What do I have here? How do turn it into shootable lead?

[Deezil]

Go easy on me.. I'm brand new at this..

A Old buddy of mine of mine was in town last week and came over to look at a old jeep I have. We got to talking about this and that.

I mentioned that I had started reloading a few years back and that I was going to get into Casting my own Bullets. He asked I had any lead. I told him I had 30lbs in WW ingots I bought from a seller on Craigslist but that was it. Conversation turned towards the jeep and then he had to run.

Skip to today he stops buy with a trailer with over 300lbs of scrap lead on it and that if I wanted it I could have it. I Thanked him and said yes.

I grabbed the gloves and helped him unload it all. It's Primarily "Phone line splice cases" and the rest looks to be water pipe or some sort of lead pipe they used years ago for Communication lines, its all fairly clean.. he was in the Communications field for decades.

All the pipe is like 1.5" diameter. I put a sampling in the pic to show you what I have. The splice cases look to be once 4" and 8" diameter and anywhere from 1' long to 2' long. Those are all flattened. I'd like to make this into plinking boolits for my 9mm .38 .40 and 45's.

I assume this is all too soft to start making Boolits with so here is where I start my quest into Casting by asking silly questions.

Should I melt this down into ingots and add WW lead in my casting pot or how should I use it? I had initially just started collecting wheel weight lead ingots here and there and had planned on using it. With this soft lead I am not sure how to smelt it into usable bullet lead. Any suggestions or guidance would be great.

Here is a Sampling pic of what I have.

http://i222.photobucket.com/albums/dd238/Deezildennis/lead_zpshsl80qia.jpg (http://s222.photobucket.com/user/Deezildennis/media/lead_zpshsl80qia.jpg.html)

[4719dave]

wow you score ...that lead should be really soft .youll be able to mix with your ww lead ,,

[Deezil]

Is there a certain mix I need to hit? From some vids I saw I mostly see mostly guys using WW's and casting directly from those but no one using straight soft lead and then casting. I assume this will be too soft to use as is?

He's a good Buddy. I really think he was just trying to get rid of it and was glad someone was going to take it. :) He used to cast sinkers years ago but got out of it. He still collected it from job sites and stashed it out of force of habit he says.

[Dusty Bannister]

The lead pipe is going to have a little antimony due to the method of manufacture. The solder joints might be 30/70 solder. You may want to melt that off first before melting the rest of the lead. The larger pieces are probably left over waste drain pipe that might have been soldered to toilet flanges or other large diameter drain pipes. The reason I suggest you have 30% tin solder is that I melted off a lot of this type of solder joint material and had the XRF scan done and that is the resulting reading. 50/50 mix of this pipe material with clip on WW will make a nice pistol alloy, but might be too soft for 9mm and 40. Great start, good luck.

[triggerhappy243]

What a score for sure. Once the like items are melted into ingots, get it xrayed for content. PB, SB,SN, and so on. Take one of the WW ingots with you and have them shoot the xray at it too.

[C. Latch]

I'd separate joints from everything else and smelt it at leisure.

If you're a new caster, those 30 pounds of wheelweight ingots are going to last you a good while, and as you smelt the stuff you got today you can trade it for harder lead, or maybe pick up some linotype to mix with it.

[flyingmonkey35]

Smelt it all down as pure lead Ingot's. Stick whole in a big pot and just let it melt down

Just rember lead treat the lead as if it always hot.

[bruce381]

as said the 'wiped" joints would be high tin solder keep that seperate, all the rest is mostly lead.
Tin at 1-2% helps to form a clean sharp boolet.

[Deezil]

What a score for sure. Once the like items are melted into ingots, get it xrayed for content. PB, SB,SN, and so on. Take one of the WW ingots with you and have them shoot the xray at it too.

Where would I get that done at?

[jcren]

Keep some of course, 50/50 wheel weight and pure(ish) is perfect for most any handgun and even moderate rifle loads. I would keep the joints due to the affore mentioned tin content, then look in the swapping and selling section for someone selling/trading wheel weight or range scrap. Black powder and big bore guys are always needing soft lead and Will usually trade with lead more useful to you.

Btw, stay away from eBay. Most of the lead sellers don't have a clue what they are selling or how to smelt properly. Until you get a handle on it, I would buy lead here. Lots of reliable consistent sources of clean, conviently sized ingots for around a buck a pound delivered. Even at that, a 230 grain bullet is under .04 each

[SSGOldfart]

Go easy on me.. I'm brand new at this..

A Old buddy of mine of mine was in town last week and came over to look at a old jeep I have. We got to talking about this and that.

I mentioned that I had started reloading a few years back and that I was going to get into Casting my own Bullets. He asked I had any lead. I told him I had 30lbs in WW ingots I bought from a seller on Craigslist but that was it. Conversation turned towards the jeep and then he had to run.

Skip to today he stops buy with a trailer with over 300lbs of scrap lead on it and that if I wanted it I could have it. I Thanked him and said yes.

I grabbed the gloves and helped him unload it all. It's Primarily "Phone line splice cases" and the rest looks to be water pipe or some sort of lead pipe they used years ago for Communication lines, its all fairly clean.. he was in the Communications field for decades.

All the pipe is like 1.5" diameter. I put a sampling in the pic to show you what I have. The splice cases look to be once 4" and 8" diameter and anywhere from 1' long to 2' long. Those are all flattened. I'd like to make this into plinking boolits for my 9mm .38 .40 and 45's.

I assume this is all too soft to start making Boolits with so here is where I start my quest into Casting by asking silly questions.

Should I melt this down into ingots and add WW lead in my casting pot or how should I use it? I had initially just started collecting wheel weight lead ingots here and there and had planned on using it. With this soft lead I am not sure how to smelt it into usable bullet lead. Any suggestions or guidance would be great.

Here is a Sampling pic of what I have.

http://i222.photobucket.com/albums/dd238/Deezildennis/lead_zpshsl80qia.jpg (http://s222.photobucket.com/user/Deezildennis/media/lead_zpshsl80qia.jpg.html)
That is some of the best lead it looks like cable jacket that was used for phone lines years ago.good stuff

[Deezil]

I want to reiterate. I don't want to sell any of it or trade it. I want to figure out how to smelt it into something I can shoot.

[edp2k]

I hope you bought your buddy some beer :-)

Smelt it segregated and many here have said,
then have it XRF'ed at a scrap yard if they will do that for you.
if not there are a few guys on here which will XRF it for one LB of any type of lead.
your one LB of "payment" does not have to be the same lead you have XRFed.

you could send them a small chunk of mystery lead to get XRFed and pay with a one LB ingot of pure or WW or whatever.

[edp2k]

Unfortunately in my area none of the scrap yards have XRF or will do it for you.

[country gent]

If you want to truly smelt build a big pot 150-200lbs capacity. Figure the alloy you want to end up with 50-50 lead/ww, 96-2-2 (lyman alloy), or what you want. Add the amount of pure lead and need alloys to get what you want and melt. when 650-700* start fluxing with sawdust fine wood chips. flux 2-3 times stirring well and getting lead thru chips and chips thru lead. skim of ashes and dross. Reduce one more time with wax or parrafin. pour into ingots of a size to fit in your casting pot. In this way you have a large quanity of lead alloy all the same blend batch to work from. You can do smaller batches of 5-10 lbs to test and see what works for you or read in the stickies what is working being used.

[Deezil]

hypothetically....

Could I use this soft lead to produce Lyman #2 with Rotometals Superhard using this alloy 10 formula shown here?
http://www.lasc.us/SuperHard.htm

If this is a viable option for me with this lot of soft lead, I may do this and give my coWW ingots to my Father who lives in Rural Mo and is having problems finding lead of his own.


What do you think?

[Wayne Smith]

As Deezil said you will have to add to it - Rotometals is a good source but you can add tin from other sources as well - Antimony is more of a problem.

[lightman]

I have a lot of that stuff. Best sources show that this is around 98% pure with some antimony and maybe a little calcium. Treat is as pure. Being a retired electrical lineman (and caster) I've made friends with a lot of the phone company guys over the years. Now my Son is a phone company guy! Anyway, it looks like the small stuff is cable sheathing. The big stuff could also be cable sheathing but was probably splice covers. They split the splice covers open to remove or work on them. Those will look like an automotive muffler that has suffered from a backfire! The seams will be some flavor of solder. There was a standard at one time but I've been given 63/37, 60/40 and 50/50, so it could be any of these. Some of this stuff has an air valve soldered into it. They would pressurize it with some sort of inert gas to combat moisture.
Working on this stuff is a lost art. I've seen some joints that looked like a pipeline welder did them and a few that looked like a mud robber did them! Its getting scarce, and was a good score for you. Buy your friend some beer or lunch or something.

[RogerDat]

Plain lead is too soft on its own for anything but muzzle loader bullets. BUT you can use it a few different ways.


As a filler to stretch out wheel weight lead. WW's are harder than is needed for a good fitting bullet at moderate speeds. 38, 45, even 357 at the low end can all be cast from 50/50 WW/Pb
As an ingredient in a "recipe" using other alloys. Think of it as the "flour" in a cake mix. Mixed with printers lead such as LinoType, or Foundry type. Hard alloys from RotoMetals etc. The other alloys on their own are way too rich in tin and antimony to use straight so you mix them with the plain lead to make a good bullet alloy. Linotype 50/50 with plain is Hardball lead at 2/6/92.
As trade or sale material. You have 300# of soft lead that is too soft for your uses, selling some to buy harder lead or alloys, or trading for some harder lead could provide you with a large stash of lead you can actually use. Soft lead is worth about 1/2 of printers lead (lino or foundry) and about the same value as COWW's so you could use 1/2 to make the rest usable and not be left with a whole lot less than you started with if you got COWW's.
Sell soft plain lead to muzzle loaders, buy range scrap ingots. Pretty much ready to go for revolver and moderate velocity casting.


As others have mentioned keep the seams separate. Cut them out and melt them as one big batch. Can probably cut out with a chisel and hammer, chop saw (dust mask and catch your chips in a tarp) chain saw (same mask & tarp), or even old circular saw. Course blade in a sawzall can work well too.

Melt in as big of a batch as you can. If you have to melt in several smaller batches then keep the batches separate and re-melt a cross mixing of some from each batch. You want all the ingots to end up being as close to the same as possible. Easier to cast if the lead does not vary a whole lot.

Of course you can also purchase for cash the additional lead alloys such as printers lead, COWW's, range scrap and just add to your existing 300# to grow your stash from there. But one way or another you need to acquire some harder lead to mix with the soft supply you have. Or you could buy muzzle loaders and cap & ball revolvers and really go to town :-)

You might eventually want to start hunting for pewter from thrift stores and garage sales, also old solder at garage sales. You will want that tin. You can also purchase these from members in swapping and selling.

DOWNLOAD THE ALLOY CALCULATOR! Free tool created by a member, can be used with free Open Office Calc if you don't have Microsoft Office Excel.
http://castboolits.gunloads.com/showthread.php?105952-Lead-alloy-calculators

Allows you to plug in different weights of assorted lead alloys and will tell you the percentage of good stuff in the resulting alloy along with its estimated hardness in BHN. Lets you find out what you will get if you throw X amount of Y into your plain.

[Toymaker]

Everything you mentioned is pure lead. You don't want to keep pipe, bits and pieces around so turn it into ingots that will store easily. You need a 4 or 5 quart cast iron pot, a good ladle, a burner from a turkey fryer with propane tank and a couple of cast iron cornbread or muffin pans. Second hand stores, flea markets and (last resort) eBay will save you some money. Melt it down, ladle it into the pans, let it cool and mark it "Pure" by scratching or punching it into each ingot.
When you're ready to make hard bullets you can weigh your Pure lead ingots, add the appropriate amount of WW ingots and cast away.

BTW - that's a fantastic score. Your friend is one to keep.

[RogerDat]

Yep muffin tins make little pucks, or my favorite for bulk is bread loaf pans, soup ladle about 4 scoops will give you a 12 lb. slab. that stacks and moves around well. The pucks are smaller at around a pound or pound and a half so easier to adjust to an accurate weight when mixing.

[Rizzo]

I got some lead roof jacks from my roofer neighbor and melted it all down to muffin ingots.
They were very shiny when cooled.
I suspect a high tin content from the joints that had been soldered.

In the future I will cut out the joints and melt them down by separately.
I hadn't thought of that before.

[Lloyd Smale]

I acquired about 2 tons of the same type of lead. I mix it 5050 with ww and use it in 38 spec 44 spec 45 colt loads. Its fine for velocitys under a 1000fps.

[Deezil]

Ran it all to the farm and Had a Big melt yesterday and this morning. 150lbs or so. I cut the soldered ends off and kept them separated. I found a turkey fryer for cheap on craigslist and bought it. I raided the local Goodwill and bought a huge dutch oven Iron pot , nice ladle and a assorted set of spoons with holes in them.

I just made a stand and kept the large pieces flat pieces upright and let them melt down. They went down rather Quick. Only got about 2.5lbs of crud out of it all. I tried wax for fluxing but sawdust worked better for me. Cheap muffin tins worked great.

After I did the pipe I melted the soldered pieces and got 8 muffin ingots out of it alone.

I'll try to get down there again and do the rest soon. I'll bring a Axe with me next time to cut it up in smaller pieces.

All the lead is super soft. I Can put a deep scratch in it with just a light fingernail scrape.

[725]

I'd smelt all the like lead into ingots and smelt all the WW's into ingots. The take x-number of soft lead and melt Y-number of WW ingots to make a repeatable alloy. You'll figure out how many of each makes the final alloy that works for your purpose.

[Deezil]

I Got a hold of a scanner through a Metallurgist buddy of mine. Tuesday I will have them zapped to see what I am really dealing with.

[Deezil]

Had scrap lead ingots X-ray'd. All pure lead was like %99.9999 something.

Had soldered end ingots done as well they are %98 pb and %2sn.

Probably just run those as pure lead as well.

[jimofaz]

Great Score. Great Friend. Been awhile, but I grew fond of using a one-sided hatchet or axe to score the lead cable sheathing or lead water pipe for easy folding over to fit into the 90 lb capacity dutch oven I still keep separate to use for scrap Pb rendering. Had an old stump back on the farm to lay the Pb-whatever on, held the hatchet where I wanted the cut or score, & whacked the flat top hammer side with a 2 lb. ball peen hammer. Had to strip a lot of lead cable sheathing for my Pap so he could burn & scrap the copper wire. Used the same one-sided Boy Scout hatchet & a hammer to split it open lengthwise. Dad got the wire. I got the lead!