I have three big bricks of mystery lead that I've had for a couple years, assumed it was wheel weight lead or something. I decided today to melt it into ingots.
They weigh about 25 lbs each and won't fit into my 20 lb Lee pot, so I did what I usually do in this kind of case; I sat one on top of the pot and heated it with a propane torch so it would drip and melt into the pot.
I was surprised when it melted very fast, and the sides that were sitting on the top of the pot began to melt too, and drip down the side. It melts at a much lower temp than any lead I've ever had. When I pour it into ingots, it takes an incredibly long time to solidify. It also has a very crystalline surface.
It is pretty hard. I don't have a hardness tester, but I would bang a known ingot against the brick before melting to get an idea of hardness, and it seems about as hard as linotype. I weighed the ingots dropped from the Lee ingot mould. They normally weigh right at one pound with WW lead, and with this stuff they are about 14 ounces.
1. Melts at a low temp
2. about 88% of the weight of WW lead
3. hard like linotype
What is this stuff? Babbit or something else?