Any ideas as to what this could be?

[THE_ANTIDOTE]

Don't recall where I got this, but I came across it yesterday while organizing my storage. Obviously it's not complete.

[WILCO]

Pig ingot.

What's the smaller writing on it?

[farmbif]

probably pure lead

[Winger Ed.]

Not necessarily that brand, but blocks like that are how pure Lead is sold at Plumbing supply houses.

[pete501]

The area where it is broken looks more like babbitt or linotype, kind of like grain-like structure. I have babbitt that is in a similar segmented ingot. All of my plumbers ingots have been in 5 pound segments.

How much does it weigh and does it ring when you strike it?

[stubshaft]

I would agree that the crystalline structure of the break indicates it is harder than pure lead.

[THE_ANTIDOTE]

So I smelted a corner down and it melted just as fast as lead, however, this as it was melting has a solder type consistency. Once cooled, it was hard and tough as iron. It was about 1/16" thick and was not easily bent, couldn't even scratch it with my nail like some lead. I made a similar piece out of known lead and I was able to bend and split it in half by hand. This stuff, whatever it is seems quite a bit different. I remelted it along with a piece or two of pure sprue, the end result was again...a very tough alloy. I took a pair of pliers to break it in half and what I was left with was a real gritty/sand grain like ends? Also, when I was smelting it, it had a very yellow/goldish color skim coat on the top versus the bluish grey I have seen with my pure lead. When my known lead cools it usually has a little shine silverish appearance, this stuff frosted over badly and almost took a white look to the surface. Not sure I want to mix this with any lead that I have, but I will mess with it a bit more tomorrow.

[THE_ANTIDOTE]

Okay, so I may have been a bit quick to discount the use of this metal assuming it could be like pete501 mentioned...babbitt. I just read an excellent article on babbitt and it's uses in boolit casting by Felix Robbins in The Los Angeles Silhouette Club website. From the article, it reads as needing 1/4-1/2 a pound of babbitt per 20 lbs of lead. With the very minute sample I made, I was at 50-60% babbitt to lead...no wonder it made for such an extremely tough alloy. I will melt and mix some with my lead, cast some boolits and compare those to my known lead, weigh test them and determine whether it is tin or lead based. I still have to contend with the possibility of too much copper, but I will freeze out what I can...if any. Now, I have another piece of similar properties to this ingot gritty/crystalin composition but it looks like a cow pie/meadow cake. I am going to assume someone was working with the same type of material and it was just a left over glob so I will also experiment with that. I really do appreciate everyone here, I don't know anyone local to me to just go ask about some things like this so I hope I don't impose with with my silly questions.

[Dusty Bannister]

The yellow or golden sheen on the clean surface suggests high tin content. Are the flats of the square surface where the letter is cast about 1 1/2 inch square? Did the larger segmented string of smaller squares ring when tapped with a hammer? The more antimony in the alloy, the more likely you will see a very small grain structure, almost powder like, and shinny very small facets to reflect light. Babbit will not likely have that because it has other components.

If concerned about a copper rich material, keep in mind you will only use a few percent of this to improve the casting of the alloy, and the copper will be a percentage of that total alloy. If running too cold in a bottom pour pot, you might have a problem with copper crystals blocking the flow, but that is easy to fix by increasing the melt temperature a bit more. Good stuff.

[THE_ANTIDOTE]

Dusty Bannister, yes, the squares where the letters sit are 1 1/2". I believe you guys are also right about the tin in this, the yellow sheen is exactly what it is. It does ring when hit with a metal object unlike the thud my lead muffins make. I melted some lead cast a few bullets then added some of this metal to what was left in the laddle, it blended really, really well but it had to be extremely hot or it would turn to oat meal. I fluxed this new mix and casted some more bullets using the same mold. All bullets were thrown into a cup with water. I then weighed and gauged both batches of bullets and other than improved fill out and detail characteristics...there was not much of a change. Both batches averaged very close to the same weight weighing 5 of each. The overall diameter of the bullets seems to be marginally larger and more consistent with the added metal. My little home engineered lead tester leads me to believe the BHN remained just about the same as my soft lead. Keep in mind though, I was just running a sample test with very small amounts to maybe 1-2 pounds of lead and was not going for the most bestest perfectest bullets...I just wanted to fill out the molds and have some of each to compare. I will say though, the added metal did make casting move along much smoother and faster once I got the temperature high up there and produced some nice (to me) looking bullets. Maybe if I had kept going I could have cleaned up my end results. I will try adding a larger quantity my next time around. Oh, I also made a few for my S&W 500 Handi Rifle but will wait to make a higher BHN bullet.

[Dusty Bannister]

The mush you have observed might just be a higher concentration of antimony. It will go back into solution at higher temps and still be fine when casting at about 720 degrees. The cast items will need to age harden before you will get a reliable hardness reading on them. Quenching from the mold will give a false hardness reading. Set some aside to air cool and age harden if you want a better idea of what alloy you are making. Good stuff to have when you need it. Just no reason to waste it after you decide how you want to use it.

[THE_ANTIDOTE]

I dropped them in water cause I was anzy and wanted to pick up and inspect the bullets before making a whole mess of them not because I was attempting quenching...if I knew the amount of arsnic I would be a bit more serious about quenching for hardness. I will give some a couple weeks to settle then I will check again. I'm kinda glad I didn't just throw this stuff out.

[Dusty Bannister]

http://www.lasc.us/HeatTreat.htm

Arsenic is not required for HT/Q hardening to occur. It just seems to work better with Arsenic. The amount of antimony is a factor in how quickly the alloy reaches max hardness and settles down for a period of time.

[oger]

Awfully shiny to not have a fair amount of tin in it but it also seems to break like it is awfully hard.

[THE_ANTIDOTE]

So I just spent about half hour casting some boolits using a larger amount of whatever this metal is and I am very happy with the results. Going by how I choose to test hardness, I am looking at 17-19 BHN. Can't dig a fingernail into any of these. Now I just gotta get some boolit lube or powder coat these, load them, and see what happens.

[Driver man]

very pretty now go and shoot them

[Dusty Bannister]

Actually, it would be of benefit to show the bases of the bullets more than the noses. If the base is not right, the bullet will not fly correctly. It appears that the bases on the two smaller rifle bullets are rounded and the casting might be undersized from what the mold can actually produce.

[THE_ANTIDOTE]

The bases are squared, it's just that I had them on a napkin over my fingers for contrast and because of the weight some just kinda fell in between my fingers. I didn't check them for size, but you are most likely correct as the mix I used may contribute to that. I've only got one mold of each and to find one of perfect size would be an expensive endeavor as I would need to buy several of the same mold or I could have a custom one made. It may be just my technique and not that the molds cast undersize, but if not I will powder coat or try a different mix of alloy to attempt getting the size up, but these are just for plinking so I am not super worried bout precision accuracy and a little bit of lead fouling I can deal with. I don't shoot much so gas cutting, although it could happen, I suspect it won't be severe. These came out of lyman molds. I do have several new brass MP molds just sitting that I could try to compare sizing.

[Postell]

Looks like the babbit we used with recabling elevators or bearing babbit.

[THE_ANTIDOTE]

That's exactly what I discovered. This stuff has made my boolits slick.