I had been sitting on an old ammo box from some Bulgarian 8X56R ammo for awhile. I had heard it was tin and figured I'd use it for alloying. Well, it melted ok... seemed to melt a little harder than tin usually does, but it did melt, in my Lee pot. But it didn't 'just' melt. I had to help it with a propane torch. Which, given the low melting point of tin, made me quite suspicious. Poured it out into small ingots.
Ignoring the signs that this wasn't tin, I tried to alloy it with lead today. No go. Hard to melt and when it did, it didn't really want to blend in- not like alloying tin at all.
Not sure if this was zinc or aluminum or an alloy of the two, but it was useless to me. Fortunately I only ruined about 4 pounds of lead.
Anyone know for sure what this stuff was, that is, what they used for the spam can type ammo boxes in the 40s in bulgaria? Long shot, but worth asking.