Pure Soft Lead for Hand Casting

[Leadnoakum]

I get lead from my local scrap yard. Old style shower pans were pure lead as is x-ray room shielding. Way less expensive than Roto

When plumbers remove old cast iron hub and spigot pipe, the hubs have lead poured into them. I take a hammer and smash the hubs to get at it. It is soft lead that melts well. The oakum is easy to skim off the top when it melts.

 

[david w]

When plumbers remove old cast iron hub and spigot pipe, the hubs have lead poured into them. I take a hammer and smash the hubs to get at it. It is soft lead that melts well. The oakum is easy to skim off the top when it melts.

Yes, but one definitely wants to melt that lead outdoors!

 

[RjSixgun]

Dont worry about buying small pieces of lead, just get a hunk of lead and melt it into a small ingot or bar. Heck you can pour hot led into a small garden shovel or make a disposable bar mold out of wood if you had to! Most my ingots are cast in an old cast iron corn bread mold and an old lyman ingot mold I got for a buck at a garage sale.
you can just chop it up with a hatchet to make small chuncks
Look into cast iron cookwere, there are lots of things you can cast lead in to make small bars or ingots.

 

[Kansas Jake]

Muffin tins work great as a cheap ingot mold. Just don’t get aluminum or Teflon lined. Thrift shops usually have them for a buck or two.

 

[Alexitt]

Thank you everyone for sharing, alot of good information and ideas here and even good advice on being stupid while hunting. But I've ran across an item and I'm just going to ask. If it's a stupid idea I'm sure someone will let me know. I've seen these scuba weight bags online with lead shot in them. And I was looking for a small amount to start with and was wondering, Has anyone on here bought one of those, cut it open and tried that lead out?

A couple of years ago the Docs told me "No More Diving" as my odds of coming back had dropped to 50/50 and that wasn't quite good enough for me... Anyway long story short, sold off the dive gear and got back into Muzzleloading full time... I'm still melting dive weights and the soft weights are generally #5-6 shot mostly pure lead... I have melted some and kept the rest for use in my smoothbore, it works fine and if you get it cheap then go for it... Try it out and have fun...

Just noticed you said you have a .36 pistol, should be fine I've used it to cast conical Colts from Eras Gone without any issues...

 

[nhmoose]

I tried that once. They asked me what I intended to do with it. Make roundball, says I. Sorry, no sale says them. ###*!! anti gun people.

Hippies what do you expect Peace and tie dyes.

Roof flash the flat kind used in valleys is nice pure soft lead. I have even cut it into small squares to use as shot. I used an old paper cutter and scissors.

Dixie used to sell square shot made this way. Don't know if they still do.

Scap lead today market price

 

[ord sgt]

No worries on my end. I have enough lead ingots to last for the rest of my life. I brought scrap lead from my workplace to my home.

 

[The Crisco Kid]

Muffin tins work great as a cheap ingot mold. Just don’t get aluminum or Teflon lined. Thrift shops usually have them for a buck or two.

We must have had different experiences. I use nothing but aluminum muffin tins because the lead pops right out of them. Kind of like an aluminum mold. Teflon is no good. What I've had a lot of problems with are the muffin tins that have the aluminum frame with the steel muffin inserts. I've had to destroy them to get the lead out.

 

[Nobody85]

I get free lead from the tire shops. They have to be a mom and pop shop though. Chain stores usually sell back their wheel weights. Like someone said, you’ll have to see if your fingernail scratches it because some newer wheel weights are made of zinc.