It pays to test unmarked lead

[Forrest r]

A friend of mine gave me #60 of lead in the form of plumbers lead/sticks. About 1/2 of it was marked pure lead. #10 of it was sticks of 50/50. There was about #20 of unmarked sticks. They bent/twisted up real easy so I figured they were pure lead also. I fired up the pot and cast sinkers and split shot out of them. Figured I'd restock the fishing weights. I water drop the split shot and egg sinkers when I cast them. Keeps them from de-forming when they're dropped from the molds. I got done casting everything and pulled it from the water to let everything dry. A couple days later I tested the split shot and found it was hard, actually to hard. The only thing I have to test lead with is a set of pencils. Turns out the unmarked sticks are 10bhn/20 to 1 lead/tin (b3 pencil).
https://i.imgur.com/FwSnBBc.jpg?1

Glad I caught that one, the #20 of 5% tin will get used up this year.

[skeettx]

Good discovery
Great deal
Cast well :)

[lightman]

Thats a lot better than finding out that it was contaminated with zinc!

[quail4jake]

Smart man. I bought a roll of 1/2" "lead wire" about 50 lb at the scrapyard and thought it was soft lead, tested by density and hardness and found it to be antimonial lead 6% Sb. It was a great find and very useful but would have made trouble as revolver balls! Pays to test and be careful...[smilie=p:

[Forrest r]

Got another#10+ chunk of lead laying around that I'm not sure what it is. Did an acid test on it, it's not zinc. Darn thing is so hard the heck with a pencil test. A screwdriver isn't digging into it.

[RogerDat]

Hard sometimes to tell, but that 20:1 would make some dandy bullets. I noticed a whole long piece of what looked sort of like your 20:1 at the scrap yard. Didn't get it, few days later it was gone so someone did.

[Lloyd Smale]

that 50/50 is probably 50 per pure lead and 50 per tin.