Lead Ballast

[BABore]

I got a line on some lead ballast for 30 cents a lb. I'm looking for pure, or close to pure lead. Any unknown additives to this type of lead? I'm assuming that it's ship ballast.

[JSnover]

Ship ballast may be pure, I don't know. Aircraft ballast is often 5% antimony unless it's depleted uranium ballast. DU is/was commonly used on commercial and military aircraft. Some other members clued me in to that. I scored almost 500 lbs last summer and was able to research the stock number to find the content. Type ballast into the search window, you should be able to get some sources there.

[ddeaton]

Ships ballast could be anything. I build sailboats and these guys will scrounge anything that is heavy and will cast into a big sinker. Depends on if its from a homebuilt or commercial craft. Just my 2 cents worth. I have 900 lbs of ingots in my New England catboat of soft lead. I got a bunch of mixed WW's and pure with a project I drug home 3 yrs ago. When the wood rots away I can cast boolits!:drinks:

[BABore]

I found out they were commercial machine counterweights. Looks to be pure (soft lead). Picked up 350 lbs for $100. They had 3 more pieces I passed on for now. One weighed 600 lbs and the other two went about 2,500 lbs each. Stopped down the block and picked up a free bucket of WW's too.

[Tom Herman]

Ships ballast could be anything. I build sailboats and these guys will scrounge anything that is heavy and will cast into a big sinker. Depends on if its from a homebuilt or commercial craft. Just my 2 cents worth. I have 900 lbs of ingots in my New England catboat of soft lead. I got a bunch of mixed WW's and pure with a project I drug home 3 yrs ago. When the wood rots away I can cast boolits!:drinks:


Ballast can be ANYTHING that will melt into an alloy... Last time I bought wheel weights, they said a guy was in and just bought several hundred pounds of wheel weights to melt into ballast...

Happy Shootin'! -Tom