Possible to date lead bullet fragments by color/appearance?

[Alt767]

[Winger Ed.]

If you can find the entrance of the ball into the tree- count the rings coming out from outer end of the path it took going in
and add a few years for the hole to have closed up under the bark.
The tree should have healed, and closed up over the bullet path as it grew new rings.

I'd question, and do a little research on the Oak Island guys carbon dating Lead.
I'd heard some where they can only carbon date things that were once alive,
or had been part of living material like a plant, old blood, nerves inside teeth, or a animal part.
Maybe there was some wood around or packed in a crevice of it. But they couldn't date the Lead itself.

Counting rings on a old West Texas mesquite tree will be like counting pages on the end of a rolled up news paper.
Make a clean cut, and get it wet. That will help.

[Rickf1985]

2 guys fighting over lead from a berm split by 3-4 months, freakin' amazing. I would tell them neither of you can have it and split it up with others willing to share. But definitely leave those two out of it.

Just went back and saw how old that original post was and realized this was dredged up from the dead. But instead of deleting my post I will leave it just as an aside to how idiotic some people can be. I also wonder what the outcome of that deal was.

[Dusty Bannister]

As I recall, the purpose of the test of the lead cross was to determine the source of the lead. Having determined that location, they found the lead mine had operated within a certain span of years. There is the assumption that the cross was produced at that time. It could have just as easily been produced a few hundred years later from old ore samples. Not unlike the use of pewter being used today from melting down old stock.

Sort of like the State of CA finding lead residue along the freeways and saying it was the result of lead leaching out of tire weights, instead of the vapor of lead resulting from gasoline used for decades. "Junk Science"?

[Winger Ed.]

Just went back and saw how old that original post was and realized this was dredged up from the dead.

I noticed that too.

I was going to suggest they go to Thunder Dome! "Two go in..... One comes out"

[ulav8r]

Lead can't be carbon dated, but an accurate measurement of the other elements in the alloy "might" allow one to determine where the lead came from.

[ulav8r]

Lead can't be carbon dated, but an accurate measurement of the other elements in the alloy "might" allow one to determine where the lead came from. That is what was done on the Oak Island cross.

[oley55]

Is it possible for me to know how old harvested bullet fragments are just by looking at them? How quickly do typical lead bullet fragments turn black and oxidize in a hot southern state like Alabama?

I think we are being Trolled, but still entertaining to read the responses.