School me on lead

[oldsalt444]

Somewhat new to BP loading, I understand that pure soft lead is what you use, mainly for ramming home the ball and engraving the rifling. However, would it be OK to use wheel weights (since I have a few hundred pounds) in a cap & ball brass frame 1860 Army revolver, or is that a BIG NO-NO?

 

[tenngun]

Most wheel weights are alloyed often with zinc to make them hard enough to stay Onondaga hold shape.
Pure lead is soft. Can you scratch the lead with your thumb nail? It might not be pure if it’s that soft but will serve.

 

[Carbon 6]

or is that a BIG NO-NO?

It's a good way to bend or break your loading lever.

 

[Grimord]

The wheel weight lead balls that you cast will put a strain on the loading lever of the BP revolver as it tries to seat the ball on the powder. With soft (pure) lead, a small ring of lead is shaved off the ball when the loading arm seats the ball. With harder lead, this shaving of the ball may require more force, thus the added strain to the loading arm.

 

[mooman76]

Basically what they said. The stick on WWs are softer though and they could be used. If you were to try I would go with a smaller ball, so it shouldn't be as hard to load but accuracy may suffer. I have used them for years in rifles. They drop a couple 2 or 3 thous larger than pure though. On another note if you can find someone that casts for cartridge guns, they need the harder lead and will often swop you for it.

 

[Tom A Hawk]

Those wheel weights work great for casting bullets from cartridge loading. Use soft lead for front stuffers.

 

[hanshi]

While WW alloy - the old WW, that is, was only lead/antimony - works fine in smoothbores and rifles it is NOT for c&b revolvers. Always soft lead in revolvers.

 

[jdw276]

The wheel weight lead balls that you cast will put a strain on the loading lever of the BP revolver as it tries to seat the ball on the powder. With soft (pure) lead, a small ring of lead is shaved off the ball when the loading arm seats the ball. With harder lead, this shaving of the ball may require more force, thus the added strain to the loading arm.

I agree it may require more force. But sometimes i think the idea is you need two hands and put your entire body weight behind it to load not 100% roundball. For me, pure lead is push on the loading lever with it away from my body elbows out, harder lead just bring it into my chest to get a little bit more leverage. Not brutus strength level and definitely not popeye on spinach level.

 

[Zonie]

From what I've learned over the years, using balls cast from wheel weights for muzzle loading rifle loads can work fine but usually the thickness of the cloth patch needs to be reduced to something less than it would be if a pure lead roundball was being loaded.

That's because the harder lead won't deform and flow into the rifling grooves as easily as it does when loading a pure lead roundball.
(Yes. Even though the ball is patched, some of the ball does deform slightly into the grooves taking on a little of the shape of the rifled bore.)

 

[SDSmlf]

Somewhat new to BP loading, I understand that pure soft lead is what you use, mainly for ramming home the ball and engraving the rifling. However, would it be OK to use wheel weights (since I have a few hundred pounds) in a cap & ball brass frame 1860 Army revolver, or is that a BIG NO-NO?

Do not use wheel weights for balls in a brass frame revolver unless you are loading the cylinder out of the frame in a separate loading fixture. Loading the cylinder while in the frame you will likely stretch the brass and loosen the arbor, at least in my opinion.

 

[TNGhost]

Somewhat new to BP loading, I understand that pure soft lead is what you use, mainly for ramming home the ball and engraving the rifling. However, would it be OK to use wheel weights (since I have a few hundred pounds) in a cap & ball brass frame 1860 Army revolver, or is that a BIG NO-NO?

Another vote for loading with the cylinder off the gun if you use the wheel weights, much easier on the loading lever. I won't get into alloys as being around as long as you have you probably know the drill.

Pure lead is the most desirable way to go with BP guns for a few reasons, but in a pinch you can use your wheelweights with not great ill effect so long as with your C&B you load off the gun. Conicals in rifles, like REALs and Minies work best in pure lead as well. I answered you more in detail in your intro thread.

 

[Barry Strickland]

Years ago I used quite a bit of wheel weights for casting cartridge bullets. It worked well at that time. A couple of years ago I bought a bucket of wheel weights and when I got them home I started checking them out, I was really disappointed with them. Some were so hard they would ring like a bell when I struck them with a rod. I made some anchor weights out of the bad ones which was about one half of the bucket full. I have been told since that they throw all kinds of scrap garbage in furnace when they are made now. Good Luck!

 

[mooman76]

Allot of states have mandated they stop with the lead WWs so allot of them are now zinc or other metals. You have to be careful these days so you don't get the wrong ones in your mix.

 

[Greg Blackburn]

Dang. I have about 150 pounds of wheel weights I had intended to cast into muzzleloader balls and bullets.

 

[SDSmlf]

Dang. I have about 150 pounds of wheel weights I had intended to cast into muzzleloader balls and bullets.

WW can work for roundballs as long as they are the older ones hi in lead content. May have to use slightly thinner patch material. Not so good for muzzleloader bullets, but you won’t know until you try.

 

[TNGhost]

Dang. I have about 150 pounds of wheel weights I had intended to cast into muzzleloader balls and bullets.

They will work fine for balls. Even in revolvers, so long as you use a loading press and load the cylinder off the gun. There are in fact "lead free" balls that are much harder than wheelweight alloy sold, and in use, where the "environmentalists" have been allowed to run wild, and they have proven to work, albeit not as well as lead for a variety of reasons.

Wheelweight alloy is not so great with REAL bullets or Minies, as with REAL's (Rifling Engraved At Loading) they are very hard to load and with Minies, the harder lead does not work as well for the skirt to flare and properly engage the rifling.

The only thing you need to be aware of is that in recent years, driven by the false hysteria over lead, there have been a variety of non lead wheelweights used, including some made of zinc and some of steel.. Normally you can tell with fair accuracy just by how soft and easy they are to scratch, and after a while you will be able to pick them out mostly just by sight.

Steel is not such a problem, as like the clips on lead wheelweights, it just floats to the top. zinc however you have to be very careful of not to get into your melt as it will muck things up royally, into a clumpy mess that is hard to clean up.

Although zinc, with its relatively low melting point can be used itself to make projectiles, albeit very light ones that are nowhere near as useful as lead, but you never want to get it near your lead casting pots and equipment

 

[Carbon 6]

Dang. I have about 150 pounds of wheel weights I had intended to cast into muzzleloader balls and bullets.

Save them, trade them, they are worth more than pure lead to the right people.

 

[William P Sepessy]

As mentioned, the WW are hard on your loading lever. Just so you know it's not just opinion, I witnessed someone bend the loading lever on a Ruger Old Army trying to seat WW cast round ball. I don't remember what size ball he was using, but the bent loading lever sure stuck in my memory.

 

[Zonie]

Dang. I have about 150 pounds of wheel weights I had intended to cast into muzzleloader balls and bullets.

If your worried about having some zinc wheelweights, watch this short video. It gives some good pointers about how to tell zinc from lead or steel wheelweights.

Also, zinc is rather hard and not ductile. That means if it is struck against a hard surface it has more of a ringing sound while lead, being soft, makes more of a "thud" sound.

 

[mooman76]

I might also mention, zinc has a little higher melt temp so when you are smelting and already have a good amount of melt in the pot, slowly add WWs and anything that does not melt quick, pull back out of the pot.