Lead ID and potential usefulness.

[Thomas.bill92]

Being a bona fide lead hound, when lead is offered to me, I take it. That being said, someone gave me a bunch of solder sticks and while they bend like pure, soft lead, I don't know their suitability for use with muzzleloading firearms. Any help or suggestions are welcome. Here's the different types that I have.

 

[hawkeye2]

The unmentionable shooters use those bars in making up alloys for their shooting. trade them off for pure lead or sell them. They are worth more per pound than lead.

 

[64Springer]

Turn them into balls.

Balls don't care what they're made from.

It's the patch that does all the work.

 

[Grenadier1758]

Too much tin that makes too hard for round balls for a muzzleloading rifle. Can work as a roundball for a smoothbored cylinder bore fowling gun. Best to trade with unmentionable shooters for pure lead.

 

[Loyalist Dave]

Being a bona fide lead hound, when lead is offered to me, I take it. That being said, someone gave me a bunch of solder sticks and while they bend like pure, soft lead, I don't know their suitability for use with muzzleloading firearms. Any help or suggestions are welcome. Here's the different types that I have.
View attachment 200963

The top bar is 50/50 tin to lead
The second bar is 40% tin to 60% lead
The third bar should be 60% tin and 40% lead as the "standard" alloy
The bottom bar is Dutch Boy grade 666 tin/lead solder.

These are all plumber's solders.



LD

 

[Freedom]

You have very valuable, tin alloy in those bars!
Stir in just a little to every pot of lead and you will have superb round balls. Your alloy will flow into the mould with less surface tension , giving superior mold fill out. Even harder to cast Minies will come out of the mold with perfect skirts. Tin doesn't bring much hardness to the game unless you use a ratio greater than 25 to 1. Tin alloy remains ductile so the skirts will still flare
Weigh it so you keep your ratio closer to 40 to 1... and you won't get much hardness. Antimony is what is used to harden bullets.

 

[Comfortably_Numb]

"Unmentionable" Is anyone else tired of this silly word?

 

[William Sublette]

"Unmentionable" Is anyone else tired of this silly word?

Yeah, it's moronic.

 

[Freedom]

The Nazi crowd around this place is pretty Relentless at any mention ... The sad part is that awesome little double barrel smoothbore howdah plastered all over the billboard on the top of this page...we're prohibited from discussing it. Guess money talks even when silenced.

 

[nhmoose]

The Nazi crowd around this place is pretty Relentless at any mention ... The sad part is that awesome little double barrel smoothbore howdah plastered all over the billboard on the top of this page...we're prohibited from discussing it. Guess money talks even when silenced.

Only for the folks that have not figured how to shut adds off

 

[Jaeger]

"Unmentionable" Is anyone else tired of this silly word?

The idea is okay, but "unmentionable" has too many letters, "Modern" works just as well.