What do i have?

[sirgknight]

A retired telephone technician gave me several short pieces (18" to 24") of telephone cable that has a lead sheathing on it. The lead is fairly soft to make the cable flexible. I'm assuming the lead is pure, and the only thing I know to do is to roll up the cable to where it will fit in my melting pot and just melt the lead off of the cable and pull the cable out of the pot. Anyone have any experience with this kind of lead?

http://i66.photobucket.com/albums/h241/sirgknight/DSCI0021-2.jpg
http://i66.photobucket.com/albums/h241/sirgknight/DSCI0020-2.jpg
http://i66.photobucket.com/albums/h241/sirgknight/DSCI0019-1.jpg

[randyrat]

Mostly pure, except the seams are put together with Tin

[sirgknight]

Is there enough tin to make a good cast bullet?

[Muddy Creek Sam]

It makes great Round balls for C&B pistols, Add Tin for BP Cartridge or WW or other harder lead for smokeless Speed.

Sam :D

[rondog]

JMHO, but you'll be much better off to cut it up into small pieces and separate the lead from the wire.

[GOPHER SLAYER]

sirgknight, cable sheathing was always pure lead. I was told back in the 1950S that there was some arsonic mixed in to kill rats that liked to chew on the cable. I never found out if that was true. The cable you show probably had paper wrapped wire. It looks pretty old. If it is some of the last lead covered cable made, it will have a very stiff rubber sheath between the lead and the wire . If this is the case due not put it in the melting pot. The paper covered stuff will make lots of smoke but due little harm otherwise. I doubt you would ever get the melted rubber out of the pot. If these are the only pieces you have ,then there are no solder joints so you don't have tin to worry about. I worked for the phone company for 37 plus years and I have made many a bullet from lead cable. Wear gloves and was your hands well after handling

[lwknight]

Split the sheathing with a hatchet and get the wire out.
It will be a royal PITA to smelt in a pot with the wire in it.

[steg]

Take it apart and smelt it, back in the 70's I came across about 75' of the stuff, and found that was the best way to do it............steg

[44man]

I had about 200# of it once and when made into short pieces the cable pulled out easy. Then I sold the copper and made out pretty good.

[beagle]

Be on the lookout for big bulges about 4" in diameter. These were used as junctions and splice points and have a pretty high tin content.

Good score at any rate./beagle

[sirgknight]

Thanks for all the good advice. It's really nice to have all of this wisdom and experience to fall back on! Live, Listen and Learn....no matter how old we are.

[George Tucker]

Yrs ago, i was a Lineman for the Telephone Co, i took down miles of it, they used to give it to us, cut it in pieces and rolled it up, made muzzleloader bullets for yrs with it, good stuff, i think i am down to about 800 lbs of it now.

[randyrat]

As you melt it you will see the seams melt quicker than the rest. Thats telling you Tin melts at a lower Temp than lead, if you didn't already know that.

That stuff makes great!!! boolits. Slightly soft for some applications but can be use to cut WWs to make them last longer.

People pay good money for 20-1(lead/Tin) lead even 30-1 for large bore boolits.

[odoh]

I only recovered it once ~ and that was too much! It was much smaller and had what seemed to be the old treated cloth insulation that precluded manual separation so I used a torch to melt it off. The cloth insulation appeard to be soaked in something bad that smoked a bunch and just had to be unhealthy. Still have access to it but I and others pass on it now as the potential risks/hazard and low yield wasn't worth it.