Question about truck ww and batery terminals xrf analysis?

[Scooby]

I have been making shot for about 5 or 6 years now on a Jim Stewart machine. When I got the machine he said not to use truck wheel weights because they contained Babbitt, so I have kept them separate all this time and now I have a half of five gallon bucket of them. My question is has anyone done any xrf analysis on just a batch of truck ww alloy? I also have a bucket of battery terminals the part that is attached to the vehicle with the copper wire not the post from the battery. I was wondering if anyone has ever melted them down and would know the composition of them. Thanks in advance this site is so useful I love all the great info.

[dragon813gt]

Terminals can usually be treated as pure lead. Truck wheel weights are the same as automobile wheel weights. The compositions are all over the place so you would have to analyze yours to truly know what it is.

[bangerjim]

Agree. Terminals = pure.

WW's are pretty much all the same allow of Pb/Sb/Sn. Not babbit. There are over 50 different alloys called "Babbitt". Do a web search for it and see. WW's are hard due the small % of Sb and usually there is 0.5% Sn in there for mold fill.

There was a thread on here several months ago where a member did analysis of every kind of Pb WW he could find and the were all pretty close the standard. Again search for it on here.

banger

[JonB_in_Glencoe]

a couple years ago, I smelted 300+ lbs of Automotive battery cable ends.
http://castboolits.gunloads.com/showthread.php?144453-Battery-cable-ends&highlight=
They were not soft. I've found them to be about 1 BHn point higher than the COWW I've smelted (measured with a Lee tester).

[bangerjim]

Glad your terminals were of harder lead. The ones I have done ended up being in the 5-7 range....soft pure lead in my book.

Guess there are different battery "thingies" out there also..........just like all the other stuff we scrounge!

Bottom like is..............TEST B4 your just dump a bunch of "stuff" in your re-melting pot! Everybody should have some kind of hardness tester if they are going to scrounge, mix, and cast.

banger

[lightman]

I've always found that the bigger truck weights were about the same alloy as the smaller coww's. I also have found most battery cable ends to be soft. I have seen a difference between the molded on/crimp on ends and the bolt on ones. Truck weights are also made of zinc, so be sure to check. I usually dump what few battery cable ends that I get into the coww's. I also never seperated the soww from the coww until recently. In the past, I never found enough soww to matter, but not anymore.

[Scooby]

I worked at the bullet company for 5 years and learned a lot about lead and alloys there, however shot making is a whole different game. The alloy has to be just right or the machines just do not run. Say if you have more than 1% tin the drippers will flow rather than drip, too much antimony and the drippers can plug up. Also of course zinc is a big headache. I have hand sorted ww for years I just always kept the truck weights separate because the manufacturer of the machine said not to use them. I understand that there are plenty of different Babbitt alloys. I always keep my "mystery metal" separate and smelt what I know to be the same and take it to the bullet company for a hardness test. However we all know a hardness tester can not tell us what is in the alloy. that was why I asked about xrf because if the alloy is of similar hardness to coww but contains other metals it could plug up the machine. I will smelt them and try to add to machine with my known hand sorted coww alloy and see what happens