Dodged bad lead at the scrap yard

[RogerDat]

Someone brought in several 43 lb. stands or carriers to the scrap yard. Cool something big, and bunches of it in the lead bin.
Stuff rang when struck, was too hard to scratch with finger nail, had a smooth grain to the surface. I'm thinking hard lead alloy with enough tin to cast smooth.
Heart all a flutter I carried one up front and asked them to check with the X gun and wouldn't you know, it's almost all ZINC.

These looked sort of like they would be holders for small barrels on their sides. Just a heads up if you see something like that out in a scrap yard.
If out and about scrounging I would consider a small bottle of acid to test for zinc because lino on concrete and zinc on concrete sound an awful lot alike to my tone deaf ears.

[62chevy]

Nice save but did you find anything good.

[fredj338]

Even lead with a lot of tin won't ring like zinc IME. If it dents or easily scratches, it can be made into bullets.

[RogerDat]

Even lead with a lot of tin won't ring like zinc IME. If it dents or easily scratches, it can be made into bullets.
I was thinking more like lino with high antimony it starts to have less thunk and more ring than plain lead. With tin giving it a smoother surface and sharper cast lines. COWW that rings is zinc, lead that rings would be pretty rich alloy which was my hope. Guy in the office was not all that pleased that his guys had bought 250# of zinc as lead and dropped it into the lead bin. Zinc casting worth more than lead but only if it is in the clean zinc bin not the clean lead bin.

They have a fair amount of plain lead but I figure to hit them later today see if the Saturday crowd brings in anything better, and do a run looking for WW's. Try to get the best bang for my buck.

[RogerDat]

Nice save but did you find anything good.

Ended up buying 50 lbs. of sheet lead, since I know what I'm getting with that. And 150 lbs. of WW's from assorted tire shops. Still looking for that nice score of printers lead. Mostly for the thrill of the hunt rather than desperate need. At some point I need about 100 lbs. to allow casting some harder rifle bullets with full power loads but the need is not urgent.

[TES]

I just found 200# of flashing in the trash at a job site......i couldn't believe it.

[Hooker53]

That's a great find. Kinda like winning a small lottery ain't it? Ha.


I just found 200# of flashing in the trash at a job site......i couldn't believe it.

[RogerDat]

I just found 200# of flashing in the trash at a job site......i couldn't believe it.

Nice! That is why casters are so eco friendly, we take things out of the waste stream and do 100% reuse, ok slightly different use but still reuse is the most efficient recycling. Would be about $140 from our scrap yards so very nice indeed.