Pure Lead....not HC???

[ohio ramrod]

The use of pure lead is a result of seeking the best possible consistancy. I use any recycled lead in the smooth bores but for rifles I use only the purest I can find at the recycle yard. Lead is going to keep rising in price so get as much stockpiled as you can! :idunno:

 

[Rifleman1776]

Out of curiosity has there been any analysis' done on any of the found historical balls and lead stock?

Good question.
I'll opin that where the original lead came from would change those results with different tests.
I have some dig up minie balls from just outside the Gettysburg park. I'll donate some to someone here who is capable and qualitifed to do such a test.
For my part, it is the purest lead I can find for my rifles. I am swaying a little bit on the balls for my smoothie. This is strickly driven by a scarcity of lead around here. And, I am a veteran scrounger. The stuff is getting harder and harder to locat. And much more expensive when we do find it.

 

[F.G. Ford]

I just saw a government surplus site that wishes to sell lead ballast, 98,800 lbs. for $35000.
That is $2.82 a pound.
A bit pricey......I think??
Old Ford

 

[necchi]

Other way around,
$35K divided by 98,800 = 0.354251
35 cents a pound

Pretty good deal, is it soft lead?
You should pick it up. Should be able to partial it out in the classifieds, :wink:

 

[Matt85]

I just saw a government surplus site that wishes to sell lead ballast, 98,800 lbs. for $35000.
That is $2.82 a pound.
A bit pricey......I think??
Old Ford

thats a good deal if the lead is soft, however im not sure what you would do with over 49.4 tons of lead... id be in for 200 pounds. :grin:

 

[BrownBear]

...over 49.4 tons of lead....

Yeah, dats a lot! At my current rate of consumin 1,000 pounds a year for round balls, halibut weights and jigs it would come in right at a 100 year supply. I don't figure I've got a quarter that long left in my carcass.

 

[F.G. Ford]

Thank you Necchi,
For a fine lesson in math!
A little tooo much lead for me.
I have no idea how hard or soft it is.
But I wouldn't be looking for lead for a while.
Fred

 

[Dickydalton]

All I know is the store bought swaged balls mushroom when fired and the ones I cast from "Pure" lead don't. (Out of my Revolvers) Go figure.

 

[Bon Sauvage]

Once upon a time, when I worked for Uncle Sam, I found a bar of lead at SUBASE Pearl Harbor and was told that it was ballast lead.

The bar was stamped GRADE B and was not soft at all. I looked up the spec's and Grade B lead is only 95% pure lead.

For what it's worth.

 

[CrackStock]

I am with Ohio Ramrod on this.

After trying whatever lead I could find in my new moulds, I was not thrilled. Seeking better accuracy for our monthly matches, I read Dutch's information and also spoke with my shooting buddy, Jerry Willis about how to improve. In both discussion, there was a discussion regarding the lead that I was using. Recognizing the need to control all variables for best accuracy, I sought out and found pure lead in good quantities. After shooting this and enjoying the results, I share that advice with others.

This is just my opinion and not intended as a slur to the opinions of others.

CS

 

[mooman76]

I'm along the lines that it doesn't make much difference as long as you are using consistancy and work up good loads for what you are using. I used to use harder lead because that is what I had. I now have allot of both so I use soft for the ML. Maybe if you shoot matchs you will see a differance but the average shooter won't see it.

 

[Dickydalton]

I know one thing for sure. the "Pure" lead and the 99% "Pure" plumbers lead I have bought is harder than the lead balls that Speer and Hornady sell. Can anyone tell me why? My cast balls out of 7 different revolvers don't flatten or mushroom in sand and the store bought ones do. You can feel it when loading the guns. I need some help figuring this out. :hmm:

 

[Dphar]

I just saw a government surplus site that wishes to sell lead ballast, 98,800 lbs. for $35000.
That is $2.82 a pound.
A bit pricey......I think??
Old Ford

Where?

Dan

 

[Rifleman1776]

I just saw a government surplus site that wishes to sell lead ballast, 98,800 lbs. for $35000.
That is $2.82 a pound.
A bit pricey......I think??
Old Ford

thats a good deal if the lead is soft, however im not sure what you would do with over 49.4 tons of lead... id be in for 200 pounds. :grin:

Old Ford, yer 'rithmetics is worster than mine. :wink:
And, yes, just transporting it home would be problematic. I once passed on a great mil surplus sale because I didn't have the trucks and handling equipment necessary to get it home.
Takes money to make money.

 

[VTdeerhunter]

Thanks all for the responses to my post, was scouting a new hunting area all weekend, just getting to read these now.

Jack, sorry if it came across as confrontational to you, my posts are never meant to be”¦exactly the opposite actually, I ask questions to learn alternate opinions and ways of doing things, not to impose my opinion”¦I specifically said “we” at the end of my post to include myself with everyone else who cared to respond and make it not a “you vs. them” thingy”¦guess it back fired, will be more specific in my wording going forward”¦

Back to the post”¦ A great question came up on why the swaged balls seem softer??? I am now thinking that it is not as simple as hard vs. soft, because you can have two alloys of the exact same hardness but possess very different; ductility, malleability and formability.

Swaging uses room temperature materials and pressure”¦.when we cast PRB we take the material past its melting point then back to room temperature, although it is not as apparent as steel, lead does have a grain structure. Heating and cooling steel changes its grain structure, any info out there on what happens to lead thru this process??? I found reference to a technical report “Ball indentation tests and the grain structure of lead”, but it seems to be out of print”¦.guess so many people are interested in solving this mystery they can’t seem to print enough copies”¦. :rotf: :rotf:

 

[BrownBear]

Well said.

Dunno about "authentic" sources on lead structure, but among the hardcast shooters in the pistol world there's all kinds of procedures and precautions dealing with "aging" lead, even quenching some allows after casting. Don't know enough about it any more to say anything other than terms like "alloy" and "pure" are about as misused and abused as any words in politics.

 

[Dphar]

Well said.

Dunno about "authentic" sources on lead structure, but among the hardcast shooters in the pistol world there's all kinds of procedures and precautions dealing with "aging" lead, even quenching some allows after casting. Don't know enough about it any more to say anything other than terms like "alloy" and "pure" are about as misused and abused as any words in politics.

Cast hot then dropped from the mould into a bucket of cold water with a towel in the bottom will make WW alloy .662 balls hard.

DO NOT get the bucket too close to the lead pot.
Danger.

The bullets/balls are VERY hard.
I have done it with Keith SWCs for bear loads in modern revolvers too.

Lead alloy hardness does change and aging can make them more uniform.

Dan

 

[gjr902]

Here is my $0.02

Wheel weight lead is generally 8-12 BHN (hardness scale) You can increase the hardness by water cooling the lead to 20-24BHN. The box of round balls (Hornady) I bought from Cabelas is an 8 BHN, What does this mean? I dunno, they are just numbers.

I guess it all depends on what your trying to do. If you are to be historically accurare, you should use what was available in the area, and time you are "living". If your hunting or match shooting, you probably should have the best lead available, because at that point the target needs to be hit in the dot, and the deer needs to be hit and dropped asap.

Living in Vt I've read stories of turkey hunters, using rocks, small nails, broken up shells, glass and hard ground up, broken up scraps of whatever they could find, to load up and fire at those birds. Any they did. They actually did such a good job back then, that they destroyed the turkey population. It took untill the late 1970's to get turkeys back to a level, where we could hunt them again.

Traditional for Vt is probably different from traditional in Va. I dont think there is a perfect lead, or method for round balls. But its fun trying to get there.

 

[necchi]

I'm just gonna cast what lead I can get, as soft a stuff as I can get for my uses.
I'll be darned if I'm gonna float a canoe down the Mississippi to Iowa an throw dirt from Dubuque on a rollin fire in hopes to recover some lead from the ashes the next day.
I did trade a guy at a Rendezvous in Bemidji last year for about 25# of lead,
Does that count as PC/HC?
Oh Rat's! I drove the truck up there,, :shake:

 

[Dphar]

Here is my $0.02

Wheel weight lead is generally 8-12 BHN (hardness scale) You can increase the hardness by water cooling the lead to 20-24BHN. The box of round balls (Hornady) I bought from Cabelas is an 8 BHN, What does this mean? I dunno, they are just numbers.

I guess it all depends on what your trying to do. If you are to be historically accurare, you should use what was available in the area, and time you are "living". If your hunting or match shooting, you probably should have the best lead available, because at that point the target needs to be hit in the dot, and the deer needs to be hit and dropped asap.

Living in Vt I've read stories of turkey hunters, using rocks, small nails, broken up shells, glass and hard ground up, broken up scraps of whatever they could find, to load up and fire at those birds. Any they did. They actually did such a good job back then, that they destroyed the turkey population. It took untill the late 1970's to get turkeys back to a level, where we could hunt them again.

Traditional for Vt is probably different from traditional in Va. I dont think there is a perfect lead, or method for round balls. But its fun trying to get there.

So how does one get certified historically correct lead for any given historical period/location?
How would the person KNOW?
The stuff was transported everywhere in bars and as shot of various sizes. Many of the ball sizes including musket balls were drop shot from shot towers as soon as a tall enough tower was built. There is an existing tower at Austinville, VA completed in 1807 that has a 150 ft drop and this is long enough for musket shot from what I have read. Dropping was far faster than casting them. I suspect that the balls sold for trade guns, since they did not come with moulds as rifles did, were dropped as well. Rifles generally required cast balls of a specific size so bar lead was generally available everywhere. But rifle balls could be cast from drop shot as well if that is what was available.

I would not shoot rocks from a ML and I doubt this was ever common due to the damage it would do to the bore. Rocks also have a very poor B.C. anything but round shot patterns poorly. This was the reason cut shot was tumbled when possible to round it and Rupert shot was invented and eventually shot dropped longer distances became the standard.

Dan