Yep, melt it down, I wash first just to get all the grease and gunk off. Be sure you let it dry. I do batch melting for some friends and they bring all kinds of assorted lead or what they think is lead. When their pile is big enough, I dump all of it in my melter and break it down. I have a big (it was an oil tank in its previous life) melter. I toss all my scrap in there light a good fire under it and go away for an hour or 2 or 3. The smoke and spatter does not appeal to me. Of course I toss it in wet and or oily material and let everything burn off during the melting.
When I get back, I skim off as much crud as I can. apply liberal dusting of flux powder and mix it in. Let it set another 1/2 hour or so and since I have a bottom tap out plug, I pull the plug and fill my ingot molds. Spend more time cleaning and you could ladle it out easilyI have a dam built around my tap hole that pretty much prevents the gunk from getting into my clean lead so my skmiing is just to get rid of the really nasty gunk. You can flux and skim 2-3 times and be confident that you have very clean metal.
It is dirty, messy and can be very smoky which is why I do it after dark. I also live in the country so it will not attract much attention.
Wear long sleeves and I reccomend a face sheild over anything else. Although rare, spatters and splashes do occur and most often without warning.Lead burns are bad it sticks to your skin and it does hurt.
