letters on the pigs?

[onondaga]

If you can just barely scratch it, then it will likely be fine for low to medium pressure handgun loads but will need to be alloyed to harden it up for higher pressure pistol loads or rifle use. The BHN test would be helpful to identify it better and be a selling point to casters that know just what they want or what they will need to mix it with.

Your description sounds like it is just a little softer than wheel weight alloy and definitely too hard for muzzle loading round ball bullets that need to be dead soft.

gary

[fredj338]

If you can easily dnet it or scratch it w/ a screwdrive, it will be useful as bullet alloy. What it actually is really doesn't matter. A BHN test would be useful, but it's certainly castable. Big iron dutch oven & turkey frier for that.

[Frosty Boolit]

Thanks fro all your help guys. I'm not looking to sell any of it but rather going to keep all 850 lbs. and hope that it will last for a very long time. I'll cast a .38 special slug with it and use that as a comparison to bullet cast with a known alloy to help shed some light. Maybe I'll take you up on that hardness test Onondaga. I'll bet that it is a good alloy for bullet casting because it was bought at an estate sale auction of a bullet caster. So either it was his best stuf and he stashed it or it was junk so he never used it.???

[Frosty Boolit]

Casted 10 slugs from a mold that usually drops a 154-155 grain slug with 50/50 WW/soft and it dropped 157.1-157.9 grain slug. It was also the shiniest slug I've ever created so now I can change my name to "shiny boolit".

[onondaga]

I didn't know you were casting already with the metal. A half dozen bullets from from each alloy would be more accurate to test than lumps. I'd even test air cooled and water dropped if you do that too. It is actually fun to use the Lee hardness tester. PM me if you want free help testing them.

Gary