Yak1366
Bronze Member
- Joined
- Oct 22, 2017
- Messages
- 1,293
- Reaction score
- 2,307
- Golden Thread
- 0
- Location
- Ringgold, Georgia
- Detector(s) used
- Equinox 800, Garrett ATPro, ProPointer AT, Retriever II
- Primary Interest:
- Other
Before I broke dirt on this piece yesterday, I was predicting another aluminum can. It rang up a solid 87-89 on my AT Pro and sounded just a wee bit lower than the piercing tone of an aluminum can.
Considering the trapezoidal shape, I thought I had just dug an ingot of lead for creating bullets. It seemed heavy enough, but I would have expected the patina to be like the 3 groove minie pictured that was recovered only feet away.
So I cleaned it up and calculated its density as ~6.46 g/cubic cm, which eliminates the possibility of it being lead, which is 11.34. Then I checked a couple of density charts, and noticed that antimony is close to the number I came up with, and I remember reading that antimony could have been added, as a small percentage, along with tin, in the lead pot to adjust the hardness of the bullet.
http://www.psyclops.com/tools/technotes/materials/density.html
So I've seen plenty of lead bars that were carried during the CW to melt down for bullets, if this ingot is indeed antimony, would it have been common to carry these metals (tin, antimony, lead) separately?
Considering the trapezoidal shape, I thought I had just dug an ingot of lead for creating bullets. It seemed heavy enough, but I would have expected the patina to be like the 3 groove minie pictured that was recovered only feet away.
So I cleaned it up and calculated its density as ~6.46 g/cubic cm, which eliminates the possibility of it being lead, which is 11.34. Then I checked a couple of density charts, and noticed that antimony is close to the number I came up with, and I remember reading that antimony could have been added, as a small percentage, along with tin, in the lead pot to adjust the hardness of the bullet.
http://www.psyclops.com/tools/technotes/materials/density.html
So I've seen plenty of lead bars that were carried during the CW to melt down for bullets, if this ingot is indeed antimony, would it have been common to carry these metals (tin, antimony, lead) separately?
