I was given some lead. It was supposed to have been used as ballast weights for stage curtains etc. It is dead soft (about 4- 5bh with the pencil test). Thuds when you drop it and dents easily. It came in some big 40nlb chunks. It seemed like pure lead to me. So I decided to cast some .58 roundballs with it. Mind you almost all of my casting has been with hardball or 20-1 when I had a BPCR.
I cut off a chunk with a sawzall and threw it in a LEE mag melter. I fluxed with saw dust and skimmed a ton of dross that seemed bronze in color . I casted some roundballs and seemed like I had to flux every 10 balls or so. Dross seemed to stick to my ladle. So i kept fluxing. I tried candle wax and Marvellux. Same results.
I tried adjusting temp. Which is no easy feat to be consistent on my pot. When casting at between 700 and 850 the results were pretty much the same. The ladle looks like it had a copper colored rust on it. And would collect dross on it really fast if I didnt keep the temp hot. I could not keep the ladle clean. Even with the melt very hot.
I have only cast roundballs a couple times with pure lead and didnt have this issue. I never had this casting bullets with harder alloy.
I cast about 85 and quit. Even as hot as I was casting none were frosted. Some looked like I wasnt waiting long enough to open the mold becasue the sprue doesent look like a clean cut. But most of them seem ok.
I am not a experienced caster compared to many people on this site.
So my question is this. Does this stuff seem contaminated with something?