Identifying Misc Lead Pieces

[wtfooptimax200]

During my travels this morning, I stopped at a local garage to attempt to purchase wheelweights. The manager didn't have any, but instead gave me about 50 pounds of what he referred to as 'lead stock'. There seem to be two unique types that he gave me.

The first are essentially broken pieces of ingots. He claims that they are pure lead. To my untrained eye, this statement seems accurate. They pass the fingernail scratch test. Should I treat these as pure lead and smelt with my stick-ons? I don't want to ruin a smelt of stick-ons by adding these and finding that they are some mystery alloy that ruins the entire pot.

The second type appear to be cast in some sort of homemade mold and are not scratched by a fingernail. These also have a rather dimpled texture, which appears to be from the casting process (the dimples do not appear to be added by mechanical force, but rather cast in a result of the alloy consistency). These seem suspicious and due to their hardness and texture, I am suspecting zinc contamination. Are there any tests that I can run to be sure that they don't contain any unwanted materials?

Any help is appreciated, as I want to make use of these if at all possible.

Branden

[lwknight]

What you describe in the second part does not sound like zinc. Probably babbit of some sort.
Most babbits are good sweeteners for lead alloys.
Put a few drops of muratic acid ( fram any paint/hardware store) on the ingots and see if it reacts. If it reacts you will definately know it by the bubbly fizzy stinky fumes , then it has zinc in it.

Pure lead is too soft to break. Maybe the pieces are a spru or something like that.

[runfiverun]

drop them on the concrete you can hear close to pure and pure make the tud sound.
anything with tin or tin/antimony will sound distincly different.
the muratic acid will show the presence of zinc.
and just plain ol casting a boolit from them and weighing against a couple of known alloys [ww's.pure,stick-ons,lino.] will give you a clue as to how much "other than lead" is in them.
the melt temp will help you determine what they are also.

[wtfooptimax200]

I looked closer at the pieces today under some decent lighting. The large chunks are certainly pure lead, they look to have been cut off of a much larger ingot. The mystery 'ingots' with the dimpled texture have been cut on each end and I am able to scratch the cut end with my finger nail. Does this still sound like babbit?

Thanks again.

[Echo]

Pictures?