Winchester Slug lead?

[Nora]

I've come across a couple of boxes of 12 gauge Winchester Super X 3" mag slugs. The brass is corroded and would be unsafe to fire. I'm going to pull them apart to salvage the lead. It's soft enough to scratch with my thumb nail. Would it be a good assumption that these are pure lead?

Thanks in advance

Nora

[sagacious]

Well, if you really want to be precise, then no, that assumption may not hold up. Your guess is intuitive and quite logical, but here's the rub. When the slugs are swaged, the lead alloy is work-softened. That compromizes the ability to guess the relative alloy component with the "thumbnail scratch test."

The slugs are perhaps more likely to be a percent tin and maybe a couple percent antimony. The way to get a better handle on the as-cast hardness (to then divine the alloy component) is to melt down the slugs and cast them into both air cooled and water-quenched ingots. Then take hardness measurements on the ingots, and again in two or three weeks. That will give you a much better assessment of the hardness and composition.

Good job on the salvage. Hope this helps, good luck! :drinks:

[lwknight]

A couple simple and not so precise tattle tails are:

Pure lead will turn dark within 48 hours of pouring in open air. Failure to darken indicates the presence of tin.

2 ways to detect antimony. Slow cooled ingots will have a chrystallish finish on the bottom and if you pour from a spout, you will see antimony chrystals pile up around the pour area.