PDA

View Full Version : Battery cable ends safe?


z4lunch
02-04-2009, 08:23 PM
Steve here... My buckets of wheel weights I picked up today had a bunch of battery cable ends... Are they safe to met down...Are they pure lead?
Thanks
357maximum
02-04-2009, 08:46 PM
The ends and terminals are ok, they can be anything in composition though. I bought out the remnants of a hardware/parts store and ended up with a few five gallon buckets of used/new ends...some seemed soft others were ww or harder....so it depends, but they are all safe IMHO. It is the innards of the battery such as the plates you want to steer clear of...I have used it when I did not know anybetter and it made riversinkers OK, but prevailing wisdom says leave them alone, and you do not get much anyhow ..so I leave the guts alone.
nicholst55
02-05-2009, 05:39 AM
Years ago when I was a young soldier and too poor to buy either lead or ammo, I used to scrounge used battery clamps and lead from the Motor Pool and busted batteries and our Battery Shop.

The battery clamps that the Army used made pretty good boolits as I recall, but the busted up battery plates were too much trouble to work with. I found another source of free lead at a helicopter maintenance shop - their Prop and Rotor Shop. They used lead weights to balance rotors and such, although I never knew the details of how they did it.

I shot a lot of lead that used to belong to Uncle Sam back in the 70s! Wish I could stumble across a bunch more free lead!
Shiloh
02-05-2009, 07:00 AM
Steve here... My buckets of wheel weights I picked up today had a bunch of battery cable ends... Are they safe to met down...Are they pure lead?
Thanks

Yes and maybe.

Certainly they are almost pure. There are frequently a few cable ends in batches of wheel weights. A score last fall from a Tires Plus franchise had several.

Shiloh
Bill*
02-05-2009, 09:07 AM
Well nicholst55.... as a taxpayer in the 70's I figure you owe me one / three hundred millionth of that lead as I payed for it:mrgreen:
GP100man
02-05-2009, 12:26 PM
i had a 1/2 bucket of battery ends , some were softer than others (side cutter test) so i smelted em all down came out about 10bhn on my lee tester.


GP100man:castmine:
nicholst55
02-05-2009, 07:39 PM
Well nicholst55.... as a taxpayer in the 70's I figure you owe me one / three hundred millionth of that lead as I payed for it:mrgreen:

Aw gee, Bill - everything I was using was scrap lead - and I was paying taxes too! :mrgreen: