Military bullet tip colors and lead "mystery" question

[madcaster]

Saw a large piece of lead this evening,a friend has it,he is not sure of what it is,so HELP please!
It has "Imperial-Stereo Dept." on it,and that is all,about 25-40 pounds.Can anyone hazard a good guess please?
And,I was looking at some gray tipped .50 BMG bullets today.
What does the gray mean?
I know that orange is tracer,and black is armour piercing but that is all I am familiar with.
Anyone know the color code and their meanings please?
Thank you,
Jeff.

[rockrat]

Orange/red/burgandy are tracers. Silver(could this be what you have?) is incendiary as is blue and a blue/blue is a rare round from WW2 PT boats(if you find one cheap-get it as I have only seen one). Black is Armor piercing as is some colored yellow. Sometimes foreign tracer is green. If green 50cal then you have a HE round. Sure there are some others that I have forgotten about. Oh yeah, grey 7.62Nato is a tear gas round.

[duke76]

Grey tips are API armor piercing incendiary. I bought 1000 50 BMG from Hi-Tech Ammo last year and paid 6 cents a piece for them they needed to be sized but they will be alright. The shipping I think was as much or more than the bullets. They are cheap because nobody likes to shoot them because they will start a fire very rapidly.

[madcaster]

How about the lead question?
And thanks to all responders!

[32 20 Mike]

Grey tips are API armor piercing incendiary. I bought 1000 50 BMG from Hi-Tech Ammo last year and paid 6 cents a piece for them they needed to be sized but they will be alright. The shipping I think was as much or more than the bullets. They are cheap because nobody likes to shoot them because they will start a fire very rapidly.

BEWARE::::::: IN CALIF. IT IS A FELONY TO HAVE ANY TYPE OF INCENDIARY OR TRACER AMMO........A friend of mine, who was a local PD officer, ran a small FFL lic.d busn. that sold reloaded ammo in the area. He was a narc at the time, and was wrongfully accused by someone he had made a case on to the ATF. They made an "inspection", looking for full auto guns. They tore down the paneling in his shop during the search and found nothing. They did find a belt of M60 ammo with the 20 rds of tracer ammo. He was arrested 20 counts of felony ammo. It was later dropped, however he lost his job with the dept. This occurred during the 1980s when the The ATF was running amuck Mike: SJSO, retired

[versifier]

Even with a 50BMG, I don't think he could hit Kalifornistan from Virginia with one. :mrgreen:

[TAWILDCATT]

sometimes you get surplus aircraft mg.they can be any color.as they are dipped in paint for airial gunnery they proble old in that case

[wookness]

On your lead question, it sounds like your friend has is a piece of lead that was originally used as a weight for a turntable .. the kind that you play records on. Many of the old professional ones were seriously weighted.