Any other lead for casting besides wheel weights?

tootall said:
I wondered that also. So I asked the guy doing radiographic testing of welds at work about lead I got from a dental office demo.
He compared it to shining a flashlight. Once the light is turned off, the object no longer contains any light.
I suspect that if the old lead sheets were still glowing, they would be treated as hazmat, and tightly controlled. And Workers Comp would have all sorts of rules to handle it.

Anyone know FOR SURE?
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There are two main ways to X Ray something. One is with an X Ray generator which is the "light bulb" type. The other is with a radiation source. Even that is "shuttered" so it's an open/close deal. While it is true that there is a lot fo regulation in the X Ray business, I am not aware of any requirements for disposing of the lead sheets. I am local to you and I have access to a radiation meter. (I service some X Ray equipment) If you ever want a bunch of lead checked out, I can meter it. Honestly though, I think the risk is very low. I work on the large X Ray machines and I feel safe climbing inside them to service them. I read them with my meter and when they are off, the meter only shows background radiation levels. It's usually even lower than I read outside.
 
LUTNIT said:
The guy's analogy is more or less correct for electromagnetic radiation. That's part of the same spectrum as light, radio, microwaves, etc. and if lead was exposed to it at some point there wouldn't be much worry. Metals that absorb electromagnetic radiation gain an incredibly slight electric charge as a result; this is normally detected as a static charge if the metal is exposed for a long enough period of time. Anything not absorbed in this way is reflected. A strong enough radiation could ionize the lead to a radioactive form of lead but this is highly unlikely without absolutely massive amounts of very high energy radiation like gamma rays.

The one I'd be worried about (specifically with the crucibles used to transport isotopes) is particulate radiation which is actual particles which are radioactive. That's the stuff that gets blown on the wind from the Fukushima and Chernobyl reactors and deposits in the soil, animals, people, and everything else. Shielding panels from an x-ray machine likely had no exposure to particulate radiation and was just blasted with electromagnetic radiation. Something that actually contained a radioactive substance could have particulate radiation present on it physically. How much is there? What's the safe limit? Does smelting, casting, or shooting release it into dust that can be breathed in? Is it enough radiation to worry about? I don't know the answer to any of these questions.

If what you got was backstop shielding from an x-ray machine I wouldn't be worried. I'd just be worried about anything that physically contained a radioactive substance.
X-ray machines used in medicine don't use radioactive substances to generate the x-rays but a mechanism similar to a CRT so there is little risk of contamination unless the machine is still on.
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Thank you for the detailed answer. The lead was thin sheets that used to be sandwiched between sheets of drywall in a dental office. When my friend ripped down the walls for a rebuild, he saved the lead for me.
BTW, with the new machines putting out far less radiation, the dental office standard is now just two sheets of 'roc.

KeltecFan said:
There are two main ways to X Ray something. One is with an X Ray generator which is the "light bulb" type. The other is with a radiation source. Even that is "shuttered" so it's an open/close deal. While it is true that there is a lot fo regulation in the X Ray business, I am not aware of any requirements for disposing of the lead sheets. I am local to you and I have access to a radiation meter. (I service some X Ray equipment) If you ever want a bunch of lead checked out, I can meter it. Honestly though, I think the risk is very low. I work on the large X Ray machines and I feel safe climbing inside them to service them. I read them with my meter and when they are off, the meter only shows background radiation levels. It's usually even lower than I read outside.
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Thanks also.
For dental, its the "Bulb" method. For X-raying welds, it is a little pill of isotope in a heavy shielded box. The pill is removed from the container by a long crank affair.

tjsudbury said:
I wasn't responding to your post
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Mine perhaps? If so, it was a bit redundant, as I made much the same point.

tootall said:
I suspect that if the old lead sheets were still glowing, they would be treated as hazmat, and tightly controlled. And Workers Comp would have all sorts of rules to handle it.
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1600 lbs. ! Dam, congrats on that !! :)

mg34 said:
lead ww are getting hard to find but if you look around you will find enough for your use, and the soft lead can be used for blending to make it harder for handgun use. I have been collecting ww for years and have about 1600 lbs in 1 lb bars on hand to keep me going for years. having this much lead on hand is almost as good as gold bars as it is getting hard to find and lots of reloaders will be looking for it. always mark your bars so that you can tell what is soft and what is ww.
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Back to the question asked - if you're set on scrounging lead, I'd look in scrap yards for linotype lead. It makes good hard bullets that can be driven fast as cast bullets go. Look at what wins the matches at the Cast Bullet Association. The lino will have to be softened if you need an alloy to hunt with as it can shatter on impact. The other source for scrap lead is the sheet lead/plumber's lead, the nearly pure lead. It needs tin added to slightly harden it and make it flow better.
I'm old and have scrounged a long time, hence already have all the wheel weight I'll ever use. The two alloys I use are wheel weights + 2% tin for hard bullets and 18:1 lead and tin for softer ones/hunting bullets.
If I was in your position, I'd look hard at the cost of buying my bullet alloy.You get a known, clean alloy without spending so much time trying to scrounge material of questionable composition, It will be repeatable, and last time I checked it wasn't prohibitively expensive if you consider the cost per bullet. Try people like Canada Metal or Purity Casting Alloys. Hope this helps.
Grouch
 
Anybody have any idea what the composition of lead scuba diving weights is?

Are they pure lead or a mix?

Someone also suggested to me yesterday to check marina supply places because boats usually use lead as ballist weights. Anyone done that?
 
soulchaser said:
Anybody have any idea what the composition of lead scuba diving weights is?

Are they pure lead or a mix?

Someone also suggested to me yesterday to check marina supply places because boats usually use lead as ballist weights. Anyone done that?
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Diving weights and boat ballast could be anything that melts. Might not be suitable for bullets. I have melted a bunch of the stuff, and it's common to find zinc in the mix. Any I come across, I get a few test samples first.
 
Also, on the West Coast, diving weights new or old, tend to run almost $3.00 per lb. Not worth the effort, especially since we don't know the composition of them.
 
Just buy it if you have the money. The company is in the GTA - minimum order is $500 see details on the site. ht tp://marsmetal.com/pig-lead/
 
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So, if I were to buy a commercially prepared alloy for casting, what lead/tin/antimony mix should I be looking to get for handgun and what for hunting?

Would soft alloy mix be good for both?

Mars metals has a mix of 94% lead, 6% antimony they say is for casting bullets.
 
sawzall said:
Just cut the terminals off and save them. Rest of the battery, not enough lead to make it worth while and too dangerous. Lead inside a modern maintenance free battery generally isn't in a form we can use anyway.
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This,
Lots of useless lead and the fumes are not good...
Some mercury marine batteries have massive lead terminals with wing nut and clamp terminals. I always bust those off when I see em.
 
The 94 -6 alloy is not specifically familiar to me, but should make a medium to hard bullet that could be made even harder by dropping the hot bullets from the mold into cold water. It would probably be better with a touch of tin. 92 lead-6 antimony-2 tin is one I've seen offered before.

The answer to your question is - it depends - on what your handgun will digest(possibly both), and how high velocity you expect from your hunting ammunition. The soft alloy bullets will expand at lower velocity(possibly about 1600fps for a flat nosed .30 cal), but will also start to lead at lower velocity.
The other factor is that until you try the two alloys you won't KNOW which one your firearm prefers.
Grouch
 
I work at a recycling yard and we get all kinds of lead coming in,plumbing, dive weights,boat ballast even some marked ingots sometimes but what I look out for is the lino-type.
Linotype is not only very hard it is also brittle, if you bend a sheet of it far enough it will snap,linotype is becoming scarce due to digital printing equipment being a lot easier way to print stuff. The alloy casts very nicely but is itself too hard for most bullets so I mix it with near pure ie: plumbing/roof flashing lead until I can just barely scratch it with my thumbnail.
I am going to invest in a hardness tester and go all scientific with my alloys but so far I have had no problem with leading in the bores, this may change as I start casting for rifles.

Here is a link to some good reading on the subject:

http://www.lasc.us/castbulletalloy.htm#recyclebatteries

 
Saw Linotype on an American site, Rotometals.

They've got all kinds of different ingots of different compositions for bullet casting. Their Linotype recipe is 84% lead, 12% antimony, 4% tin.

They're in San Francisco, so we'd probably get hammered on shipping.
 
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