Printing lead

[Shooter steve]

I recently found a great deal on 250 lbs of printer type lead I know a lot of it is lynotype and probably some of it is monotype and I know I have a lot of pure lead here the block pieces are a lot harder alloy then the small spacer pieces my question is should I sort it out or just or try eyeball 50/50 mix most of my molds are hp molds and I'm pretty sure I want the lead as soft as can be before leading occurs I will also be powder coating the boolits to help prevent leading I was thinking of sorting as much as possible and add the harder alloy if needed. Any help would be great as I am very new to casting

thanks
shooter steve

[leadbutt]

Sort it and don't waste the expensive stuff.

[runfiverun]

sort out the bigger block letters.

[John Boy]

Be sure to random test some of the plates for hardness. I bought 50#'s of printer plates and they were all Bhn 15.4

[Grmps]

this thread will help you determine what you have. http://castboolits.gunloads.com/showthread.php?204515-Lead-ID-Question-Monotype-Linotype All of it is good for hardening softer lead

[RogerDat]

When dealing with mixed scrap you have to sort visually to have any hope of consistency. And consistency is a close relative of accuracy and reproducible.

Sort by what it is small or large individual letters, spacer blocks, lines of type, thin spacers. Melt spacers in large batches. If the pot isn't big enough of one batch of each type of sorted spacer then make ingots and cross mix them from each batch. Goal is to have the "could be anything" spacers all one lead alloy you can use in future recipes.

Any letters or lines of type (LinoType) leave in raw form. The form is what "marks" it for what it is, makes your casting easier to be able to pull a pound of this type of printing lead and if selling it shows the buyer clearly what type of lead they are buying. Melt that "known" stuff in as needed. Or sell/trade in letter form to purchase the soft you want for hollow point bullets. Can often get 2# of soft plain lead for 1# of linotype in trade.

Single letters are much harder than lines of type, spacers can be a lot of different alloys. Which is why you make the thin ones into a big batch. Block spacers tend to be harder alloys but not always. So they are there own thing.

Nice score by the way. Enough alloy there to treat about 600 - 900 lbs of plain lead.