Rough test for hardness

[Texantothecore]

Friend gave me 200 lbs of lead from his dad and I figured that it was ml type as well as coww lead. I put about about 10 lbs in some bhn 10-12 bhn and after the first cast I had to use a rubber mallet to get the sprue cutter to cut the sprues. Boy howdy that lead is hard. My guess is linotype, which I did not expect.

Went to Lowes and picked up an awl, scratched a pure lead ingot and some scrap from the pour. The pure lead was a deep scratch, the scrap was a very light scratch. So I'm going to test all the ingots with the awl and segregate them into soft, medium and hard. Probably trade the linotype for pure lead.
The scratch method actually works a lot better than I thought it would. And for 5 bucks I'll take the lack of precision.

[Grmps]

Pencil testing is a lot more accurate and only costs the set of drawing pencils
http://castboolits.gunloads.com/showthread.php?355056-Easier-pencil-lead-hardness-testing

some drop the lead on concrete and listen to the sound it makes --- the higher/tinnier the sound, the harder the lead. per lead just goes thunk

[MaryB]

Being an unknown alloy I would do an acid test... you may have zinc...

[Texantothecore]

I do have zinc but have taken as much from it as floated to the surface. Not too worried about that but I will test for it.

[Texantothecore]

I took every bit of zinc out that I could and it appears to be linotype. Probably trade in on some pure lead. Man, that is hard.

[RogerDat]

Spring loaded prick punch. Offers a consistent force applied to the punch. Not as accurate as say art pencils but it is fast and repeatable. I carry one when going to the scrap yard. By putting a prick in known lead at home I have at least some idea of where an unknown item at scrap yard falls between plain (deep dimple) and hard printers lead (shallow dimple) , and zinc barely gets a dimple. Twice now I have found zinc in a scrap lead bin. Have been tempted to take them in a bottle of drain cleaner and show them the fizz test.

Scratch awl does much the same process. Prick punch however I push in until it clicks, and the dimple is set by the spring in the punch so very repeatable.

[Grmps]

Be 100% sure, send a small sample to BNE with a 1# pure lead offering and he will XRF it and tell you what it really is

[Outpost75]

Ring, plink or thud test, drop ingot on floor.

Rings like a bell, ingot doesn't deform, but snaps if clamped in vise and whacked with BFH, dropped ingot chips paint off concrete floor, is monotype

Goes plink when dropped on floor, bends with difficulty before snapping when clamped in vise and wehacked with BFH, is linotype

Goes thud when dropped on floor, ingot deformed when dropped onto floor, doubles over when clamped and vise and beaten with BFH, good revolver leads, use as-is.

[Maven]

Here's another test, but a trifle more involved: http://castboolits.gunloads.com/showthread.php?75455-Testing-hardness-with-pencils Btw "Molly," referred to in post #1 was the late Ken Mollohan, one of the founders of the Cast Bullet Association.

[Texantothecore]

I let the pot sit for maybe 2 hours at 700 degress during dinner and when I came back afterwards there was a skin on top which was bright blue, very different than the normal blue of pure lead. I figured that was copper which would explain the hardness. Am I right on this?

[MaryB]

Copper adds toughness, not sure how much it affects hardness. Sticky article above on copper alloys though!

[Lloyd Smale]

cast bullets out of your original batch and some out of the new stuff and weight them. You can get a pretty good idea of hardness that way. Hard lead is allways lighter then soft. What you might actually have there is tin babbit. It will show blue in the pot because of the copper in it and freeze up in a mold real fast.

[Texantothecore]

Babbit is one possibility I hadn't considered. It froze up in the mold in under two seconds. I'll bet that is the answer. Thanks.