Cynthialee said:
oh... you are being overly technical for an old timey hobby
They didn't have modern equipment, or elementally pure lead.
If it scratches it is close enough to pure to use.
If it melts and casts and it fits down the barrel it shoots just fine.
Actually I am not being too technical for the hobby. Some of us insist in getting what we paid for. And some of us insist on knowing for the most accurate load and the best performance on game.
I bought some lead from Ebay years ago. It was listed as pure lead. I had to pound the bullets down the barrel with a mallet. I got a hardness tester and tested them. They were 18 BHN. That is harder than wheel weight by some margin. Now that wheel weights are no longer lead and some recyclers are no longer selling to the public it becomes very clear that lead is getting tough in places to scrounge up. If you buy ingots that are listed as pure wouldn't you want pure? Around here pure is going for a buck a pound. If I get lead that is harder than 8 BHN I cant use it. It is worthless to me. So for the person buying it becomes very handy to know some ways to maybe tell if your dealing with alloy.
1- scratch test. This is the worst test you can do In all actuality the buyer would be better off if they never did this at all.
2- Dropping on cement. This is a pretty good test. If you drop the ingot on cement and it make a ring sound it is alloy. No if's and's or but's.
3- Color. Ya this can help you decide on buying a bunch of lead out of the back of a van. If it has any red color in it at all that could be rust. That can tip you off that this lead might have alloy. Lead with a white powder if iffy at best. That is Oxide and you can have white powder on soft and hard lead.
Blue color, BINGO!! if you can tell a hint of blue, slight green or yellow this lead is most likely pure. To see these colors the lead must have been poured recently in most cases.
Frosty silver ingots, ALLOY!!!!!
4-Hardness tester. I have the cabine Tree tester. I can test anything from a PRB to a 2" thick chunk.
The great thing about a tester is if I find a bunch of lead lets say in a pawn shop. Usually I can talk the owner into letting me test the lead hardness if I write the hardness on all the lead. That way when someone else wants lead they know how hard it is. It is actually more valuable when accurately labeled. I get only what I am wanting. Will I buy alloy? YES!! If it is 6 to 7 BHN and if it is 8 BHN I will buy it. I tell the owner that it is not pure and that I can't give him his price because it is not pure. I have bought some very good alloy for very cheep.
I am assuming that you are saying pure lead is not needed? I am going to say that is also clearly not true.
A part of true accuracy is lead hardness testing. If you have a tester you shoot groups and record what the hardness is for a set of groups. Some rifles like a little harder bullet. I know my 50 likes them to be 6 to 7 BHN. My 45 like the bullets to be in the 8 to 9 range.
I see a lot of people fretting over the thickness of a patch but few worry about hardness. If you have a pure lead ball and you use your favorite patch material and the ball shoots and loads perfect you got a winner. Now if you have lead pipe elbows and you make balls with them all of a sudden the balls are lighter because of the alloy, The bullets will shoot higher. The alloy does not shrink as much out of the mould. So now you add your favorite patch and they won't go down. Now you have to use a mallet to seat the balls.
There can be advantages in using a slightly harder lead. The gun might like it like I said before. Also the ball might behave better on larger game.
The problem is if you don't know the lead hardness of you favorite load, how can you reproduce it? if you buy pure lead from a place like Rotometals, you can be assured you have perfect soft lead. If you buy some off colored lead bars at a yard sale are you getting a good deal? It is tough to say. You might get lucky and you might get a poke in the eye.
I have bought lead that I had to get it NOW because I was out of town and I didn't have my tester. In those cases I dropped the ingots on the cement and listened, and hoped for the best.
