SCORE! But what do I do with it?

[SeabeeMan]

I happened upon an older gentleman with about 250lbs of lead already poured into ingots who just wanted it out of the way...but he couldn't do it himself. For the labor or moving it and a case of Natty Light it is now mine. He used to work at an auto shop leading auto bodies and spent 40 years picking up the drippings and melting them into ingots.

He thought it was fairly close to pure lead, but I cannot find anything telling me what the composition is. Any body have any ideas on what it could be and/or what I need to do with it to make decent boolits?

[caseyboy]

Bullets for what? Give us a hint. It maybe perfect now for a muzzleloader or?

[SeabeeMan]

Sorry, I guess that would help. So far, I have been casting for 9mm and 45ACP and would like to start casting for my 30-30. I've been working with cleaned up (no zinc/stick ons) clip-on wheel weight alloy that has been working very well.

I don't shoot muzzleloader right now, but have been thinking about starting at some point soon. My family members all shoot sabots out of their muzzleloaders.

[montana_charlie]

I think the alloy used for leading car bodies was 50/50 solder.
CM

[caseyboy]

Is the lead easily marked/scratched with your thumb nail?

[SeabeeMan]

It is marked by my thumbnail, but not any more so than my known COWW ingots right next to it.

[220swiftfn]

Take an ingot of your COWW, and an ingot of the body shop lead. Sandwich a steel ball bearing between them and press in a vise. If it's pure, the ball bearing will indent a LOT farther into the body shop side...... My guess is that it's 50/50 or thereabouts, they used the "slush stage" to wipe the fill..... With 250 pounds of it, it's definately worth finding a way to identify it....(melt temp, brinell, friendly scrap dealer with an XR gun.....being known that it's solder helps tho......)


Dan

[nighthunter]

My father used to do auto body work with a lead alloy, copper screen, a torch and a muslin rag to smooth the lead after building up sufficient lead. His lead was 50/50 solder. That has become a lost art these days as others have also. I'd bet it is 50/50 solder.

Nighthunter

[badbob454]

melt some and check the temerature if its @ 428-464@ when it starts to solidify it has a lot of tin in it i think it should have 40-50% tin . 428 is 50/50 ... 464 is 40/60 , tin/lead hope this helps

[SeabeeMan]

Good call, badbob. I have a melt station for determining the melting point of crystals at work, so I'll just have to see if it goes hot enough. Otherwise, a thermocouple should work.

[Greg B.]

You could test for hardness and as long as it falls within the range you want it to be for your application its alloy composition doesn't matter to much.

Greg B.

[Defcon-One]

My bet is it is Tin rich alloy, some variant of solder, probably 30 Sn/70 Pb. I think that you probably hit the jackpot!

I'd make it all into one big homogeneous batch then get one bar tested with an XRF. A bit of effort, but then you would know exactly what you have. (They will tell you here, I love to know EXACTLY what I have.)

Great SCORE!

Update: I just verified it and auto Body Solder does run about 30% tin, 70% lead in Certified alloy, so there you go.

[SeabeeMan]

I just talked to the gentleman and he said it was from 1973 to 1975. I'll see which one a ball bearing sinks into more this evening.

[runfiverun]

i'm in the 30-70 camp for auto body lead.
a bhn reading could be quite misleading.
i'd just use one lb of them bars per 20 lbs of ww alloy to make a 2% tin solution.
but i'm pretty cheap so i'd go with one per 40 lbs.

[skeettx]

One pound of your unknown lead to 20 pounds of wheelweights will make GREAT fast (1000 fps +) pistol bullets

One pound of your unknown lead to 10 pounds of wheelweights will make GREAT (1600 - 2000 fps) rifle bullets

For just plinking slow pistol bullets wheelweight or softer is fine.

Try this and let us know how accurate they are for you

Mike

[WHITETAIL]

Make a few boolits with it and:groner:
then test them in a boolit tester.
Then give them a few weeks and test them again.
This will give you an idea of what bernell it is.

[SeabeeMan]

I like Skeettx's idea of using it to sweeten my COWW alloy to work for rifle bullets. I have an old lever action 30-30 I've been thinking about feeding with cast, so I will definitely be hanging on to it.

[Sonnypie]

250#'s = a lifetime supply. ;-)

Do you lead mongers realize the amount of powder you'll need to send that "ton" of lead down range? :groner:
Holy Moly!

[Bad Water Bill]

Just imagine how much powder I will need to move all the 22 cal boolits I can cast with over 200# of linotipe.