doublegunshop.com - home Forums General Discussion DoubleGun BBS @ doublegunshop.com Bullets made from acid battery lead?

I've been given by about 10 pounds of lead allow from acid batteries in cast. Lead is very hard. I heard somewhere that there is 5-10% antimony content in battery lead, which is better, than lead-tin allow for bullets (I heard).
Unfortunatly I got no pure lead to compare hardness with, is any simple methods (by finger nail?) to found out the hardness of this cast aprx.?

Geno;
There has been considerable warnings issued in the US against using battery lead for casting. I will have to look up & see just what but believe it contains some other alloy which is extremely toxic, much more dangerous than the lead itself. Do you have any other lead of a known hardness? A method of comparison is to take two pieces of lead of different hardness, place in a vise with a small steel ball between them, & close up to imbed the ball into the lead. A comparsion of the indent diameters can give the hardness of the unknown piece with great accuracy, as long as good measurements are taken. This is actually based upon the Brinell hardnes testing. Have a book pblished by the NRA several yrs ago on cast bullets in which both of these are covered. Will have to try & look it up.

I did a search and came up with this page.

http://www.lasc.us/CastBulletNotes.htm

They list the elements found in battery lead and warn against using it for casting.

Pete

We use to cast battery acid into Fishing weights but I believe it repelled the fish due to the "flavor". I do not know of any problems, health or otherwise, associated with melting it down in some thirty years, however, we were careful not to breath the fumes. I have several fisherman friends who still make their own lead weights from batteries. I would be careful to make sure all the "acid" or harmful metals have been removed as it might effect the metal of the gun.
Becareful!!

It seems that it is not the metal content of battery lead that is worse but rather the oxides and sulphates of lead and arsnic which are so toxic. In heating the battery lead the fumes are extra toxic. Otherwise...the only thing in battery lead that is different and may cause casting problems is calcium. david

Geno:

I too have heard about health risks involved with battery lead. Unfortunately, we hear about so many "dangers" these days it is hard to separate the wheat from the chaff. It is pretty well accepted that lead is not health food, and everyone knows about "Arsenic and Old Lace". Antimony is no better. You don't want to put this stuff on your breakfast cereal. All in all, ten pounds of lead is probably not worth taking any chances with. You might be better served, if you want cheap lead, is to go to the local garage and inquire about wheel weights.

From a strictly practical standpoint, the problem with battery lead, as well as wheel weight lead, is the unknown composition. Both uses require fairly hard lead, and this hardness is achieved with the addition of antimony or arsenic or both, depending of the price of the metals at any given time.

Rifles can be quite sensitive to lead hardness. I would be a shame to work up a killer load with an alloy and hardness that you could not easily duplicate. Also, the antimonial alloys tend to change hardness as they age. "Found" lead is best if you have a lot of it, all melted down and mixed together so you have a significant supply of uniform alloy. You will want to add some tin to the mix as well. Tin significantly increases the ease of casting.

On the other hand if all one is doing is making up some plinking loads, none of this matters(except for the health concerns). Shoot what you have, maybe add a bit of tin for casting and get out there and have some fun!

Glenn

I have asked people who gave it to me, they work at battery recycling center. They told me not to worry as soon as this cast made from internal contacts and wires of battery (not from internal nets, which includes pure lead, lead sulfate and many more elements) and do not include strontium - the most toxic metal in battery, moreover they are not sure about strontium content in modern Europian batteries, for sure there is no strontium in Russian batteries.
They suggest me to cast the same way I did it before (taking in mind that lead is poison) in well ventilated areas or better in open air.
Also they told me, that battery lead allow is great add to stick wheel weights to make lead shot.

The article says cadmium is also in battery lead. If memory serves me, cadmium is very toxic and heating it makes it go airborne.

Geno,

Have a read here for boolit casting info.

http://www.castboolits.gunloads.com/

Mark

I dug out my NRA Cast Bullet Handbook. It was copyrighted 1979 & was a compilation of articles pertaining to cast bullets which had appeared in the pages of "The Rifleman" magazine between the years 1957-1979, edited by E H Harrison. As the entire book was devoted to bullet casting, I hardly think any warning therein was simply "Generic" in order to dis-courage bullet casting. The danger stated was that at time of writing Lead/Antimony/Arsenic alloys used in battery plates were often (particularly in maintenance-free batteries) being replaced by Lead/Calcium alloys. To make a long article short, 1st the Lead/Calcium alloys were stated to be "Ill-Suited" for bullet casting purposes. Next the "Danger" factor was when the Lead/Calcium alloys became mixed with Lead/Antimony or Arsenic alloys the possibility of Acute Poisness gases Stibine or Arsine became Very Real. Both of these gases were stated to have high density relative to air & would accumulate in low lying places. This may well apply only to US produced batteries, but would make certain before melting down any battery plates.
As to the hardness formula mentioed a comparsion of two alloys can be done easily with a sample of each alloy having a smooth surface. In the article they took a pipe cap, bored out the threads on an angle (for easier release) & faced the bottom to a very smooth surface. ( was stated to be better to have a smooth surface as cast). A ball is then placed between the two surfaces & squeezed in a vice to no more than about , ¼ it's dia. A fairly large ball makes measurement easier, but is not necessarily a requirement. The dia's of the indents are then accurately measured & the hardness is inversely proportionate to the sq of the dia's. If you had for instance a pure lead control piece of BHN 5 & the indents measured 5mm & 4mm, then 5BHN x (5/4)² = 7.8BHN etc. Even if the BHN is unknown this can still give relative harness compared to an existing alloy.