I don't understand the zinc /alloy bit. I've always heard zinc is the one thing you don't want in your lead. Every video shown on the subject says to avoid the newer wheel weights made of zinc , they can contaminate the whole batch.
Lead?!
- Thread starter artkodiak
- Start date
Help Support Muzzleloading Forum:
4065shooter
32 Cal
I'd recommend calling John Walters in OK. : 405-799-0376. He has certified PL, 1:20, 1:30, etc. fair priced.
Walter Wads Veg John Walters 405-799-0376
Walter Wads Veg John Walters 405-799-0376
roadgrader
36 Cal.
- Joined
- Dec 14, 2013
- Messages
- 59
- Reaction score
- 2
DOC I live in Boone and am willing to help you out with not having time to use it all up . Stacey
Eutycus: Thought I sent a response yesterday but don't see it here. You are correct about zinc being BAD. I mispoke/miswrote. I use tin only. Before I sat down at the computer to check this forum, I had just finished making out a shopping list that included zinc i take for a supplement. Must have forgot to hit delete and it stuck in my feeble brain. I have tried wheel weights and linotype mixtures in the past, but find that the cast bullets actually increase in size after casting and cooled and also will get harder the longer they are stored.
DocZ
DocZ
At the outrageous price of tin now and the climbing price of lead it's almost better to buy it pre-mixed.
I also take zinc supplements sometimes.I may have "zinc on the brain". I've never heard that about bullets increasing in size. How much larger in diameter are we talking.I always thought they shrunk a little.
No, I have to disagree with that. If they expand as they cool, you would never get them out of the mold. The problem I have had with them is hardness and density.
DOc
DOc
Are talking about conical bullets or round balls.
Pure lead will shrink as it cools. The mix of tin and lead will also shrink, just not as much. The round ball molds are designed to account for the shrinkage of pure lead.
Forgive the spelling, I have 2lb. Ingot of babbet?babbit.. is it good for anything except trotlines weights?
Idaho Ron
58 Cal.
- Joined
- Mar 1, 2007
- Messages
- 2,729
- Reaction score
- 1,229
I find it funny when people talk about lead. I have a lead hardness tester. Here are some honest facts.
Pure lead is 5 BHN. I can scratch lead with my fingernail that is 22 BHN. The old wives tale that if you can scratch lead it is pure needs to die.
Stick on wheel weights (if you can find them) are not pure. I have tested many samples and they have alloy in them. The samples I have tested range from about 6 BHN to 7 BHN. The old stick on wheel weights are PERFECT lead for bullets.
Lead pipe, Again it is not pure. But lead pipe is in the 6 to 7 BHN range very good lead.
Lead pipe Joints. They are HARD. Think about it, they use an alloy to melt into the joint to seal it. How hard the Joints are depends on how much pipe is also in the mix. The samples I have tested were between 9 and 12 BHN.
Dental lead. A lot of guys swear that this is soft, it is NOT. Here is another wives tale that needs to die. just because the foils are easy to bend does not make them soft. I have received all the dental foils in our town for 12 years. My dentist was the last to change. I have never seen dental lead softer than 9 BHN fresh. After it has age hardened it is over 12 BHN.
Telephone lead. This stuff is in the hard category. while the samples I have tested were not real hard, it was about 8 to 8.5 BHN. It is perfect lead for 45 cal lead conicals. I like it.
Lead from Xray room walls. This is alloy, but it is very good lead. The samples I have tested were 6 to 7 BHN. That is perfect in my opinion.
Babbitt lead is VERY hard. The samples I have of Babbitt lead were samples I had collected from old augers in a feed mill. This lead is 15 BHN. Remember wheel weight is about 12 BHN.
Last is car batteries. I have about 200 pounds of melted down car batteries. I bought it on ebay a very long time ago. That lead was sold as "pure" lead. After I bought my hardness tester I found it was 22 BHN. This lead is SUPER hard. Some people are worried about the acid. After it has been heated hot enough to melt the lead the acid is gone. The problem is not the lead after it is melted. The problem is dealing with the acid while the battery is being torn apart and starting to melt. The lead is 22 BHN! it is NOT WORTH IT!!!! this lead is really not worth having for a guy with muzzleloaders. In fact pistol shooters should shy away from it. Many times lead this hard can actually cause lead to collect in the barrel of guns.
Zinc takes a lot of heat to melt. I have melted wheel weights and if you don't get the lead too hot the zinc floats like all the other crap. I have also made fishing weights out of zinc. You really have to get it hot. Then it pours like Oatmeal. The mold should be allowed to cool longer than if you were using pure lead. I have a lifetime supply of fishing weights made out of zinc.
I have bought a lot of lead. My rule of thumb is this. If you drop a wheel weight and it rings it is hard lead. If you get a thud, it is softer. You can't hear the difference between 5 BHN lead and 9 BHN lead. I bought my Cabine Tree hardness tester so that I can scrounge lead. I normally ask the owner if I can test it. I tell them I will mark the hardness on the ingot. I have never had a seller deny me the test. I have bought a lot of lead like this. I have turned down a truck load of lead that is too hard for my use.
I have offered this here many times. I anyone would like lead tested I would be glad to do it. I have tested a lot of lead for members of this board. All I need is 3 bullets/balls to test.
Pure lead is 5 BHN. I can scratch lead with my fingernail that is 22 BHN. The old wives tale that if you can scratch lead it is pure needs to die.
Stick on wheel weights (if you can find them) are not pure. I have tested many samples and they have alloy in them. The samples I have tested range from about 6 BHN to 7 BHN. The old stick on wheel weights are PERFECT lead for bullets.
Lead pipe, Again it is not pure. But lead pipe is in the 6 to 7 BHN range very good lead.
Lead pipe Joints. They are HARD. Think about it, they use an alloy to melt into the joint to seal it. How hard the Joints are depends on how much pipe is also in the mix. The samples I have tested were between 9 and 12 BHN.
Dental lead. A lot of guys swear that this is soft, it is NOT. Here is another wives tale that needs to die. just because the foils are easy to bend does not make them soft. I have received all the dental foils in our town for 12 years. My dentist was the last to change. I have never seen dental lead softer than 9 BHN fresh. After it has age hardened it is over 12 BHN.
Telephone lead. This stuff is in the hard category. while the samples I have tested were not real hard, it was about 8 to 8.5 BHN. It is perfect lead for 45 cal lead conicals. I like it.
Lead from Xray room walls. This is alloy, but it is very good lead. The samples I have tested were 6 to 7 BHN. That is perfect in my opinion.
Babbitt lead is VERY hard. The samples I have of Babbitt lead were samples I had collected from old augers in a feed mill. This lead is 15 BHN. Remember wheel weight is about 12 BHN.
Last is car batteries. I have about 200 pounds of melted down car batteries. I bought it on ebay a very long time ago. That lead was sold as "pure" lead. After I bought my hardness tester I found it was 22 BHN. This lead is SUPER hard. Some people are worried about the acid. After it has been heated hot enough to melt the lead the acid is gone. The problem is not the lead after it is melted. The problem is dealing with the acid while the battery is being torn apart and starting to melt. The lead is 22 BHN! it is NOT WORTH IT!!!! this lead is really not worth having for a guy with muzzleloaders. In fact pistol shooters should shy away from it. Many times lead this hard can actually cause lead to collect in the barrel of guns.
Zinc takes a lot of heat to melt. I have melted wheel weights and if you don't get the lead too hot the zinc floats like all the other crap. I have also made fishing weights out of zinc. You really have to get it hot. Then it pours like Oatmeal. The mold should be allowed to cool longer than if you were using pure lead. I have a lifetime supply of fishing weights made out of zinc.
I have bought a lot of lead. My rule of thumb is this. If you drop a wheel weight and it rings it is hard lead. If you get a thud, it is softer. You can't hear the difference between 5 BHN lead and 9 BHN lead. I bought my Cabine Tree hardness tester so that I can scrounge lead. I normally ask the owner if I can test it. I tell them I will mark the hardness on the ingot. I have never had a seller deny me the test. I have bought a lot of lead like this. I have turned down a truck load of lead that is too hard for my use.
I have offered this here many times. I anyone would like lead tested I would be glad to do it. I have tested a lot of lead for members of this board. All I need is 3 bullets/balls to test.
So the old clip ones are OK, if you can find them. Just don' get the ones that have a fe (steel)or a zn(zinc) on them? In other words the lead ones. Even though they're harder than pure lead they should be okay for bullets? It's the little square ones that are called stick ons?
Idaho Ron
58 Cal.
- Joined
- Mar 1, 2007
- Messages
- 2,729
- Reaction score
- 1,229
The clip on wheel weights are mostly hard. I had some from the late 1960's that were pure lead. The clip on wheel weights I got 10 years ago were hard.
I quit asking for wheel weights about 5 to 6 years ago because everything was zinc or steel.
really old stick on were good but I think most of them are gone now.
I've never messed with stick ones. That's the little square ones? So even the newer ones are to hard? I just may buy the balls ready made and use the lead on hand for rifle shooting.
Ok well, as mentioned wheel weights are now being transitioned over to, if not already gone to, zinc....now ZINC melts at a temp a good deal higher than lead... 166 degrees higher, so you can probably spot the zinc not melting if you put it into a pot of melted lead. Yes you can get the liquid lead hot enough to melt the zinc, and you can get ill off of zinc fumes....
The lead alloys and the lead-free alloys out there dont contract as much as pure lead..., so...., when you expect to have a .530 ball from your mold if you have an alloy you get a .532 or larger. You can get a situation where the alloy ball is pretty large, and thus is very very tight in your patch, if not too tight.
The alloy bullets are harder as several different types of alloys were used in modern cartridges and the shooters wanted low lead buildup in their barrels, but we use a patched round ball, so the lead isn't contacting the grooves of our barrels in many cases. Linotype was a big favorited of the cast rifle bullet crowd in the 1970's as it was very hard, but had a relatively low melting point.
I know of folks that use nothing but old wheel weights, having secured several buckets from local tire shops in the late 1980's and they have merely adapted their patches to shoot the balls cast from them. Kills deer quite well.
LD
The lead alloys and the lead-free alloys out there dont contract as much as pure lead..., so...., when you expect to have a .530 ball from your mold if you have an alloy you get a .532 or larger. You can get a situation where the alloy ball is pretty large, and thus is very very tight in your patch, if not too tight.
The alloy bullets are harder as several different types of alloys were used in modern cartridges and the shooters wanted low lead buildup in their barrels, but we use a patched round ball, so the lead isn't contacting the grooves of our barrels in many cases. Linotype was a big favorited of the cast rifle bullet crowd in the 1970's as it was very hard, but had a relatively low melting point.
I know of folks that use nothing but old wheel weights, having secured several buckets from local tire shops in the late 1980's and they have merely adapted their patches to shoot the balls cast from them. Kills deer quite well.
LD
While on the subject of lead. What does one do with the slag or dross that is left over from smelting the lead? Who knows what the chemical makeup is. I know mine contains alot of metal clips ftom old wheel weights.
Need pure lead or alloys go here.
https://www.rotometals.com/bullet-casting-alloys/
https://www.rotometals.com/bullet-casting-alloys/
In the past I've always melted and poured my own bullets (round balls or maxis). Mainly because I like it and its part of the hobby. But here lately I'm considering buying ready made balls for my revolver. I dont shoot near as much and I'm thinking it would be cheaper just to buy the store boughts. I already have the .45 +.50 cal moulds but this way I wouldn't have to shuck out the expense of another mould for a .44. Plus the dozen pounds of lead which I already own are mainly wheel weight lead and old fishing weights.
- Joined
- Mar 23, 2015
- Messages
- 5,066
- Reaction score
- 3,693
If you shoot less than a 100-200 rounds per year, then buying ready made balls isn't that much of a cost to buy. A mold will cost you the price of a couple of boxes=200 rounds.
