Watch: Molten Salt Melting Lead

If you require that videos have a practical purpose before you’ll watch them, click away from this page now. But if you like learning stuff, you might enjoy this.

This person melts salt, which I don’t think I’ve ever seen before, and then pours it over a pan of lead shot pellets.

As a liquid, the salt looks a lot like water.

When poured over the shot, some of the salt dribbled over the side. After it sat on the concrete for a bit, it turned a sort of orange-brown color. It reminded me a lot of pine resin.

The salt remained hot for some time after it hardened, so much so that he was able to dump some more shot on top of the hard salt mass, and after a bit that was melted, too. Then the hardened salt disk was moved aside, showing that the lead below was partially melted. But the most surprising thing to me was when some of that lead was dumped on top of the salt mass, it melted even more. That’s some mad heat retention.

One blogger commented on “the startling texture that the lead balls take once they have melted.” This statement was mildly startling to me, perhaps because I’ve known what that looks like ever since I was a kid, helping Dad cast bullets for muzzleloaders. But if you’ve never seen molten lead, then perhaps you should prepare to be startled.

Some water poured onto the whole mess afterward showed just how much heat that salt was retaining.

Pretty cool. Useful info? You decide.

Russ Chastain

Editor & Contributing Writer Russ Chastain is a lifelong hunter and shooter who has spent his life learning about hunting, shooting, guns, ammunition, gunsmithing, reloading, and bullet casting. He started toting his own gun in the woods at age nine and he's pursued deer with rifles since 1982, so his hunting knowledge has been growing for more than three and a half decades. His desire and ability to share this knowledge with others has also grown, and Russ has been professionally writing and editing original hunting & shooting content since 1998. Russ Chastain has a passion for sharing accurate, honest, interesting hunting & shooting knowledge and stories with people of all skill levels.