Help with ID

[Loony44]

I found several one pound bars of I think is a type of "Bar Solder". They have HEWITT-DETROIT SP 40-X on them. I found a couple HEWITT-DETROIT 40-60 in which I think they are 40-60, Tin-Lead, but what is SP 40-X. Can anyone help ID them.
Thanks, Dale

[onondaga]

It is a good idea never to trust what an ingot mold imprints on an ingot of alloy. I have seen fleemarketeers selling collector branded company name ingot molds. Unless you are buying a house brand from an established supplier like Rotometals at the top of the page, What an ingot says on it is only conjecture. If your lead is for bullets and you are serious, get a hardness tester or learn the pencil hardness test discussed in the stickies.

If you are looking for collector value that is a different story, there is profit to be made in rare fake ingots and molds for them along with plenty of ignorant curious impulse buyers to be separated from their money. Ingots can even be artificially aged to look over a hundred years old and say Wells Fargo on them.

You can ID the alloy as much as you need to for bullets with a hardness tester and get the BHN number. .Little else is relevant except that a high percentage of antimony is abrasive to bores, but you can see antimony if you learn what it looks like in a high antimony alloy.

It is not like there is an electron microscope and a metallurgist to do a free analysis in my neighborhood. If you know one ---go for it! That is how you ID ingot content reliably. I did know a metallurgist that charged $70 per test of one sample. That is just not practical and that price is 20 years old.

Gary

[Loony44]

I'm not looking for collector value or anything like that, I do have a Redding hardness tester so I guess I'll melt one cast a couple bullets and see what the hardness is. I was just hopping someone here may have run across some of these in the past.
Thanks