What might I have here?

[CanoeRoller]

i just came into possession of a bucket of "lead", it contained an odd mixture of swaged slugs (all 38's) and shot. Does anyone know what the alloy would probably be for swaged wadcutters or shot?

[btroj]

Swaged stuff is generally on the softer side. Shot can be all over the place. Magnum or chilled? What size?
Is it all melted together or still loose shot and bullets?

[runfiverun]

swaged stuff can be all over the map too.
it can contain from no antimony to 5%, depending on who, what, and when.
they could even be made from the shot itself.

[JonB_in_Glencoe]

Welcome to the castboolits website...Lots of info here.

your bucket...sounds like boolit lead to me.

Clean it all up in a smelter, and start casting...it'll work fine for mildly loaded pistol boolits. You may need to add some Tin if you don't get good fillout...BUT, if you don't get good fillout, sometimes just turning up the heat will help.
Good Luck,
Jon

[CanoeRoller]

Everything was dumped into one large military surplus container. My guess would be about 100 lbs of random swaged slugs, wadcutters, round nose, etc. I can not see marks from a sprue cutter on any of them, and I found just a couple of jacketed slugs in the box. There is about 40-50 lbs of lead shot in a couple of sizes maybe 10-12 (trap load size).

I got all this at an estate auction. I jumped in at 7.50; no one else bid against me, so I overpaid![smilie=w:


There was no reloading gear that I could see, so my guess is someone got their hands on a whole bunch of slugs and shot and just dumped it into the ammo can, probably for some evil purpose like making sinkers.

[runfiverun]

melt it all down and pour some boolits you probably might wanna throw a little tin in with the mix.
but it'll come out as boolits.
i'd pour the whole bunch into one boolit mold, work a load for it and shoot em.

[btroj]

Yep. Melt it all down, make some bullets, and shoot em. Should have enough antimony to work just fine.

[CanoeRoller]

I melted the first batch of these Slugs, and the smell was amazing. What do swagers use to lube their gear? A black oil formed on top of the pot, which never stopped smoking, and the smell was very strong, like a mix of fresh dirt, old sox and old motor oil. The whole area around the house smells like I have been burning tires. Any idea what it might be?

[Lizard333]

Don't worry about what it is. When it gets hot like that light it on fire. If it doesn't light, skim it off and continue. I use candle wax to flux, and it will get hot enough to light itself. It helps to cut down on the smoke as well.