Lead of Questionable Purity?

[DarenN]

can i assume that if i melt lead of questionable purity, without fluxing, and skim off the crud, that what is left in the bottom of the pot is pure lead?
(a former scuba diver offerred me about 50 pounds of old divers weights)

 

[R.M.]

Sorry, once lead has been alloyed, it's alloyed for life, as far as our techniques go.

 

[paulvallandigham]

Use a lead tester to determine the softness of the lead from those weights. Usually, they use any lead alloy they can find cheap to cast those weights, and its not Pure lead.

Skimming lead, fluxing, or doing anything else short of an industrial electrical anode process( think of a reverse battery terminal) will Not remove the tin, antimony, or other trace minerals found in alloy lead.

Those weights might be good enough to make some pistol or revolver bullets, but I would not use it to cast lead balls. :thumbsup:

 

[ohio ramrod]

The dross is just the junk, the alloys remain. I use questionable lead for smooth bore balls and pure lead for rifle balls. Cast a few with your lead and weigh them against pure lead balls. Any alloys will weigh less than lead. ( I doubt any one is alloying gold and lead ). Since pure lead is really hard come by with out buying lead ingots most of us just use the purest we can get locally. Lead pipe, flashing, Xray wall shielding , etc.

 

[tuscan]

my rifle has a realy shallow rifleing and i use realy thin pach, 0.010 pillow thicking, and since i messed up some 4 pounds of pure lead with too much of white metall, alloy is waaaay too hard, im thinkin it could be used for RBs, pach drives the ball, it wont damage rifleing, would it?

 

[necchi]

No, it won't damage your rifling but, the patch is to "impart" the rifling too the ball, in other words, the soft lead ball gets the impression of the rifling to it through the patch. If the lead is too hard this won't happen and accuracy suffers.
Lots of folks use hard lead ball for hunting, thinking it will leave a better wound channel.

I've got alloyed lead sitting around here for years,,mark it up to lesson learned.

 

[mazo kid]

As others have said, once the lead is alloyed, it is in that state forever. An old rule of thumb that was often used years ago when I started this hobby was that if you could scratch the lead with your thumbnail it was soft enough to use in a M/L. Now this is not very scientific and you can scratch fairly hard lead. Another test is to drop the ingot on concrete; if it "clinks" then it is hard. If it makes a soft thud, then it is fairly soft. I would take your friend up on his offer of the diver weights; if it turns out that it is too hard, it can be used as trading material. There are reloaders who will trade soft lead for hard lead. I traded 100 pounds of wheelweight ingots for 100 pounds of soft lead. Only cost was the two Flat Rate mailing boxes. Good luck.

 

[nkbj]

Fifty pounds of free scuba weights will shoot great for a good while no matter what a lab test would say.

 

[DarenN]

thank you gentlemen!
as always, a wealth of information.
i'll get a hardness tester and check the stuff before using it. if it's 'soft enough' i'll use it. i'm not shooting competatively so good enough is good enough. :wink:

 

[paulvallandigham]

No. HARD ALLOY LEAD BALLS PATCHED WON'T HARM THE BARREL. However, they do not upset, or Obdurate equally shot after shot, as soft lead does, so you get gas blow by of differing amounts, and much wider SDVs using these hard alloy balls.

Using thin patches also raises the possibility of the patch burning in the barrel, particularly if you use Fast Burning powders( like 3Fg), or HOTTER burning Substitute powders. There is No way to know with a given gun and load other than by examining every spent patch you fire. Generally, if you are using 70 grains of FFFg powder, or more, or if your barrel is longer than 36 inches, the risk of a patch burning seems to increase, as the thin fabric can't hold enough lube to act as a fire wall under those conditions. If you do have burned or torn patches, try using a filler, like Corn meal, or some kind of OOP wad between the powder and the PRB to act as a fire wall. That allows the thin patch to continue to be used SOLELY to transfer the spin of the rifling to the ball, and leaves the filler or OP wad, to act as a gas check, and fire wall. :thumbsup:

 

[tuscan]

sir, here, 2f or 3f bp, what is that? seen only one kind of bp, nothing is written on a canister, could be 2f, used for fireworks. 70grain load? my gun would explode! in .45cal, 25 grs for 50 meter match is enough. im not allowed to hunt with bp.
i use corn meal,patches are not burned or thorned, quite reusable. shooters ere in croatia are wery much traditional cus we dont have MODERN stuff like you there. and, visit CROATIA, we dont have any damn oil in sea.

 

[paulvallandigham]

Well. The " F " designation is how Black Powder granulation size is Marked on the cans of powder we buy.

Fg( "g" stands for Graphite coated) is considered Coarse Cannon Powder. Its also used in the firework's industry for the aerial fireworks- NOT FIRE CRACKERS! The size of Fg powder is determined by the Size Mesh used in Screens to sort the powder from finer sizes of granules. Fg must pass through a 10 mesh-to-the-inch( 2.54 centimeters) screen, but must NOT pass through a 14 mesh screen.

FFg powder is recommended for use in shotguns, and large caliber rifles( .50 and above)FFg powder must pass through 16 mesh screens, but NOT through 24 mesh screens.

FFFg powder is recommended for small bore rifles and revolvers or pistols. However, we find some LARGE CALIBER rifles and shotguns shoot FFFg powder better than they shoot FFg powder. FOR THAT REASON, we recommend that shooters try both powders in their guns, and let the gun tell the shooter which powder it likes the best. FFFg powder must pass through 24 mesh screens, but not through 46 mesh screens.

FFFFg powder( sometimes just FFFF powder, indicating it has not been coated with graphite)Is Priming powder ONLY. It should ONLY be used to prime flintlock pans, and should never be used as a main powder charge behind a projectile in the barrel. When a gun is loaded without a powder charge under the ball( "Dry-balling") we often can ONLY use 4Fg powder, put down into the flash channel after removing the nipple, or behind the ball in a flintlock,
to shoot the ball out the barrel. Rarely is more than 5 grains by volume of this powder fit behind the ball for this purpose. But, because of its very fast burning rate, it generates lots of gas, VERY FAST( meaning it also raised chamber pressures fast) and is able to push even a heavy ball out the barrel with enough force for the ball to be dangerous for some distance. FFFFg powder must pass through a 46 mesh screen, but not pass thru a 60 mesh screen.

Beyond that, there are 5,6, and at least 7Fg powders made for more limited purposes, that should never be used IN a gun. 7Fg powder is used in fuses, and in some small firecrackers. When old daguerreo-type photography was done in the 19th century, This fine flash powder was used by the photographer to provide the "Flash" needed to imprint the image of the subject being photographed on the chemically treated glass plates in his camera. As soon as the Electric light bulb was perfected, and " flash Bulbs" became available, the use of dangerous flash powder slowly ended. But, these old camera and "flash trays" were still being used by photographers will into the 20th century.

I don't know how you go about finding out the granular sizing of the black powder you are using. My suggestion is to buy some screen of the appropriate size and screen a container of the powder you buy. McMaster-Carr is an American source for screens. (www.mcmaster.com) I suspect there are some European sources you can use. They will be sold in metric sizing,so you will need to do the math.

Here is the opening width of the mesh, in thousandths of an INCH, per my notes when I searched Mcmasters a couple of years ago:
14 mesh= .051" opening width
24 mesh= .028" " "
40 mesh= .015" " "
50 mesh= .015" " "

Opening width is obviously the area through which a particular sized granule of powder must pass using that mesh screening.

I could not find any mesh that was 60 mesh per inch or smaller from McMaster. However, Anything small than 40 mesh meets the test to be called Priming powder ONLY. Anything less than 50 or 60 mesh would be dust. It won't hurt your gun if its ONLY USED in the flash pan of your flintlock.

The only caveat I can give regarding using these fine dusts for flash powder is that they tend to absorb moisture from the air, and any BP residue left in the pan from the last firing, much quicker than do the coarser( larger) granule sized powders. I do not recommend using FFFFg powder, much less finer powders, in your flash pan on rainy days, unless your gun is sheltered, and you expect to fire it quickly.

I hope this helps. :thumbsup:

 

[Joel/Calgary]

sir, here, 2f or 3f bp, what is that? seen only one kind of bp, nothing is written on a canister, could be 2f, used for fireworks.

What information do you have on the powder that could help identify it - manufacturer, brand name, intended use, etc.? Pyrotechnics most often use blasting powder (with "A" in their sizes, e.g. 2FA) as it is less expensive than sporting (with "g" in the sizes, e.g. 2Fg). Sporting powder has been tumbled to make the grains less angular and smoother, and "glazed", which produces a dense surface layer largely of fused potassium nitrate. The addition of graphite is a separate matter from glazing, although often done at the same time, if it is added to a particular powder. Blasting powders are sometimes graphited to improve their flow properties. Also, the sizing of the powders is very different - 4FA blasting powder overlaps the sizes of GOEX 1Fg and the coarser portion of 2Fg. http://www.skylighter.com/skylighter_info_pages/article.asp?Item=47#size http://www.vk2zay.net/composition/3

For more than you ever thought you wanted to know about sporting black powders, various writings by William Knight (a.k.a. the "Mad Monk") have been collected at http://www.laflinandrand.com/page3.htm on the Lafin & Rand website. I highly recommend these to anyone interested in any aspect of the history, manufacture, and/or use of the original black "gunpowder" in firearms. Concerning glazing vs. graphiting, see p.52 of Part 5 and p.65 of Part 6, or pages 24 & 25 of the Swiss article. Note that the different "parts" appear to be subdivisions of a larger single 102 page document, and the page numbers I mentioned are as they would have been in the original document.

Regards,
Joel

 

[tuscan]

no worrys gents, wont blow my ugly face off.
simply, nothing is written on a canister. VESUVIT, CHECH REPUBLIC. thats it. could be 2f.
dont matter, it burns fine, 25grs by weight is a light charge. puts holes in paper. 50 maybe 60 today. i had fun, that counts.
happy independence day, god bless you all :hatsoff:

 

[Zonie]

As long as it works and your having fun!
That's the important thing. :thumbsup:

 

[tg]

I was not ever concerned about any of the lead I have used being of questionable purity, but with women it was a rather regular occurance as I recall...... :shake:

 

[RickD]

I was given a good bunch of lead from an old church..When I cast it it had a real bluish cast to it..Made some very nice balls

 

[DarenN]

but with women it was a rather regular occurance as I recall...... :shake:

:rotf: :rotf:
thanks for the laugh, TG!! :hatsoff:
i toured half of Canada on a custom Harley i built, back in the mid-eighties. that life-style didn't exactly attract women that weren't questionable.
it's amazing i managed to stay single-no-dependants! :shocked2:

i'll be getting a hardness tester, and trying to use the best lead for the best balls. i'll use the stuff that's a little harder for the 'improved minie' that my rifle seems to like so much.(at 90-100 grains of pyro 2f! ouch! too much for casual target and plinking)

 

[Bill Hall]

Aw, so you've met my ex wife? :rotf:

 

[paulvallandigham]

IIRC, Wano powder is made in the Czech Republic. It should come in different sizes. How they would be marked might be different in Europe, tho'. Its sold here by Powder, Inc. in Arkansas.