Howcan I ID lead

[Sharps-Nut]

I bought some lead cast up into muffen sized ingots 4 or 5 years back.  I did not give hardly anything for it and am just now using it.  I notided upon "finding" them again they were nice and shiney and rang a little when dropped on the cement. I melted and fluxed them into 1 lb ingots for casting.  They started melting around 500 and were competely melted fluxed and poured at 550-575.  After cooling I admired how shiney they were and how hard, my thumb nail hardness tester indicated so.  How could I help confirm what I have.  If its got lino or lots of tin I hate to waste it by not diluting with pure tin I already have on hand.  So is there any home brew redneck way of telling what I have.   Thanks again for any help.  SN

[Larry Gibson]

Unless you get it analyzed it's hard to know for 100% sure.  However, most of us who cast a lot use a hardness testor.  The Lee is inexpensive and works well enough.  Pure lead has a BHN of 5.  With the lee testor I mostly get a reading of .102 to .108 on what is guarenteed as pure lead.  Before every one jumps on me about the Lee scale ending at .10 it is easy to interpolate the extra .002 - .008 of the Lee scale.  If you notice the linear slide of BHN numbers to Lee readings it is easy to see that .108 is pretty darn close to a BHN of 5.  I recently got 100 lbs of what was supposed to be pure lead in a trade for some ammo.  It gives a BHN of 7.8 according to the Lee.  That indicates there is probably some antimony in it.  It is very close to recovered .22LR lead so I assumed it had antimony in it.  By adding 4% tin to a small batch of it it gave a BHN of 12 which is harder than new WWs (9-10 BHN) and almost as hard as old WWs (13 - 14 BHN).  Thus you can see that with a hardess tester you SWAG what the alloy may be and end up with some decent results.

Larry Gibson

[dmitch]

Sharps-Nut,

I am going to recommend to you and anyone else who is serious about their bullet casting to contact Wolfe Publishing to request an absolutely excellent reprint from The Handloader Magazine, July-August 1974 entitled "Determining Bullet Alloys"  subtitled "with only a bullet mold and a scale, alloy content can be analyzed with excellent accuracy"  by Rick Jamison.  Rather than groping in the dark with BHN, you can come pretty darn close with L-T-A percentages.

Essentially, you accurately calibrate your mold with pure lead.  This becomes your base line or 1.0000 factor or 100% L, 0% T, 0% A.   All other alloys used in that mold will produce a bullet that is 0 to 15% lighter creating a factor in decimal form.   The table developed by Jamison lists over 200 alloy combinations using a 6 place decimal.....100-0-0 to 77-1-22, but he explains the formula to further develop the table for the very hard foundry alloys.  The only guess work is to observe the bullet hardness and the sprue cutoff for pronounced crystalline appearance (higher antimony) as opposed to softer and less crystalline appearance (lower antimony).   Sounds much more complicated than it is in actual practice.

Great tool if you are so inclined........but paper targets, tin cans, rocks, dirt banks, small game or big game are not going to be happy or feel any discernable difference between a 90-5-5 (Lyman # 2) or 84-4-12 (Linotype).  Just makes the caster more informed and a better steward of his expensive tin and antimony.  

                                                                                                                        dmitch





                                                                                                                      
 

[Lloyd Smale]

you can get a cabin tree hardness tester for about 75 bucks. Any serious caster needs one. Not only to test your alloy but for deals like you just ran into. By your description and melting temp id guess you have lineotype there but there but without actually testing its tough to tell. One way to get some idea is to cast a known bullet and compare it to the same bullet cast of of a known alloy like wheel weights.

[Sharps-Nut]

Thanks guys.  I was affraid I was aking a stupid question.  The crystiline look defines the appearance of an ingot I droped from the mould a little quickly, It looked a bit like cast iron.  I got the stuff in a box at a tractor swap meet. He threw it in on another deal that I only paid 10 bucks for, so the mix at the time really didn't matter.   But as was mentioned I hate to wast good alloys.  Should have hand ladle a few bullets while I had it hot and seen what it weighted in at.   I grew up around casting but only have taken over making the casting alloys in the past fews years.  Dad has just about stopped, at 75 his intrest in the hobby is zero.  But growing up he and later we cast lots of bullets.    Now its me and my son burning powder and casting bullets.  Thanks for the help.  SN

[Tommyt]

Sharp Nut
 Why not ask one of these fine fellows if you could mail them one poured bullet or a small piece of your lead mix
How much or Hard (pun) will it be

Tommyt

[Sharps-Nut]

I was thinking it but really hate to ask.  I got a former student coming over this week to do some casting.  He has pure lead, I got something that seems harder, we will trial and error up an alloy that hopefully works out in the ww to #2 alloy hardness  range and make some pistol bullets.  I plan on starting 2lb of pure to 1 lb of what I have and go from there based on projo weight, fill out, and thumbnail hardness tests.   We neither one make real big fires in our guns so they dont have to be real tough.  SN

[Northern Flatlander]

I have used relative density tests from wt in air to same in water for lead content, only, with good accuracy.
The article info is avail. on Handloaders' "Bullet Making" Annual 2, yr 1991. By Dave Scovill.