first time alloying and using a phone splice case

[ronz]

I have a telephone splice case and think it is probably pure lead.
The hole is a little bigger than the Lee hardness scale so about 1.1
It melts below 600 but will stick/clump to the spoon and anything else put in real bad until its over 650. It does not flow good until close to 700.
I normally cast around 600- 625
I am asking because it doesn't act like my casting lead. The melt point is close but never had the problems with it sticking to the spoon like this before.
And search on phone splice didn't turn up anything.
So does it sound like I have some pure lead or possibly something different?
Should end up with around 40-50 lb once finished
Have some solder sticks but thought would get some lino to alloy it with. How much lino do you think it would take per 10lb to make something useful for pistol 9mm 45
Thanks

[Winger Ed.]

Any of the phone company Lead I ever got-- both the buried cable sheathing stuff, and the big bag looking things were pure, and rather dirty.

But it all melted down OK, and with a lot of stirring, it was easy to flux & clean.

I'd pour it into ingots, and just add the least amount of the solder to the pot as need for a good working alloy.
For slow-ish target loads, I'd start around 10%, maybe less, but no more than it took to get good fill out in the mold.

[ronz]

Thanks
When I started casting I bought a bunch of flat rate boxes of isotope container ingots. So didn't work with pure lead before.
And I just set up my casting stuff after moving 4 years ago. So was a little worried about how pure lead acts compared to the alloy I was used to working with.
Have a nice pile of pure ingots now

[Winger Ed.]

You'll probably find yourself adding your goodie ingots into the pure Lead for boolits to be harder, and easier to cast.

Keep reading here and you can learn more about it, and get into all that BHN stuff.
Just try to resist that urge to over think all of it.:bigsmyl2:

[samari46]

Phone company and electric utility splice cases are for all intents pure lead. However they are usually sealed with 60/40 solder to seal out any dirt and water. The splicers used to dump all their old lead cases and any small pieces of bar solder where I worked. The high voltage ones usually had a die electric grease inside. Still have a few of the chopped up bar solder bits. Frank

[lightman]

I've melted a lot of cable splices and cable sheathing. The lead itself test to be 98.5% lead with traces of other stuff. Close enough to pure to use it as such. But like samari46 says, they are put together with solder. The cable sheathing won't have solder unless it has an air valve looking thingy on it. These were also installed using solder and were put on there to pressurize the cable and keep moisture out. The solder doesn't seem to have much effect on this leads hardness. Tin will make the alloy harder but it takes a lot of it.

Most of this lead that I have had was heavily oxidized and some was kind of scaly looking. That may be why it looks and melts differently than you are used to. You still see some around if you know what to look for but its about a thing of the past.

If you want to read more about it google "cable sheathing" or "lead cable sheathing".

[Cosmic_Charlie]

You might try casting at 700. That works for all the alloys I've used.