Babbitt or lead

[Toolpush]

How would someone tell the difference? Came by a big bar of some heavy metal I got it melted down into my 8 qt. dutch oven with the propane fish cooker.  

I have never cast anything but fishing sinkers but am thinking about casting bullets as of late. Found a bottom pour ladle in an auction. My farther found a small Lee pour pot in a garage sale. Should we just make this unknown metal in to sinkers or Is Babbitt and lead about the same thing?

[Lloyd Smale]

babbit is bearing material that is a combination of lead tin antimony and copper in all different porportions depending on it was used for. The babbit I have is 93%tin 5%antimony and 2% copper. Problem is it can vary so much. about all you can do is cast a bullet out of it and weight it and compare it to a known alloy such as pure lead or wheel weights. The higher the tin content the lighter the bullet will be. Most lead ive found in bars is either pure plumbers lead or babbit. Its a real wasted to cast out of high tin content babbit. Save it to add to other alloys

[Lloyd Smale]

ps id bet if you did your weight comparason Veral could come close to nailing down what you have there.

[Toolpush]

babbit is bearing material that is a combination of lead tin antimony and copper in all different porportions depending on it was used for. The babbit I have is 93%tin 5%antimony and 2% copper.

I thought that lead and tin were two different things. I wish that I had wrote down the name that was on the bar. The size of it was about 3.5x(4-3)x16.  It is a handful when I picked it up. Had to be careful  not to mash your fingers when I moved it.

A old gentleman that used to cast bullets told me that when it was hot enough to catch news print on fire that was the right temp for casting. At first it would just blacken it but I kept the fire going till it would flame right after dipping the newsprint into the molten liquid. Then I skimmed it. Has anybody else used news print to judge the temp?

[Lead pot]

Toolpush.

It could be most anything,I used ingots like that for plumbing when we whiped lead joints, it could be solder like 40-60. when you said the old gentleman said when the news print would burn it was ready.I used to test with news paper,when it would turn brown with a dip in the solder it would be ready to wipe the joint.
Babbit takes more heat to melt I used that for pouring seats in ammonia valves.
Do like Lloyd said pour a pure lead bullet and make one out of ww or  solder if you have some and compair them if you dont have a tool like a saeco lead hardness tester.

Dont throw it away it will make a good add for bullet alloy.The ingot is a little big for a plumbing shop usually in 5lb in a 25 lb lot.We made moulds for scrap lead cut out of pipe cut in halve.
Lino type comes in ingots like that.Check the hartdness.

We used to melt down old carburators from some old cars,they were made mostly out of babbit.
Lp.

[Lloyd Smale]

lead and tin are definately different metals. What i meant was that some babbit has tin and some of it has tin and lead the older babbits that they used for bearings was a lead based babbit . The epa clamped down on it and they started making tin based babbits. Also high speed bearings usually have a higher tin content.

babbit is bearing material that is a combination of lead tin antimony and copper in all different porportions depending on it was used for. The babbit I have is 93%tin 5%antimony and 2% copper.

I thought that lead and tin were two different things. I wish that I had wrote down the name that was on the bar. The size of it was about 3.5x(4-3)x16.  It is a handful when I picked it up. Had to be careful  not to mash your fingers when I moved it.

A old gentleman that used to cast bullets told me that when it was hot enough to catch news print on fire that was the right temp for casting. At first it would just blacken it but I kept the fire going till it would flame right after dipping the newsprint into the molten liquid. Then I skimmed it. Has anybody else used news print to judge the temp?

[Tom W.]

The babbitt I can get is Nickel Babbitt, that we use at the sawmill for sawguides. Our supplier is located about 18 miles away from me, and all I have to do is ask. I'll combine some of the babbitt with pure lead to make my bullets. The more babbitt, the harder they get.
I cast a few bullets at work one day of the pure babbitt, and took them home to weigh them. The mold was supposed to be casting some .454 bullets @ 252 gr. The actual weight was 185 grains each, as weighed on my Pact BBK-II scale. That's a heck of a difference.
 My cast .309 bullets average 159 grains, as opposed the the advertised weight of 160. My .475 bullets are averaging 405 grains after being sized and lubed.
I can't recall offhand what the actual weights if the .430 and .452 bullets are, but they have gone through 8 inches of pressure treated pine without serious deformation.