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I've always wondered if the risk was real, has anyone blown an alternator giving a boost?
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No, not on the truck that's starting the dead vehicle provided jumper cables are installed correctly. And I've been taking care of a fleet that frequently has dead batteries since 2003. I have seen alternators fail shortly after a vehicle is jumpstarted then driven right away. Newer vehicles limit alternator output much better and we now see alternators last well over 150k miles.
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And watch for the size of the spark when you connect - you get a big spark they probably have a battery that is dead shorted inside and you may just drain your own battery trying to charge them for 2 minutes
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Many of today's vehicles have storage capacitors in the electronics that will cause a very high current draw for a very short time when initially connecting a battery or jumpers. You can actually demonstrate it to yourself by connecting one side of the battery and using an incandescent bulb test light connected between battery and the other cable. The light will light brightly. Without disconnecting the test light, momentarily touch the disconnected cable to the battery. The light will go out. Remove the cable again, still leaving the light connected, and the light should remain out. If the light illuminates again there's likely a draw that needs to be diagnosed.
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So I happened to call a friend at the local Napa store. He told me that their batteries are made by East Penn who also make Deka batteries and lots of other goodies.
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Napa here sells several different brands of batteries and some of them are not so good.
We ran Interstate in the fleet for a long time. We had to do a *lot* of jump starting and battery replacements back then. I used to carry two different batteries in the side compartment of the service truck and two different sets of jumper cables. Most of our vehicles had quick-connect plugs for easy jumper cable connection. There were weeks in the winter when we would be jump-starting one after another vehicle every day. Connect one set of cables between a running fleet vehicle and a dead one, and another between my truck and a second dead vehicle. So much work trying to stay ahead of battery failures. Batteries would literally fail overnight and many failures could only be confirmed with hydrometer. Exide came in with a "blue top" AGM one day and man, did those things last. We pulled one that was 11 years old out of an E350 last month because the driver left the lights on overnight and we didn't want to chance the battery failing. One of the mechanics charged and tested it then took it home for personal use. It starts his truck every day.
Whatever those "blue top" batteries were, Exide doesn't sell them anymore. We've been using local store batteries for a few years and they just didn't survive. At one point I had 20 batteries piled up for warranty replacement. Some only a month old. They would discharge, either through driver error or parasitic loads plus lack of use (lots of energy hungry accessories and Covid reducing the need to use vehicles) and they would not recharge properly again. I bought different chargers, different testers, even battery disconnect devices. Finally I located an Exide dealer to try again with their current line of AGM batteries.
I can see batteries that look similar to the Exide blue tops for sale through Batteries Plus as X2 brand. If they're the same product then they're likely to live a long and happy life in a classic truck. But you need to throw out a few cubic dollars to get one.
https://www.batteriesplus.com/search...s=&query=sli35
If you use a battery maintainer, almost anything will live a good life provided it's not subject to excessive charging voltage or current or excessive heat. The battery in my '36 Plymouth has been installed for 10 years and still is going strong.