Lead Brick

[AR-15 Cowboy]

I found these bricks for sale at my local salvage yard for .75cents per pound. Anybody seen anything like this before. They are 2x4x8. They have about fifty of them. I bought one to test hardness. This brick weighs 26 lbs. I'm wondering what they were used for?

[fishhawk]

fork lift counter weights maybe

[AR-15 Cowboy]

Have any idea what hardness it might be. I cant fit it into my pot so I'll have to cut it in pieces with my acetelyne torch.

[32ideal]

Moveable (sorta) Radiation shielding in Nuclear power plants, built a few walls with them.
32ideal

[hoosierlogger]

Could be a battery somebody that didnt know any better melted down.

I am a little leery about buying lead from an unknown source.

[runfiverun]

i got a couple of bricks like that from a guy that got them from a local mine.
they are dead soft pure lead.

[rbertalotto]

I got a bunch of them from a fellow that was a contractor on nuclear power plants. He told me they were used as actual "bricks" to build walls.

Mine are 26 pounds each and Dead Soft Lead. They make EXCELLENT bullets for my various 45-70 rifles when using Black Powder.

[AR-15 Cowboy]

I just did a Brinnell test and they are pure lead. This is what I was hoping for. I'm going back in the morning and buy a bunch more.

[Longwood]

Moveable (sorta) Radiation shielding in Nuclear power plants, built a few walls with them.
32ideal

All of the brick I have seen for nuclear shielding had very sharp edges and corners.
They were so perfect that I suspect they were machined.
I saw about 20 tons of them at the local recycler about ten years ago.

[AR-15 Cowboy]

This brick looked like it was almost machined but thrown around in a salvage bin for awhile the surface is very smooth. I had to cut it into 6 parts to get it in my furnace. I'm Making smaller ingots right now.

[Longwood]

This brick looked like it was almost machined but thrown around in a salvage bin for awhile the surface is very smooth. I had to cut it into 6 parts to get it in my furnace. I'm Making smaller ingots right now.

You could be correct.
I usually don't see big hunks of anything getting tossed around much.:bigsmyl2:
That's why the boxes of ingots go though the mail so well.
They could be years and years old and could have been used for who knows what since they came from their intended use.

[AR-15 Cowboy]

This lead has really made my day. I've been looking for pure lead for some time now for my muzzleloader boolits.

[Chamfered]

It looks like a sheilding brick. Used to be alot at nuke plants 10 years ago to build shielded caves for friskers for RP techs checking smears where background radiation would be higher than the sample. Most plants us Small Article Monitors now that come with their own sheilding. I don't think plants ever sold them off as scrap due to the radialogical concerns associated with potential contamination. Yours was probably "liberated" from construction days back in the 80's. It's pure lead too.
I once had a large "pig" of about 400 pounds that had never been inside of a plant so it was legitimate scrap. I could never get a small torch hot enough to cut it, too much mass. So I thought I could shoot parts off of it. Wrong. I ended up using it as a target stop and it was an amazing bullet catcher. 30-06's made the biggest splashes at only 2 x 2" craters. The picture is a 230gr fmj 45acp, fired into the same lead pig, found it laying at the base.

[Longwood]

This lead has really made my day. I've been looking for pure lead for some time now for my muzzleloader boolits.

I bet it did!
I laugh the guys here that keep saying lead is disappearing.
It's out there, by the millions of tons.
I went looking last year for lead, tin, solder, linotype, etc, etc, and found more that I ever needed or will need in the future in a very short time.
I saw another pig today that has the flat ears on the ends so a forklift can pick it up, and he offered it for, "Get it out of my way."
He told me that the first time, several weeks ago. I have not decided yet if I am going to bother with it.

[Chamfered]

Dang, uploading the picture is getting the better of me.. I'll try later.

[Chamfered]

I bet it did!
He told me that the first time, several weeks ago. I have not decided yet if I am going to bother with it.

At a buck a pound I would get it and use it as a lawn ornament, even with the 1200 lbs of backstop lead I have in the barn.

[Longwood]

Dang, uploading the picture is getting the better of me.. I'll try later.

I made the mistake of listing some items for sale before taking and shrinking some photo's.
I spent two days trying to read the threads, read my Private messages, take pictures, shrink pictures read more messages, post pictures, pack and address boxes, etc, etc.
I thought I was going to go nuts.
If I ever sell here again I will have small pictures in advance, and list one item at a time.

[Longwood]

At a buck a pound I would get it and use it as a lawn ornament, even with the 1200 lbs of backstop lead I have in the barn.

As the dollar shrinks the ingot becomes more valuable.
I figure if the sock puppet gets re-elected the gas checks I offered at a good price a couple of days ago, will be worth about $90 bucks in a year or two.

[AR-15 Cowboy]

I told my son this is almost as good an inflation investment as copper. Now we have a supply of linotype lead, shot , pure lead and WW. What really amazes me is the density of the brick. Its hard to believe that small a brick weighs 26 lbs.

[HARRYMPOPE]

yes shielding bricks.I live near the Hanford area where the made some of the "stuff" for one of the first nuclear bombs. They show up here quite often.Good roundball alloy

George

[SlippShodd]

I have 4 of those given to me by a friend who deconstructed a Lawrence Livermore lab in Cali. I wish I'd gotten more of them. I can't bring myself to use them until SHTF, and my stock of other alloys is still sufficient for my needs. They're just so cute there on the floor of the garage keeping the throw rug in front of the door.

mike

[Jim]

Back around '02 or so, I got hold of about 1800 lbs. of those things. I got in a bad spot and had to sell 'em for scrap. Dang, but I wish I hadn't done that.

Oh well, it is what it is, right?

[IIJSavoy]

What 32Ideal said...looks like temporary shielding bricks. Strange to find that near Harwood/Luling. If you were closer to Waxahachie I'd be worried about messing with them.

Get all you can as my experience with them is they are are pure lead. My experience being the academic side of reator design and installation. Easily sold on here...

(Missing the parlines from Buc-ee's!!!)

[Sonnypie]

I keep searching the sky's for a lead balloon...
Still haven't seen any. [smilie=l:

I do know when they shut down the operation in Wyoming, they buried the mill complex with the tailings.
NRC would not allow any scraping of anything used for the mining and milling of anything used to enrich Uranium.

So chances are any lead bricks you find were never used in nuclear facilities.
Just surplus, sold into scrap-dom.

And no. Our pee didn't "glow in the dark." :takinWiz:

[rbertalotto]

Well the ones I have glow a little bit in the dark garage...........And I have no idea what I'm going to do with these extra fingers I've grown!:drinks:

[AR-15 Cowboy]

Well the ones I have glow a little bit in the dark garage...........And I have no idea what I'm going to do with these extra fingers I've grown!:drinks:

Talk about raining on my parade. I'll have to go out in the garage tonight and see if mine are glowing. I never thought about that.

[white eagle]

I have bout 8 of those
cut mine with a circular saw
25-26# is what mine weigh
be sure to get the chips cleaned up and into the pot