just cut up

[white eagle]

an isotope core and forgot what nice boolits they make
31 # per core thats a bunch of boolits
I have at least 10 cores left
believe I like this better than wheel weights
certainly cleaner :p

[nun2kute]

Color me Jealous ! :sad:

[dbosman]

The alloy tests I've seen show them to be perfect bullet material. At ten left you're down to 320 pounds. Time to look for more?

[lightman]

I certainly understand them being your favorite. I lost my source for them years ago but they did make nice bullets. And they were the cleanest alloy I ever scrounged.

[Hardcast416taylor]

Got a bunch of them under my casting bench, but they are already spoken for by a friend.Robert

[kevin c]

The ones I get from my radiopharmacy source usually come in fitted plastic buckets with plastic bails. Strong little beasts, but not suprising since nobody wants a broken foot or spilled radioactive material on the floor if they break. They're popular on my range for picking up brass.

In case you want to know, these huge grenade shaped chunks of lead alloy are technetium 99m generators. They originally contained radioactive molybdenum, made in reactors, which then decays into the technetium that is extracted and used for medical imaging. The radiopharmacy folks call them "moly cows".

[holsterguy]

240041Is that what these are?

[lightman]

240041Is that what these are?

Its hard to tell but I don't think so. The shape does not look quite right.

[lightman]

The ones I get from my radiopharmacy source usually come in fitted plastic buckets with plastic bails. Strong little beasts, but not suprising since nobody wants a broken foot or spilled radioactive material on the floor if they break. They're popular on my range for picking up brass.

In case you want to know, these huge grenade shaped chunks of lead alloy are technetium 99m generators. They originally contained radioactive molybdenum, made in reactors, which then decays into the technetium that is extracted and used for medical imaging. The radiopharmacy folks call them "moly cows".

The ones that I have came in those plastic buckets also. On a few of them you can still see the info on the half life, a really low number. The little "pocket" like piece thats inside of them is interesting too.

[kevin c]

Holsterguy, this webpage by sqlbullet shows a lot of the commonly found radioisotope containers. The one described as a "core" is the type being talked about here. Your picture isn't something I've seen before. http://fellingfamily.net/isolead/

Lightman, I think you're talking about a fitting that goes on the end of the generator that is a different alloy and often painted, unlike the body of the generator. I think it is part of the apparatus to extract the isotope.

I heard an interesting story from a fellow shooter/caster that I have no way of verifying. He said that these generators my be in short supply because there's only one manufacturer and he is closing up shop. He said the manufacturer was having trouble sourcing scrap lead to make the containers, and further said that scrap was wheel weights, accounting for the match in composition and the great casting characteristics of the alloy.

I'd believed originally that there were certain standards and there greater consistency in the lead alloys used to make isotope containers, so that one analysis of a type of container would indicate the content of others of the same kind. Certainly it is very clean metal, and the "pure" came back from BNE as essentially 100%. But my own analyses show some variation in content in different lots of containers that were sorted by type that fall outside the range of error BNE expects from the equipment he uses. I also heard from techs at one radiopharmacy that some of their scrapped containers, most of which have some Sb, were bought to make radiation blocking bricks, whereas the ones I have had analyzed were pure.

Bottom line is that I like to know what I have, and don't assume any specific content on isotope container alloy. I do have to admit that most of what I get has 2 to 2.5% Sb and little else, and with only a couple exceptions there's no tin.

[RogerDat]

I melted some I found down and had them tested, came in like a premium COWW alloy. I do recall they were clean easy to cast into ingot lead. Have about 75 lbs. sitting there daring me to make bullets out of it.... soon the time will be right and the tables will turn and I will triumph over those ingots.

I bought what I had budget for lead, there were a few more, sort of regret not snagging them too. However it wouldn't be much of a budget if I just ignored it for every clean looking chunk of lead that peeked at me from a scrap bin.

[Ozark mike]

Where are you getting these the hospital

[kevin c]

Mine I source from a radiopharmacy that supplies radioactive materials to medical centers for imaging, tracing and cancer therapy. They don't always have the cores in the scrapped containers they sell me.

[Ozark mike]

I'd probably have to go to a city to get any. Oh well ww it is

[RogerDat]

I think urban and rural lead sources seem sort of different. More industrial sources in and around the city. More residential and WW's in the rural areas. I see that somewhat in my own searches and it seems reflected in what people post.

Rural tire repair shops seem more inclined to sell WW's and old houses have lead pipe, flashings, wire sheathing. Old plumbing lead etc. In the city see more counter weights, print shop lead, iso containers, xray wall liner. Also seems that city sources tend to be in bigger batches from same source. Even if both have thin sheet lead for example the rural source will be from a single bathroom shower liner, the city source will be from an apartment complex or large dental office xray room.

Only problem with those rural tire shops that will provide WW's is most already have someone they save them for.

[Dieselhorses]

So this lead has different properties than x-ray sheeting?

[OS OK]

The best/cleanest lead I ever had for making pistol casts...don't have to add anything to it...smelt them down into cast pot ingots and go for it.


https://i.imgur.com/8cnRGgc.jpg

[kevin c]

The radiation blocking sheet lead I got is pure. I've read here that regular sheet lead sometimes has antimony added to it, but my impression is that isotope container lead has more (2 to 2.5% in my own experience, 3% reported by others). Some isotope container alloy has tin whereas I don't expect that X-ray sheeting would have any.

[RogerDat]

So this lead has different properties than x-ray sheeting?xray sheeting is almost pure lead. Regulations and standards for thickness required to block certain amount of xray radiation is based on pure lead. So easier to install pure lead than try to figure out what thickness of an alloy one needs. Sheet lead for general use does sometimes have antimony in it, as I understand it antimony helps the lead "flow" when being formed. Lead pipe may also have a touch of antimony.

Isotope containers are an alloy. Typically with 2% to 4% antimony, may even have a tiny amount of tin (less than 1%) So an alloy much like really clean, pure, COWW lead. Without the paint, plastic and coatings used to keep WW from tarnishing the rim and I would say a more consistent alloy. WW's vary in composition individually. When in a 100 pot that sort of averages out but can vary a bit. A batch of identical ISO containers will all be the same alloy.

Plain lead is too soft for bullets except for in a muzzle loader where the soft lead is required. ISO container with the antimony content is hard enough for bullets up to moderate rifle velocities. Half ISO and half plain lead is good hardness for many revolver loads. Adding 1% to 2% tin makes the lead flow better into the mold crevices, giving sharp clean bullet edges, a little tin also makes the bullet tougher and combines with the antimony in a way that makes the lead have a stronger harder grain structure. More than 2% tin isn't generally required so is sometimes considered to be wasting an expensive ingredient to add more. However Lyman #2 alloy is 5% tin and 5% antimony so expensive but very sweet to cast with and makes great bullets. A lot of people go with 3% tin, 3% antimony as a do it all alloy. Essentially COWW plus 3% tin or ISO container and around 3% tin.

All these scrap sources have different composition which makes working with them a take a bit of a detective work. Large batches are your friend as they will provide a consistent pile of ingots. Better to have 100 pounds of consistent alloy cast into ingots then 5 batches of 20 pounds each that are all slightly different.

* I should add in case it was not already known. Small percentage of antimony makes lead much harder, tin makes it harder but not by very much. Antimony is cheaper ingredient. Early black powder cartridge bullets were tin and lead because they had to be harder than muzzle loader bullets to handle the slightly higher velocities from brass cartridges. Modern smokeless powder is generally loaded to high enough velocities that it can't be handled by just tin unless the load is pretty mild or there is a lot of expensive tin. Lyman #2 is 5/5/90 alloy and Hardball is 2/6/92 alloy and hardball is a touch harder than Lyman #2 with less than 1/2 of the expensive tin and only 1% more of the cheaper antimony.

[Hammerlane]

all y'all are in luck if you are in need of Isotope cores I have few I need to get rig of. Drs. Bills Comes with 2 cores and 2 ingots made of the same lead shipped to your door. moving kind of slowly after the Drs office but can ship over the weekends as I have help Just send PM are if you want to be on the list lmk Thanks Rob

[kevin c]

Isotope containers are an alloy. A batch of identical ISO containers will all be the same alloy.


I agree with just about everything RogerDat posted, with just one comment based on personal experience, and one other based on others' experience.

I have found isotope containers to be MOSTLY very consistent, but have had different batches of the same type of container, carefully sorted, vary in Sb content by over half a percent, which I think is a lot for 2.5% alloy. Since I get a lot of containers, I now am in the habit of making large combined lots, like RogerDat, for the sake of consistency, and I indulge myself by getting each tested, rather assuming my prior analysis of the same container will be spot on.

The other observation is that the use of polymer coatings (powder coating and HiTek) seems to allow the use of softer alloys without leading. I haven't experimented myself (I use 3-2 and 3-1 alloys, basically COWW plus a bit of tin), but have read here of folks using coated pure in 45 ACP without leading.

FWIW and YMMV, of course.

[RogerDat]

I agree with just about everything RogerDat posted, with just one comment based on personal experience, and one other based on others' experience.

I have found isotope containers to be MOSTLY very consistent, but have had different batches of the same type of container, carefully sorted, vary in Sb content by over half a percent, which I think is a lot for 2.5% alloy. Since I get a lot of containers, I now am in the habit of making large combined lots, like RogerDat, for the sake of consistency, and I indulge myself by getting each tested, rather assuming my prior analysis of the same container will be spot on.

The other observation is that the use of polymer coatings (powder coating and HiTek) seems to allow the use of softer alloys without leading. I haven't experimented myself (I use 3-2 and 3-1 alloys, basically COWW plus a bit of tin), but have read here of folks using coated pure in 45 ACP without leading.

FWIW and YMMV, of course.

Ah yes the joys of scrap lead. Sometimes what you get is really great and other times not so much. I have not seen many of the ISO containers so I defer to your experience on their variability. Good to know there is that possibility so one can anticipate and deal with it.