Another "What did I just score?" score.

[Bigslug]

I just bought about 220 pounds of mystery lead from a buddy of mine. It's in the form of little irregularly-shaped blobs that are roughly 1/8" across- some smaller. It almost seems like someone was trying to drop shot, but forgot the arsenic or other additives that allow it to come together into a sphere.

The stuff came in 25# shot bags - some with a big letter "B" stamped on them.

I heated up a couple pounds on the stove in an ingot mold. It had some kind of gray outer coating (graphite?) that sludged its way to the top. Resulting air-cooled ingots seem to be roughly 10BHN - -need to test that again after a more lengthy cool-down.

Other than "practically perfect pistol alloy", does anyone have a clue what this stuff's former life was?

[tomme boy]

Someones homemade shot is my guess.

[bangerjim]

Well......cast some and see how they fillout. If not good, add some tin.

I mix 9-10 for all my subsonic pistol loads then PC them.


banger

[220swiftfn]

Just tossing out a guess here, but could they be solder drippings???
I'd check to see what temp your stuff is melting at, and what weight a known mold casts at with it.....


Dan

[Bigslug]

Just tossing out a guess here, but could they be solder drippings???

You mean I might have just bought a buttload of tin-rich leftovers for scrap lead money?

EEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE EEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE!!!:eek:

Good call on checking the weight against known stuff - too juicy to squander at 100% strength if it is. I've got my doubts though. I got 9-10 BHN testing when the ingots were not quite back to room temp. Another I dunked in water when it was still uncomfortably warm to the touch - that one gave about 11 BHN. A smidge soft methinks.

[bangerjim]

I have a BIG bunch of pure tin. When cast in those little 1/2# marked ingots in my Lee molds, they weigh about 5.5 oz.

And PURE tin will have a "goldish warm" shine to it. You can spot it a mile away when with lead ingots.

But the only way to really know is to hit it with an Xray gun for analysis. With 200+ pounds of the stuff, it would be worth paying your local scrap guy $5 or so to check a ingot!

banger

[Squeeze]

does it look like scrap range lead after it went through one of those home made range traps? almost sounds like it to me

[Bigslug]

It looks like it was either mostly solidified when it hit whatever surface it landed on, or it fell into some kind of liquid. It definitely did not get into this shape from any kind of bullet impact. Remember Fruity Pebbles cereal? They're about that size and irregular class of shape. Banger probably has the right idea - clean it up in a smelt and find someone with an XRF gun.

[GLL]

Here is what the solder "drippings" I collect from the old radiator tank look like.

http://www.fototime.com/7D15931F35477FE/large.jpg

23 pounds of ingots after processing that batch ! :) :)
http://www.fototime.com/3D9E4C790723581/large.jpg

Jerry

[Bigslug]

Here is what the solder "drippings" I collect from the old radiator tank look like.

Could very well be. My globs are more uniform in color, and would match the less "splatty" examples in that pile. What did yours test out at?

[Bigslug]

I did another hardness test after giving it a week to settle and got 15BHN. This stuff is almost certainly solder drippings, but in looking at the alloy calculator, it's impossible to tell by BHN alone what KIND of solder. 15BHN seems to be a very popular number for solder of all compositions for some reason, but the "worst" case would seem to be 40% tin, which would make me do the happy dance for quite some time.

Probably going to smelt it for real tomorrow, then it's try to find a local boy with an XRF scanner. Stay tuned!

[arjacobson]

Just a warning with solder drippings.. When smelting stay FAR upwind.. They smoke like none other and take a lot of heat if dirty. Mine smelted down and still had tons of small solder balls in the black ashy stuff on the top. It will make you very sick if you get too much of a whiff.. I did 150lbs a few years ago and still remember how crappy I felt the next few days.

[Bigslug]

Well, curiouser and curiouser. . .

Smelted it down and cleaned it up nicely with sawdust flux - not the half-azzed stovetop trial smelt I started with. Let it sit for a week and a half to settle and hardness tested a few ingots today. Right in between 9 and 10 BHN. Time to find the magic X-ray gun, it would seem. . .