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Last time I went to the metal yard I wound up with about ten lbs ofbattery post clamps. They include the clamping bolts but I wonder if there is any standard for these? Most are pretty soft. I'd like to melt them and put em in with the right group of alloy. Anyone have a clue/
Jim
Their alloy seems to be all over the place. Most of the ones that I have melted were very soft but I have also found solid brass ones and some with Zinc.
I had collected a bunch of them over the years and finally threw them in the pot recently and had a full 20lbs of useable alloy once all the bolts floated to the top. The batch I had seemed to be very much like clip on wheel weights. I used them all to make non gas check wad cutters for low to mid power 44 Mag loads. They gave good mold fill out with no tin added. No leading either.
I bought three 5 gallon buckets of them from a auto-recycler many years ago.
I ingotized all of them and tested the alloy, it was 14-15 BHN.
I’ve just added them to my lead pot which is mostly ww’s and hard range lead that I’ve personally shot in my backyard range. I remove the steel parts. I usually load my stuff light.
I've had a few of them.
The ones I had could be scratched easily, and I just tossed 'em the pot like they were pure Lead.
The ones I've had were very soft. I include them with my SOWW. However I'm always on the lookout for some new / different type of metal or alloy that needs to be culled.
now reading this thread and the hardness of lead pops up again....somewhere Ive seen a chart (bet its on here somewhere,if not it jolly well should be) where you can test hardness of cast lead using different grades of pencil...obviously they are rated on a graduated scale and some clever person has worked out what grade pencil equates to what hardness lead....
https://castboolits.gunloads.com/sho...s-with-pencilsQuote:
Originally Posted by Milky Duck
brilliant thankyou. @ulav8r
Be careful, the very worse pot explosion I ever had was from a battery post, had a bit of water in it that had frozen, when it went in 100 lbs left in a bang. Decorated everything within about 75 feet, house, roof, trees, me, etc.