Best lead for casting ball?

[pajeepman]

Wondering what type of recycled lead is best for casting round balls.
My brother picked up 47 lbs of lead from scuba diving weight belt for $2. Curious if it would be good.
Also wondering about car/truck battery lead. Got a 120 lbs battery at work I could grab.
Hope to cast my own someday.

 

[longcruise]

First, regarding car batteries, been there, done that. Won't ever do it again! recovering the lead is a messy process and I don't know what the exact alloy is but it made some ery hard balls. I cast quite a bit of wheel weight for cartridge guns and I'd say the battery stuff was harder.

It's commonly said to try to scratch lead with a fingernail and if you can scratch it, shoot it. Forty seven # for two bucks is a good deal Hope it is usable.

 

[stikshooter]

Battery's will KILL YOU pure lead is what you want for balls/conicals!/Ed

 

[oldramrod]

Battery lead is dangerous to work with because of the acids used, also it is alloyed with elements that give a hard ball. Lead flashing or old lead pipe is desireable. I use as pure as I can get for my rifles and anything I can get for the smoothbores! The purest lead I ever got was from when they redid the x ray rooms at the local hospital.(It even had a little green glow! ha ha)

 

[SwampBilly]

Bite the bullet so to speak and go to roto metals and order some pure soft lead. I got 5 lb the other day for $20.

Another source that is said to be pure lead and I have used it before with good results..... Is soil stack flashing from roofs. It's pretty expensive to buy just for that purpose but if you know any roofers you might get your hands on some they have taken off

 

[Wheelman]

I have found lead roof flashing to be great for casting softest boolits.
Do not use batteries please. It is not worth it.

 

[52Bore]

Thin sheet lead and roof vent from old houses is great soft stuff.
Older wheel weight - clip on are generally soft.
New glue types and most unknown lead ingots are unknown.
Hydrochloric acid in batteries isn’t anything you want to play with.

 

[deerstalkert]

every dive weight i have ever encountered was dead soft lead. i would grab that in a flash. if momma wasn't looking!
my stash of 500 lbs is enough says she!

 

[smokepolehall]

Another pure lead is plumbers lead. I used to buy it for $20 for 50 lbs

 

[Wheelman]

I would think the same for old sailboat ballast.

Just spitballing.

I have 2 5 gal pails of wheel weight and have no idea how to tell which ones are no goes.

Depending on where you live.

 

[Mtman725]

Nothing but pure lead ~~~~ Wheel weights, scuba, sail boat ballast, battery cores. No good! Any of the newer wheel weights are an alloy.

 

[Wheelman]

Agreed. My collection is old but I got to the point where I use my smallest pot.

I got to the point where i would start with the roofing lead and then add a specific amount of pewter or just tin.

Now for muzzloaders, pure lead is the ticket best I can recon.

 

[IanH]

Roof jacks, lead sheet flashing, and lead shower pan liners are good scrap sources for round balls. The material is not pure but it's close. The balls will get slightly harder as they age a few weeks from when they were first cast, but still good.

Wet-cell automotive batteries will kill you, not kidding. The problem is calcium added to the plate material to make them hard and vibration resistant makes phosgene gas when heated in the melting pot and one whiff is all it takes. Also, the junk you skim off will release extremely toxic gas when it absorbs moisture from the air. Bad, bad stuff altogether.

For a smoothbore, the lead alloy wheelweights work fine for round balls only. Save your soft lead for rifles, revolvers, and those funny looking pointed things with hollow bases that have to be soft to work right. The zinc alloy wheelweights are no good, sort them out and recycle them.

Diving weights are usually whatever is cheap from the scrap yard and are often contaminated with zinc wheelweights that were indiscriminately melted in with the other scrap. Zinc, even in sub-percent quantities, makes lead and lead/ antimony/ tin alloys very difficult to cast.

 

[NorthFork]

Just buy it from RotoMetals.

 

[TDM]

Agree with @NorthFork, that's where I get mine. Although you should be safe using older scuba weights. To the best of my knowledge they should be pure lead. But for me it's much easier to place an order with Roto Metals.

 

[Kansas Jake]

I’ve always used scrap lead. I avoid wheel weights for muzzle loading but would use it in a pinch for patched round balls. Not in cap and ball revolvers. Too hard to load and get a good seal. Dive weights, sail boat keel, roof lead, plumbing scrap all work well.

 

[IanH]

Part of the fun is scrounging lead.

Also knapping flint and punching caps.

Some of us even cook certain kinds of wood very carefully to make special charcoal and do unmentionable things with it.

 

[SwampBilly]

I use a pair of pruning loppers to chop up my 1 lb ingots so they will fit inside of my ladle and then I use a propane torch to melt about 2 oz at a time. Need to get me a melt pot one of these days

 

[NorthFork]

And shipping is free with 150 dollar purchase at RotoMetals.

 

[64Springer]

So much misinformation regarding wheel weights and sailboat ballast.

I'll never understand the desire for people to steer others away from a free and highly usable material.

Soft lead is soft lead.

Whether it comes from Roto-Metals, a sailboat or the wheels of a '63 Beetle.