Casting round ball?

[Archer 756]

Log splitter works great

 

[mooman76]

Friend of mine new to casting balls some where got a crap load of dental lead. He was so proud of the super shiny .490's he brought to show me. Them suckers were so hard perhaps could load them in a bore size smooth bore , but nothing rifled for a .490. Finger nail test totally failed . Showed him a standard soft lead .490 , he just laughed and was disappointed in his new hard balls...........oldwood

They can still be fired out of a rifled bore as long as they aren't too big. People have experimented with other hard metals especially for going leadless.

 

[oldwood]

Rifleman.........Never gave the vise a thought. will go down this evening and squash a couple of balls and check the results. Thanks........oldwood

 

[Carbon 6]

When I have the lazies I'll do the fingernail test thing. But, easier is to take a known soft/pure lead ball and one of your mystery balls and put them in a vice. Squeeze slowly. Soft will smoosh. Hard won't. Both soft, both smoosh.

Same principle, a side-by-side deformation comparison.

 

[jdw276]

Rifleman.........Never gave the vise a thought. will go down this evening and squash a couple of balls and check the results. Thanks........oldwood

Ouch.....

 

[oldwood]

Thanks Moonman for info...........oldwood

 

[GREENSWLDE]

Be wary of Lead pipe. Not all lead pipe is pure lead. In some areas of highly acid water supplies lead was alloyed to save degeneration of the pipe which caused lead poisoning. B'ham England was one such as their water came from Mountain sources in Wales. The pipe used was called Compo. OLD DOG..

 

[Nameless Hunter]

Just got given a 16lb downrigger weight, pretty sure it is pure lead, keep me busy for a while, toughest part is cutting it into smaller pieces to fit my smelter.

Just fire up the hydraulic log splitter.