Found 80 lbs of lead today marked "H" on them

[capt.hollis]

Went to my local scrap yard today , and a kid was selling 80 lbs of these Lyman ingots with "H" marked on about 3/4 of them. I offered him $1 a pound before he went inside to sell the lead, and he jumped right on it. Anyhow they were his grandpas ingots , and he had recently passed away. Anyone know what H might mean ? I guess he could had pencil tested them, and H might mean the lead hardness. ? Haven't gotten home to test yet.

[fecmech]

My WAG would be the fellow had some soft lead and considered this stuff "hard" and marked it with the "H"

[lightman]

Fecmech is probably right, but anything would be a guess. Stuff like this pushed me to buy a hardness tester. Too bad you did not get the kids name and see whatelse he may have had. Lightman Lightman

[500MAG]

Heroin! Probably sealed inside of it.

[MKastning]

Guessing hardball. (lyman #2 ish)

[SPRINGFIELDM141972]

Guessing hardball. (lyman #2 ish)

+1 On "hardball" guess

[GlocksareGood]

You have no way to tell. I had the same case at my scrap dealer. They had ~250lbs of lead in Lyman and Lee ingots. It did not test hot for Zinc at the site and rang pretty good when I droped it so I went ahead and bought 5lbs. When i got it home, it tested just under Lyman #2 in hardness. I thought maybe I got lucky and found some hardball so I melted it down and started to caste with it. I used it straight and was casting a Lyman 429244 mold. The mold would not fill out. I cranked the heat up to 725 and just cound not get it to caste worth a **** in that 429244. I then added 2% Tin and retried. Finally it would fill out decent but still not as sharp as it should have been. I then ran a pot of 50/50 +2% and COWW +2% in the same mold just to compare.

Upon testing the hardness again I came up with the freshly caste mystery metal ranging just above the 50/50 +2% in hardness. The COWW +2% was over 12mils harder on my cabin tree tester than the mystery metal. I then retested several of the mystery metal boolits with HCL and this time i did get some small bubbling.

Best I can determine from my tests, the ingots are a mix of COWW/SOWW and a little zinc. They have probably age hardened up since they have been sitting for years. Either way, they was no point in me buying them at $0.80/lb when clean wheel weights are $0.35/lb. I hope your experience is better OP.

[bangerjim]

Run your penceeeeeel test if that is all 'ya got. A Cabine would be the real way to know.

I would guess, as others above, he marked the "H" to mean hard lead as opposed to soft stuff.

I personally cast all my soft stuff in RCBS CI molds and the good alloys in the LEE aluminum molds and then stamp them with steel stamps as to what they are. I write the exact weight with a magic maker.

Good luck! Hope you find it is hard stuff.

bangerjim

[capt.hollis]

Here's the answer guys that I came up with . They are a "B" on the pencil hardness test , so the BHN is a 13 according to the chart . I couldn't wait to get home to test em , lol. So 13 ain't bad, my 9mm will eat em up .
Thanks Guys . Y'all are right, I shoulda asked the kid what else he had at his house !! I'm kicking myself in the *** right now for not asking . :redneck:

[WILCO]

My WAG would be the fellow had some soft lead and considered this stuff "hard" and marked it with the "H"

Ditto for me.

[Defcon-One]

Yep, I'm with these guys;

"H" = Hard, "S" = Soft, "?" = He hasn't dropped it yet!

They say, "Keep it simple ******" and I bet he did.

Truth is, you'll never know without doing some testing, Hardness, Melting Point, Density, etc. Or find an XRF unit!

[badbob454]

yeah I found some t marked lead , real hard stuff with a low melt temp .....hmmm tin ? so h hard/hardball/ s soft who knows think mine was mwlted radiator solder or something similar.. best part 1$ a pound for 8 pounds

[graphic914]

the H is for Hazard, i will take it off your hands for .50/lb... lol

[capt.hollis]

the H is for Hazard, i will take it off your hands for .50/lb... lollol! I bet ya would !

[el34]

I hope you can swing a hardness tester. Every bit of the guessing and speculation and wondering just simply exits your life.

The Lee works, you'll get to measure BHN. The Cabine is much simpler, 3x the cost. Either will eliminate the mystery.

[DRNurse1]

I like "H = Hazardous" and agree you need a hardness tester. PM me for the redneck version to test these ingots today and save your pennies for the Cabin Tree device for later.

[montana_charlie]

Maybe he marked that alloy to make his H-eavy bullets.
It might stand for use in H-unting ammo.
Perhaps it is the alloy he got from H-enry, or it's for the bullets he uses in his H-enry rifle.

If some of the ingots have the H on them and others don't, put a rock between one of each type and squeeze them in a vise.
That should show if there is a difference (between them) in H-ardness.

Beyond that, if the kid selling the ingots didn't know what the H meant, asking us what it means is just 'talking to hear your head rattle'.

CM

[btroj]

Hoo knows?

Only the guy who marked them that way really knows. We can guess but that won't tell us much.

If it acts like hard lead I would treat it that way. No different from any other mystery metal.

[Hogtamer]

H-ogTamer! I'll send you my address!

[sw282]

Great find

[Hardcast416taylor]

Reminds me of a box of Lyman ingots in a salvage yard that were all marked "LEAD"!Robert

[capt.hollis]

It's a BHN of 13.

[mikeym1a]

Did you ask the young person if there was any of his grandfather's reloading stuff left??

[capt.hollis]

Did you ask the young person if there was any of his grandfather's reloading stuff left??negative ! I totally forgot! Not very smart on my part

[evan price]

H-eavy. He used the same mold to cast aluminum ingots, too....they are L-ight.
:)

[Bucking the Tiger]

A simple hill billy method( I am a hill billy) is to bump two together. Thud is soft. The more they ring the harder it is. Very primitive, but does give you a ballpark idea.