What's wrong with battery lead?

A

Aikia

Inactive
So, I've not had a problem getting all the wheel weights or range lead I want. However I happen to have several car batteries laying around but I understand the lead in them is not useable for bullet casting. Why?
 
Smelting recovered lead from old car batteries is dangerous.

A good explanation can be found here:

The warnings about smelting automotive batteries to recover the lead they contain needs a bit of explanation. Doing so really does have the potential to harm or even kill you and here is why. Maintenance free/low maintenance batteries use calcium metal-doped lead to catalyze the hydrogen gas generated from water electrolysis back into water. That is what makes the batteries low maintenance or maintenance free, you don't need to add water to the cells as often like in the old days. When the battery lead is melted down there is enough sulfuric acid from residual electrolyte trapped in the lead dioxide and lead framework of the battery plates to react with the small amount of calcium metal in the lead alloy. Normally when sulfuric acid (or water) gets in contact with calcium metal it undergoes a rather vigorous reaction that generates hydrogen gas. In and of itself this is no big deal, hydrogen is a simple non-toxic asphyxiant that is also flammable. But the lead alloy used in batteries also contains a bit of antimony and even arsenic to help harden and strengthen the lead to withstand the vibration and general knocking-about batteries have to withstand in order to survive normal automotive use. When hydrogen comes in contact with arsenic and antimony, or compounds of these two elements, the hydrogen reacts to form ammonia analogues called arsine and stibine, AsH3 and SbH3. Both of these are heavy gases and both have the similar characteristic odors of rotting fish. In World War One the Germans experimented with these, along with phosphine, another rotting-fish-smelling gaseous ammonia analogue with formula PH3, as war gases. As such they were highly effective since they are deadly in amounts too small to easily detect. In even smaller amounts that are too small to immediately kill they cause rather painful lung damage that often eventually leads to emphysema and lung cancer.
So, leave smelting car batteries or using lead smelted from them to professional recyclers. Many folks including myself have successfully smelted batteries and lived to tell about it, but the risk is just too great to mess with the stuff.
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Very little lead in the battery, i took apart years ago. Dont waste your time.

Picking bullets out of the berm/backstop is more productive.
 
Battery lead works fine. Make sure you wash it off first.
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It depends. The old style automotive batteries to which you had to add water to the cells periodically could be reduced for their lead alloy. However, a battery "plate" is a grid made of lead alloy with Manganese Dioxide pressed into the vacant spaces. It other words, there is only about 45% of the plate that is actually lead alloy. The plate connectors and posts are a usable alloy. Nevertheless, be cautious in regard to Stibine gas (see the battery warning in the post above). I have salvaged the lead from the old type many times (in the old days) without any problems.

Most automotive batteries now are of the "Maintenence Free" variety. There is no access to the filler caps on the cells. The alloy used for these modern batteries contains Calcium. Calcium renders the alloy unusable for bullet casting inasmuch as it expands way too much when melted and correspondingly contracts way too much when returning to the solid state. So, the melt will seem fine and pours alright, but when the mold is opened to drop the bullets, you will find that the bullet has shrunk away from the walls of the mold (more on one side than the other), resulting in a misshapen bullet that is not usable. There is no way I know of to get the Calcium out of the alloy using home methods. Mixing/diluting a Calcium tainted alloy with pure lead results in just a larger batch of contaminated lead that cannot be used for bullets. Avoid the lead alloy relative to Maintenence Free batteries at all costs if you are scrounging for bullet alloy...it is but a headache and a waste of time. Ask me how I know.:rolleyes:
 
The minuscule amount of lead in modern batteries isn't worth the trouble, in itself.
Add the not insignificant risk of harm to yourself or others that might breath the gasses released, and it's just a dangerous waste of time.
 
Bust out the post's. The rest is not worth the time it takes to get it. The grids inside will be so messed up your won't get a thing out of them other than a lot of nasty smell! Post are the only thing worth while. But, after you get the post's I'm not sure you can turn them back in? You certainly can't with a battery you tear apart!
 
The minuscule amount of lead in modern batteries isn't worth the trouble, in itself.
Add the not insignificant risk of harm to yourself or others that might breath the gasses released, and it's just a dangerous waste of time.
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The problem is not the "minuscule amount of lead in a modern battery", it is that the lead in a modern no-maintenance battery is alloyed with Calcium and therefore will not fill out a bullet mold. The modern batteries have about the same amount of lead in them as the older maintenance required (all water), batteries. Each battery contains several pounds of lead. I salvaged the lead from the old type many years ago and although much of the weight was not lead alloy, it was still worth my while to salvage what was there.
 
The problem is not the "minuscule amount of lead in a modern battery", it is that the lead in a modern no-maintenance battery is alloyed with Calcium and therefore will not fill out a bullet mold. The modern batteries have about the same amount of lead in them as the older maintenance required (all water), batteries. Each battery contains several pounds of lead. I salvaged the lead from the old type many years ago and although much of the weight was not lead alloy, it was still worth my while to salvage what was there.
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Ermagherd!
There is no need to have an aneurysm over one unintentionally omitted word, in this context.


Let me fix my statement, so you can calm down:
"The minuscule amount of >usable< lead in modern batteries isn't worth the trouble..."
 
Ermagherd!
There is no need to have an aneurysm over one unintentionally omitted word, in this context.

Let me fix my statement, so you can calm down:
"The minuscule amount of >usable< lead in modern batteries isn't worth the trouble..."
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My apologies...I was somehow under the impression that you were someone who had never salvaged the lead from the old style or the new no-maintenance batteries and had not found that there is no usable lead in a modern battery but were giving advice anyway. I am calmed, now.
 
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Just because I haven't volunteered the information, doesn't mean that I do no possess it.
I HAVE salvaged lead from 'classic' lead acid batteries (6V, 12V, and 24V). It wasn't worth the trouble.

For modern batteries, there is no need to make the attempt. I already know that it isn't worth the trouble. And the chemistry of modern batteries means that it's a bad idea.

Are you inferring that one should not be able to talk about how dumb of an idea it is to try melting down modern batteries, until one has actually attempted such?... :rolleyes:
 
Thanks for all the responses. I had heard it wasn't a good idea but was wondering why exactly. I now know so thank you all again.
 
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