Battery lead for casting bullets?
- Thread starter jasonf
- Start date
saskgunowner101
CGN Ultra frequent flyer
- Location
- near Prince Albert
Long story short, don't. Melting the plates? or whatever releases nasty stuff. Someone will be along with details.
Pretty sure I read somewhere it releases arsenic, if not arsenic something else that's just as nasty. Immediately dangerous to life and health. Lead from batteries has to be smelted (not melted) in a high temp furnace by folks who know what they are doing......not me
By melting battery plates, you'll get the following - lead, sulphur, arsenic and cadmium. Additionally you'll probably get some polyethylene, nylon and maybe some aramid fibres. When you heat the plates, you'll definitely release some Hydrogen Sulphide gas - which, apart from being carcinogenic is explosive. What you'll end up with, apart from a bleeding nose, reduced ability to smell, dizziness and vomiting and an ugly, possibly illegal to dispose of mess - is lead that's flakey (it contains a lot of calcium to reduce it's susceptibility to the acid it's soaked in) and requires a ton of careful chemistry to make it useable.
Yup, all of the above.
When I was much younger and like all men, avoided reading the directions with an absolute diligence, I found an old pile of batteries in the bush, where an old logging camp used to be for about 20 years. All sorts of neat stuff was back there. I pulled out a lot of stuff for the scrap dealer. The batteries were a real gold mine for me. I had just gotten into shooting the new Lyman plains rifle in 50 cal that they had made up for them by Pedersoli. I still have it, 40+ years later.
To me, in those live forever, infallible days, lead was lead. They were still joining water pipes with lead solder and other things, like adding it to paint used on eating utensils and pots. What could go wrong??? A lifetime supply of lead was right in front of me. We had a hole in the back forty where we dumped old fence posts that were to full of staples and nails or just to rotten to make firewood. I threw all of those old batteries onto the pile of posts and set it on fire. I wanted to burn off the black rubber casings. Well that darned fire really got hot. Well seasoned 10 year old fir and pine posts throw a lot of heat when they burn, no matter how rotten they are.
The rubber burned off well but the lead all melted and sank through the ash to bottom of the hole. I shoveled the ash away and there it was. full of charcoal, dirt and who knows what else. Once the fire in the pit started, I left the area because it would take hours to burn down and several hours more before it would be cool enough to get near. Safety had little or nothing to do with it.
After I picked up as much of it as I could find, I had about three hundred and fifty pounds of lead. This was all thrown into an old cast iron bathtub for further processing. Again, a bunch of old fence posts, cut in half provided the heat source. The livestock wasn't overly happy as the tub was their watering trough. It was spring time and the creek through the pasture was flowing freely. Fussy buggers.
Again, I didn't stick around, again, not for safety reasons but because watching that much lead come to a melting point is about as exciting as watching paint dry. I came back often enough to add wood to the fire and scrape off the crud. Lots of fresh air and when you are close to that much molten lead, you stand up wind. I was lucky enough to have special hot purpose gloves, meant for handling hot glass molds and a good leather apron. OH, molten lead will find the little holes around the tongue of your shoes and seep through onto your feet. Socks do not provide any protection whatsoever.
I used a metal water dipper to ladle out the molten lead and pour it into old used bread pans. Heavy? Yes. To much? yes. I found that out the hard way to. Hey, give me a break, I was doing all of this on a try and learn basis. The only computers available at that time were in highly classified government and university bunkers. Books, were hard come by and certainly not available from the library. I used the knowledge I had learned from melting glass for bottles to melt the lead.
Anyway, the end product, which I later melted and poured into smaller, more easily managed blocks in cupcake pans and later into a cast iron stew pot, heated over a coal fueled brazier, oh how times have changed, and poured them into molds to cast .500 diameter round balls and .512 diameter maxi balls. Later, I used it for .359 diameterx162gr bullets for my SAA Uberti 357 magnum.
I will admit, the round balls were a bit hard to start, so I used thinner patches, made from old alter linen. The maxis were just about perfect and the Crisco lard used for lube seemed to do the trick. The projectiles were accurate and held together on target extremely well. I did recover a round ball on the far side of a deer, after it penetrated a shoulder blade and both lungs to become embedded in a rib on the far side. I never did recover a 500+ grain maxi. In the 357, I had to learn the art of sizing through a press and lubing with tallow/beeswax. Even then, I got some leading.
One thing I will say, that lead always stayed shiny. It didn't oxidize in the container over the winter like the pure lead castings did. It was much harder than pure lead as well.
OP, I tend to get a bit carried away with past experiences. This worked for me quite well. The recycled battery lead did the job nicely, didn't damage my firearm and because I had a fool's luck, I got away with my meanderings in melting and casting bullets.
The point of all this is, go for it. Use some common sense and take proper precautions. Recycle all of this stuff out of doors. Stay out of the fumes, wear a face shield. Wear proper apparel. Welding apron and gloves are just a start. Use leather covers over your shoes. If you are concerned about the fumes, wear a properly filtered breather.
Now, it never happened to me but a friend liked my lead and tried a similar experiment with the lead from two large 32 volt batteries he had. He used a large cast iron pot, over a propane flame. Very hot, very fast. All of the impurities reacted at the same time and started spitting little molten globules all over the area in a 3 meter diameter around the pot. Eventually it all settled down and all was well. His recycled lead performed well in his firearms as well. He never attempted to do it again though.
IMHO, stick to the right stuff the first time, every time. In the end, there is a lot less hassle or chance of injury and you have exactly what you want. Now, I only use wheel weights or pure scrap lead that I can salvage or buy at reasonable prices. My wife is married to a cheap bugger and I find a buck a pound is way to much to pay IMHO. If I am going to pay that much, I will just purchase already cast bullets from a commercial manufacturer, like the Bullet Barn.
When I was much younger and like all men, avoided reading the directions with an absolute diligence, I found an old pile of batteries in the bush, where an old logging camp used to be for about 20 years. All sorts of neat stuff was back there. I pulled out a lot of stuff for the scrap dealer. The batteries were a real gold mine for me. I had just gotten into shooting the new Lyman plains rifle in 50 cal that they had made up for them by Pedersoli. I still have it, 40+ years later.
To me, in those live forever, infallible days, lead was lead. They were still joining water pipes with lead solder and other things, like adding it to paint used on eating utensils and pots. What could go wrong??? A lifetime supply of lead was right in front of me. We had a hole in the back forty where we dumped old fence posts that were to full of staples and nails or just to rotten to make firewood. I threw all of those old batteries onto the pile of posts and set it on fire. I wanted to burn off the black rubber casings. Well that darned fire really got hot. Well seasoned 10 year old fir and pine posts throw a lot of heat when they burn, no matter how rotten they are.
The rubber burned off well but the lead all melted and sank through the ash to bottom of the hole. I shoveled the ash away and there it was. full of charcoal, dirt and who knows what else. Once the fire in the pit started, I left the area because it would take hours to burn down and several hours more before it would be cool enough to get near. Safety had little or nothing to do with it.
After I picked up as much of it as I could find, I had about three hundred and fifty pounds of lead. This was all thrown into an old cast iron bathtub for further processing. Again, a bunch of old fence posts, cut in half provided the heat source. The livestock wasn't overly happy as the tub was their watering trough. It was spring time and the creek through the pasture was flowing freely. Fussy buggers.
Again, I didn't stick around, again, not for safety reasons but because watching that much lead come to a melting point is about as exciting as watching paint dry. I came back often enough to add wood to the fire and scrape off the crud. Lots of fresh air and when you are close to that much molten lead, you stand up wind. I was lucky enough to have special hot purpose gloves, meant for handling hot glass molds and a good leather apron. OH, molten lead will find the little holes around the tongue of your shoes and seep through onto your feet. Socks do not provide any protection whatsoever.
I used a metal water dipper to ladle out the molten lead and pour it into old used bread pans. Heavy? Yes. To much? yes. I found that out the hard way to. Hey, give me a break, I was doing all of this on a try and learn basis. The only computers available at that time were in highly classified government and university bunkers. Books, were hard come by and certainly not available from the library. I used the knowledge I had learned from melting glass for bottles to melt the lead.
Anyway, the end product, which I later melted and poured into smaller, more easily managed blocks in cupcake pans and later into a cast iron stew pot, heated over a coal fueled brazier, oh how times have changed, and poured them into molds to cast .500 diameter round balls and .512 diameter maxi balls. Later, I used it for .359 diameterx162gr bullets for my SAA Uberti 357 magnum.
I will admit, the round balls were a bit hard to start, so I used thinner patches, made from old alter linen. The maxis were just about perfect and the Crisco lard used for lube seemed to do the trick. The projectiles were accurate and held together on target extremely well. I did recover a round ball on the far side of a deer, after it penetrated a shoulder blade and both lungs to become embedded in a rib on the far side. I never did recover a 500+ grain maxi. In the 357, I had to learn the art of sizing through a press and lubing with tallow/beeswax. Even then, I got some leading.
One thing I will say, that lead always stayed shiny. It didn't oxidize in the container over the winter like the pure lead castings did. It was much harder than pure lead as well.
OP, I tend to get a bit carried away with past experiences. This worked for me quite well. The recycled battery lead did the job nicely, didn't damage my firearm and because I had a fool's luck, I got away with my meanderings in melting and casting bullets.
The point of all this is, go for it. Use some common sense and take proper precautions. Recycle all of this stuff out of doors. Stay out of the fumes, wear a face shield. Wear proper apparel. Welding apron and gloves are just a start. Use leather covers over your shoes. If you are concerned about the fumes, wear a properly filtered breather.
Now, it never happened to me but a friend liked my lead and tried a similar experiment with the lead from two large 32 volt batteries he had. He used a large cast iron pot, over a propane flame. Very hot, very fast. All of the impurities reacted at the same time and started spitting little molten globules all over the area in a 3 meter diameter around the pot. Eventually it all settled down and all was well. His recycled lead performed well in his firearms as well. He never attempted to do it again though.
IMHO, stick to the right stuff the first time, every time. In the end, there is a lot less hassle or chance of injury and you have exactly what you want. Now, I only use wheel weights or pure scrap lead that I can salvage or buy at reasonable prices. My wife is married to a cheap bugger and I find a buck a pound is way to much to pay IMHO. If I am going to pay that much, I will just purchase already cast bullets from a commercial manufacturer, like the Bullet Barn.
Wouldn't it be great if we could smelt batteries at home. Almost unlimited lead.
Friend's business just sold several thousand pounds to scrap yard for like 10c a pound. Local places like Metalex has commercial smelters to turn them into variety of lead, chemicals and plastic.
Friend's business just sold several thousand pounds to scrap yard for like 10c a pound. Local places like Metalex has commercial smelters to turn them into variety of lead, chemicals and plastic.
Spoiler alert!!! This is only a joke so no need to start a dog pile. There are other options available to explore LONG before using battery lead. Here is a suggestion. Head down to Walmart on a Saturday with a pair of stout pliers and remove all the wheel weights from the cars in the parking lot. That may be safer than dealing with a battery. If you see any cars that have Outlaw MC identifiers leave those ones alone. The battery is a better option. Seriously I +1 everybody that advises against using batteries.
I have melted down hundreds of them in my youth. Took hours to do it and the smell is pretty bad. Haven't did it in a while so the newer batters would probbably be a pain. Those old tractor batterys from days gone by had really big posts and the lead that connected the plates was big and heavy. I used to take the plates all out and then beat them to take all the powder off the plates so just the lead remained and then melt them down. Was still a lot of slag left. The lead worked well in my 30-30 with gas checks on 115gr. bullets.
(My bolding) I recently asked someone about the recycling of used newer batteries compared to old, and they did make the comment that recovering new battery lead meant it could only be used for batteries ever again. This is likely why.
Last edited:
Originally, the battery plate "Grids" were a lead/antimony alloy, and would cast up quite well
However, the Lead/Antimony caused a constant water loss in the charge/discharge cycle.
This meant that one had to add water to the battery cells periodically.
This is not compatible with a maintenance free battery, so the alloy of the plate grids was changed to lead/calcium.
This reduces the water losses dramatically, but makes for lousy casting.
Cadmium is often present as well, and Cadmium fumes are very toxic.
Better to recycle the batteries another way. Wheel weights are a very good source as yet.
Unfortunately, the bad image lead has garnered is phasing out lead wheel weights as well.
Regards, Dave.
However, the Lead/Antimony caused a constant water loss in the charge/discharge cycle.
This meant that one had to add water to the battery cells periodically.
This is not compatible with a maintenance free battery, so the alloy of the plate grids was changed to lead/calcium.
This reduces the water losses dramatically, but makes for lousy casting.
Cadmium is often present as well, and Cadmium fumes are very toxic.
Better to recycle the batteries another way. Wheel weights are a very good source as yet.
Unfortunately, the bad image lead has garnered is phasing out lead wheel weights as well.
Regards, Dave.
Smelting is the proper term for transforming the lead compounds in batteries to pure lead.
If you melt down a battery you will get about a pound or two of lead, from the bus bars and the posts. The rest of the lead is in the form of lead oxide, and lead sulfate which is NOT elemental lead, and simply MELTING them will never give you lead. It will give you lead oxide, and lead sulfate. The lead oxide and sulfates need to be smelted, which is a chemical reaction and changes the composition of the lead oxides and sulfates.
Smelting lead requires a blast furnace (oxygen or air injection) and temperatures of up to 1260 degrees Celsius (2300 F), just a little warmer than your typical melting pot. It's not just melting of the lead oxides and sulfates, but they to be chemically "reduced" (chemically changed) typically by the addition of substantial amounts of carbon, often in the form of coke (coal) and sometimes scrap iron is added. The calcium in the lead oxide is irrelevant, becasue smelting burns/melts it off. Calcium has a melting point of 842°C (1548°F), so it's less than the temperature in the blast furnace.
The blast furnace is charged with the lead scrap, plus, limestone, and coke, and often other reducing agents. The blast furnace is lit, often with a natural gas flame to get to temperature, and then it's the coke that burns and also reduces (the carbon combines with oxides and sulphates) to leave the lead behind. Air or oxygen is also injected to get temperatures up to where they need to be. However the chemical reduction requires a low/non oxygen environment. The opposite of reduction is oxidation. The molten limestone (which is calcium carbonate) is a flux. This is a wee bit different than simply "melting" lead.
Consider it similar to aluminum and aluminum oxide (white corrosion that forms on aluminum). Aluminum melts at 660°C (1220°F) but aluminum oxide melts at 2,072 °C (3,762 °F). They are two completely different substances. Aluminum can be obtained from aluminum oxide, by smelting, similar to lead.
That is incorrect. The SMELTING produces lead of various qualities, depending on how refined it is. Calcium is burned/melted off, just like the limestone flux in the blast furnace. Depending on the use, the lead can be refined to whatever purity or mixture they want, even absolutely pure lead, which is very commonly done.
Last edited:
Lead is usually only smelted to the point where it's in sheets, then it is refined by electrofining. Many of the contaminants in the batteries would be taken off as slag during smelting, but to get pure lead, pouring it into plates, putting it into a special solution, and hooking a wire up to it and letting the magic of electricity do it's work is the easiest. The info is available to do that on a small scale, build the voltage and current regulator, etc. I believe it's called the Woll process. This will get you 99.99% pure lead. After that, you can remelt into a bar, and take off the antimony, then cadnium, then arsenic, etc. Simply by changing the solution and current voltage and volume...
You could smelt those batteries down, but I'd advise against it as some of the compounds released could be very dangerous to your health....
A friend of mine who owns a scrap yard asked me if I'd want to set up something that would reduce all his incoming high value scrap to base mineral as he thinks he'll get more for that. I told him that I wasn't interested at the time...
You could smelt those batteries down, but I'd advise against it as some of the compounds released could be very dangerous to your health....
A friend of mine who owns a scrap yard asked me if I'd want to set up something that would reduce all his incoming high value scrap to base mineral as he thinks he'll get more for that. I told him that I wasn't interested at the time...
That's correct.
However that only refines lead, it doesn't reduce lead oxides to lead as you noted. So, in short, it doesn't work with batteries because batteries don't contain (much) lead. They contain mainly lead oxide and lead sulphate.
As I posted earlier batteries, can't simply be "melted" down to get "lead". You get lead oxide and lead sulphate, neither of which are elemental lead. Just like aluminium oxide isn't aluminium or iron oxide (rust) isn't steel/iron.
Reducing (opposite of oxidizing) using a carbon source, in a non-oxygen atmosphere, is how the oxides and sulphates are removed, leaving lead (and other metals).
There is a small scale electrolytic method of using very concentrated sodium hydroxide. It is slow and multi stage and deposits lead on a cathode. That's why it's not used commercially.
Last edited:
tootall said; Bearhunter,
Great story, thanks for sharing.
One important difference in old batteries and new ones is that the new ones are alloyed with Calcium. Apparently that screws up the lead for casting.
Thanks for that TT, I wasn't aware of that. I have only had a one time experience with battery lead and I told it as it happened.
I did see a video on a site on youtube that is about 25 minutes long that goes into detail on how to get the lead out of batteries. I didn't watch it though.
There are dozens of vids out there on how to clean up lead. None of them are particularly difficult. They do require an outside heat source though.
Great story, thanks for sharing.
One important difference in old batteries and new ones is that the new ones are alloyed with Calcium. Apparently that screws up the lead for casting.
Thanks for that TT, I wasn't aware of that. I have only had a one time experience with battery lead and I told it as it happened.
I did see a video on a site on youtube that is about 25 minutes long that goes into detail on how to get the lead out of batteries. I didn't watch it though.
There are dozens of vids out there on how to clean up lead. None of them are particularly difficult. They do require an outside heat source though.
I know, didn't want to complicate things.
EDIT:
Just to add, some of the larger metal/lead distributors stock a very raw from of smelted lead, pretty much right out of the blast furnace with no refining. It's used for bulk casting of large lead weights were quality or composition doesn't matter.
Last edited:
