Faking Bullets

[Skip]

This thread was started in the discussion of the Cleburne but it needs to be a separate topic.

A few years back when some bullets were discovered that had been painted folks started talking about bullets being faked. Fortunately one of you good folks sent me one of the bullets that had been painted. The bullet in question turned out to be good. It just didn't have much of a patina. All of this lead to some revealing research concerning how to fake a bullet.

The first thing the faker would need would be a mold. He could spend a pretty penny purchasing an original period mold or he could spend a pretty penny having a mold made. Casting bullets is not all that hard. Anybody could get this far.

Now all we have to do is apply a patina to the bullet and we're good to go. The easiest way to do this is to paint the bullet but collectors have already discovered that all they have to do is dip it in a solvent and the paint is removed. The question now is how do we put a patina on the bullet that will pass the test.

Here's where I got a lesson in chemistry. I had always assumed that the white patina on bullets was lead oxide (After all rust is iron oxide). It turns out that lead oxide is black. The patina on bullets is actually lead carbonate (white lead) which forms when lead is exposed to carbon dioxide and an electrical current passes through it. Because there is such a minute amount of carbon dioxide in our atmosphere (less than four tenths of one percent) it takes many years for lead carbonate to form. Don't take my word for it. Do your own research.

Fortunately for the faker there is a way to speed this process up. All you need is a little vinegar, some spent tanner's bark and an ample supply of decaying dung. He just needs to suspend the bullet over the acetic acid (vinegar), cover it with a mixture of tanner's bark and dung in a closed shed and let stand for six to fourteen weeks. It's called the "Dutch Process" and it's how they used to make white lead for use as a paint pigment. They would scrape it off the lead which the faker wouldn't do unless he had the I.Q. of a carrot.

Once the faker has gone through these simple steps all he has to do is set up at one of the shows, place the bullets on his table and rake in the cash. How can we as collectors know whether or not his bullets are fake? Here are a few tips.

1. Look for small nicks and cuts in the bullet. Very seldom does a bullet stay in the ground for 
    150 years without sustaining some minor damage. Freshly cast bullets won't have them.

2. If he has more than one compare the patinas. Impurities in the soil will discolor a patina. If
    every one has the exact same white patina a red flag should go up.

3. Compare textures. Not every bullet has that slick waxy white patina we like, and somebody
    faking bullets is not going to put a rough patina on it.

It's just not that easy to produce a bogus bullet but that doesn't mean you should let your guard down.

[emike123]

I could tell I was doing something wrong....



Actually, this "lead carbonate" tidbit is new news for me and presumably most others having always assumed it was lead oxide.  I am guilty of having freely used the term "oxidized" with regard to bullets with a nice patina.  Now I will say they are "carbonated."

It was nice chatting tonight, Skip, but I thought you said something also about a clay pot in this wicked concoction of yours.

[acwbullets]

Most lead has oxidation. The type of lead on Civil War bullets is a mixed form of lead acetate and lead chloride most of what people define as lead acetate or subacetate. Lead carbonate is a colorless form that can be the beginning or end of the project depending on what other variables are thrown into the mix while the crystals form. Most lead forms are inorganic compounds and most are soluable in ethanol. Forms like lead chloride are insoluble in ethanol. Depending on how cured the lead acetate is, one could potentially  wipe away the original white patina with acetone. This is the reason that bullets makers started using brass and then copper jackets as are the norm today. They are jacketed and then coated to keep out corrosion. It keeps nature from messsing with the bullets. Brass bullet sleeves were used but they were found to corrode like the Spanish Reformado cartridge. It doesn't matter that much on single shot guns but full auto or rapid fire guns can have horrible things go wrong with lead corrosion.

The Dutch Process is a good place to start but the acetate forms unevenly and is quite blotchy. The crystals aren't uniform and they can grow rapidly. This is much hard to do today as lead is so pure. They didn't have the refineries that we have today and most lead in the mid 19th century was low grade compared to todays standards. This process works great on sheets of low quality lead. You can literally work a sheet until holes form in it. Bark is a key ingredient but it can't be just any bark. The tannins in the bark react to form the acetate . The interesting thing here is that the same tannins that will cause lead to crumble overtime are the same thing that preserves iron.

[Skip]

Thank you for the correction, Ian. In the future I will refer to it as lead acetate rather than lead carbonate. As you are probably aware the Dutch Process has been refined with the harnessing of electricity but we won't go into that here.

The whole point of my text was to point out how difficult it would be to apply a patina to a freshly cast bullet. The post probably could have been worded better but unfortunately I am not glib of index fingers.

[ETEX]

Skip, I don't mind letting folks know I sent you the Hessian that had been painted. When this was discussed on the previous forum I categorized painted/touched-up/fake all in one category. I had no doubts the Hessian was a good bullet but had been doctored/painted and to me that is someone faking a bullet for profit. If a good ACW Period bullet gets painted and sold as original, dug at xxxxx, with a beautiful patina I call this Fake and Fraudulent. I have several in a box that are beautiful specimens but if you touch a Q-Tip with a non-acetone solvent to the bullet it will cause the paint to drip off.

I do not want this post to go back to who painted what, who had MR. X paint bullets to sell,  who sold what and new it was painted, etc.

Ian and I have discussed the patina on many different occassions and it is a very interesting process.

Great post Skip and thanks for you inputs Ian.