Soft Pure Lead??

[Whitworth]

I have recovered balls with cloth pattern embossed, that's good enough for me.

 

[French Colonial]

Yes! R = (12/T) x V. Where T = twist & V = velocity of bullet in feet per second will give you R (rotational speed of bullet) in Rotations per Second. Multiply by 60 to get RPM's. So if you have a ball with an 1800 fps muzzle velocity & a barrel twist of 1 in 48, the ball will be spinning at 27,000 RPMs when it leaves the muzzle. Unmentionables with their higher velocity & much faster twists can spin bullets in excess of 250,000 RPMs. That will make you dizzy!

Yes, that is easy enough, but the question is, We assume that the soft lead ball that is imprinted with the patch works with this formula

Does the hard surfaced ball slip in the patch and so the patch is actually spinning faster than the ball?

 

[Mogadishu Meanderer]

Ive never gotten a good answer about this but why must we use pure soft lead for round ball? It's said over and over that the patch engages the rifling not the ball, so what does it matter if the lead is pure lead or wheel weights or whatever, other than maybe weight consistency or expansion on game. A slightly lighter ball would give a bit higher velocity therefore flatter trajectory, albeit not that much. Seems like a rookie question but there are many other myths and wives tales about BP shooting. I'm just wondering if this is one.

Yank, this questions normally get 15 pages of answers and all will be different. Cast some balls of different hardness and let experimentation be your guide. Come up up with your OWN empirical evidence and go from there!!! I have shot thousands of round balls, mostly round balls, with extreme success, (target and hunting)made out of WW, range lead and remelted hard bullets. They come out a bit larger and depends on the gun are harder to load but in this game experimentation is most of the fun. Good luck.

 

[Loyalist Dave]

Ive never gotten a good answer about this but why must we use pure soft lead for round ball? It's said over and over that the patch engages the rifling not the ball, so what does it matter if the lead is pure lead or wheel weights or whatever, other than maybe weight consistency or expansion on game. A slightly lighter ball would give a bit higher velocity therefore flatter trajectory, albeit not that much. Seems like a rookie question but there are many other myths and wives tales about BP shooting. I'm just wondering if this is one.

So...,
You've had a bunch of replies..

FIRST the reason why we use soft lead is because that was once all they had, and the muzzle loading barrels changed over time in materials (better steel) and changed in how they were rifled (more precise & even number of lands and grooves), but the size of the ball to the bore didn't change... and if you cast an alloy, it does not shrink while cooling and so is oversized, and tough if not impossible to load without adjusting one's patch thickness. YES the bullet mold manufacturers could make molds that cast alloy bullets to a size so that when they cool they will be the same diameter as an all lead bullet. BUT this is a hassle for them, because then if the casting person switches to all lead the ball will be too small, and then there's the issue of different alloys having different shrink rates.... and ML users are a tiny portion of the customers, so....

Some of the early conical designs, the minnie ball, have a skirt that flares to grab onto the rifling, "obturates" onto the rifling to use the technical term, and thus the spin is then transferred to that projectile as it passes down the barrel. The lead has to be soft for this to work well in some cases.

As for the patching material imprinting on the soft lead ball. Folks should understand that where it imprints, IF it imprints, is NOT from the grooves of the rifling, but where the lands contact the patch and ball. You will get cloth imprint from a tight fitting patched ball in a smoothbore too, although the locations on the ball will not be symmetric. Folks have tried alloy ball with a thinner patch in rifles and have equal accuracy to an all lead ball. There is a need for the patching material to be able to have a good grip on the ball is all. The cloth pattern on the actual ball is merely due to the nature of the lead, not necessarily an indication that the "grip" on the ball is correct. I remind folks that thin, greased leather was once used for patching material, and there is no "weave" on that.

Finally the terminal ballistics on all lead, aka "soft lead" is often an advantage when harvesting large game as the all lead ball will deform and increase the area causing the damage to the animal. On large, dangerous game, an alloy round ball, being a bit harder than all lead, would give the hunter potentially deeper penetration to reach the vital organs or smash through a skull or spinal column, when an all lead bullet might not go far enough.

LD

 

[LME]

Ive never gotten a good answer about this but why must we use pure soft lead for round ball? It's said over and over that the patch engages the rifling not the ball, so what does it matter if the lead is pure lead or wheel weights or whatever, other than maybe weight consistency or expansion on game. A slightly lighter ball would give a bit higher velocity therefore flatter trajectory, albeit not that much. Seems like a rookie question but there are many other myths and wives tales about BP shooting. I'm just wondering if this is one.

An alloy lead bullet isn't constant. ? the amount of the added substance can vary greatly. This means one would have to shoot many times to find out what works for a particular rifle with a particular lead alloy. Being alloys are varied it would be a nightmare to have to change set ups each time you use an alloy lead bullet being you never know how hard or soft your bullet happens to be? As far as riflings gripping the ball I really think it grips well enough as the C.U.P.s are extremely high and spin will be induced on the ball/bullet regardless? I also think that when shooting Minie bullets and the like pure lead would allow you to shoot lighter loads as it takes less C.U.P. to expand the skirt of mine like bullets. All in all pure lead balls takes a lot of the guess work out of the equation. Am I wrong with my therory? Probably!

 

[doubleset]

I have recovered balls with cloth pattern embossed, that's good enough for me.

I can't even. Quod erat demonstrandum.

 

[Johnny Tremain]

We use wheel weight lead for round ball. Never had a problem with it.

 

[Whughett]

So several observations. Patched round ball in a rifled barrel. Thought the idea of rifling was to eliminate the need to patch a ball and use a projectile that took advantage of the rifling by spinning the projectile along its axis there by creating greater accuracy by preventing
tumbling . What’s the point in spinning a sphere. .
So seems the majority, at least here, still use round balls in rifled rifles for ?? Ease of loading, ??

As a revolver shooter pure soft lead is just easier to press into the chamber and form the sphere into more of a cylinder that the rifling can now impart spin to.
I use what ever lead I come across, mostly back stop material, and unless it’s Babbitt bearing material lead is lead and under the force of the powder charge it’s going to move.

 

[Griz44Mag]

This keeps being reported, but it seems to me to be something of a "likely story". Given how friction actually works between two surfaces, it's not obvious that macroscopic "imprinting" would actually contribute anything. Is there any real evidence for this (I mean experiments demonstrating it under controlled conditions with actual measurements)? Or is it just offered as "common sense"?

If you are just trying to "justify" your use of hard lead then no justification is required.
I have tried all three ways with soft and harder lead.
Bottom line - soft lead works the best, but harder lead is OK if you are just paper punching.
If you are hunting you want soft lead that will expand on impact.
If you are shooting steel targets - definitely use soft lead to reduce ricochets. Soft lead will splatter into very small pieces and lose almost all energy at the plate, where harder lead will not and will travel longer distances. If you are hunting with conicals, absolutely use soft lead.
If there is any question about how hard your lead really is, then find someone with a decent tester and find out.
The fingernail scratchers and pencil pushers stuff is highly inaccurate. If you don't care how hard of a lead you are using (target duty) and you don't hunt with your cast lead, then it really is up to you and whether or not you are happy with your end of the line accuracy. Neither will damage your gun. (unless you have to use a hammer to seat your load)

 

[45man]

The way I see is to use a large rag of patch, lube a corner and seat the ball. Pull the patch and ball out and look at it. You want to see patch engraving at the bottom of the grooves also and hard lead will not do it. Getting a hard ball down is a rod breaker.

 

[doubleset]

Yes! R = (12/T) x V. Where T = twist & V = velocity of bullet in feet per second will give you R (rotational speed of bullet) in Rotations per Second. ...

Yes, but this is a theoretical determination (result based on the physical theory we've developed). I take Dude to be asking how we could determine that answer empirically/observationally. The answer to this is that we could, but it would take a lot of equipment in a lab and, of course, some significant funding. The major ammunition and bullet manufacturers' labs have that equipment (as do universities), but no one would fund the study because it would matter to so few people (although possibly patch vendors might care a lot). It would be like funding the development of a medication for a disease that only a dozen people in the world get and that only makes their noses itch for 30 seconds out of each day. In my experience, NSF would not be interested in funding the necessary study. But it might make part of a decent MS thesis in ballistics if it could be worked into something a little broader -- or maybe just used to show how good the lab equipment is so that more grants could be awarded for developing that equipment.

 

[Whitworth]

Yes, but this is a theoretical determination (result based on the physical theory we've developed). I take Dude to be asking how we could determine that answer empirically/observationally. The answer to this is that we could, but it would take a lot of equipment in a lab and, of course, some significant funding. The major ammunition and bullet manufacturers' labs have that equipment (as do universities), but no one would fund the study because it would matter to so few people (although possibly patch vendors might care a lot). It would be like funding the development of a medication for a disease that only a dozen people in the world get and that only makes their noses itch for 30 seconds out of each day. In my experience, NSF would not be interested in funding the necessary study. But it might make part of a decent MS thesis in ballistics if it could be worked into something a little broader -- or maybe just used to show how good the lab equipment is so that more grants could be awarded for developing that equipment.

If it wasn't following the rifling at the prescribed rate then the bullet is stripping the rifling and will show evidence on the bullet. QED that.

 

[flntlokr]

Ive never gotten a good answer about this but why must we use pure soft lead for round ball? It's said over and over that the patch engages the rifling not the ball, so what does it matter if the lead is pure lead or wheel weights or whatever, other than maybe weight consistency or expansion on game. A slightly lighter ball would give a bit higher velocity therefore flatter trajectory, albeit not that much. Seems like a rookie question but there are many other myths and wives tales about BP shooting. I'm just wondering if this is one.

I am sure this has been kicked around for at least a couple of hundred years. My 2 cents worth; shoot whatever you can find. I have shot pure, sof lead, and various admixtures up to and including steel ball bearings (patched). Everything shot equally well (groups), but because there is variation in weight, the groups changed elevation slightly (ball bearings grouped about 2" higher than soft lead at 100 yards for me). The moral of the story is; unless you are consistently able to shoot cloverleafs, it probably won't make any difference. Hunters would probably be better off with soft stuff because they want the ball to flatten on impact.

 

[jimairwin]

Here's an idea. Go get some hard lead balls and try to load them without having to use a hammer or cutting the patch. It can be done with a much smaller ball and thicker patch. The patch has to be thick and the ball smaller because the ball compresses the patch on the lands, but still has to fill the grooves. Lead will give allowing both things to happen.

I've shot many lead & lead alloy balls & bullets. In every case I've tested, the softer the better. Balls & Minie` balls, pure lead, both with appropriate patch &/or lube. Bullets 40:1 alloy, with proper lube. ALL with tight fit to bore.

I even show some 54 cal swaged round balls with tight, lubed patch in a 50 cal RB gun. Worked very well but were hard to load! Tighter balls deform more. Round balls become elongated bullets to some degree. Like someone said..."try it yourself and actually learn something."
Happy shooting (& learning) pilgrim.

 

[Old Hawkeye]

Yes, but this is a theoretical determination (result based on the physical theory we've developed). I take Dude to be asking how we could determine that answer empirically/observationally. The answer to this is that we could, but it would take a lot of equipment in a lab and, of course, some significant funding. The major ammunition and bullet manufacturers' labs have that equipment (as do universities), but no one would fund the study because it would matter to so few people (although possibly patch vendors might care a lot). It would be like funding the development of a medication for a disease that only a dozen people in the world get and that only makes their noses itch for 30 seconds out of each day. In my experience, NSF would not be interested in funding the necessary study. But it might make part of a decent MS thesis in ballistics if it could be worked into something a little broader -- or maybe just used to show how good the lab equipment is so that more grants could be awarded for developing that equipment.

I just answered a fellas question. Not really interested in arguing about your theoretically empirical observations. Whatever the heck that is. Have you always been this contrary?

 

[Idaho Ron]

This post is not aimed at anyone.
There is a misconception that there is only two kinds of lead.
Pure soft, and hard. That way of thinking is just wrong. With my tester I can tell the difference of hardness in pure lead.
Guys that think that "hard lead" can't obturate, or can't at muzzleloader velocity are simply wrong. In the picture I'm adding, this lead is 18bhn. That is beyond harder than wheel weight. It was paper patched and shot out of my 45. It didn't strip the paper. It didn't strip the rifling.
There is a lot of info on here about alloy that is simply not factual.
The biggest myth is there is pure and hard. No levels in between.
Alloyed lead bullets are no harder to tune a load than pure. In fact a guy with a hardness tester mixing his own alloy can be more precise than the guy that buys thumbnail scratched "pure ". I can scratch 18bhn lead.

 

[doubleset]

I just answered a fellas question. Not really interested in arguing about your theoretically empirical observations. Whatever the heck that is. Have you always been this contrary?

Only when people are being assertive, silly, and then don't want to answer reasonable questions about what they've said. In this case, however, I'm not being contrary. Just pointing out that while what you said was perfectly correct, it wasn't an answer to the question that was actually asked, and then I tried to clarify what that question was and how it could be answered in the way the poster wanted. I don't think that's contrary.

 

[waksupi]

I've been using wheel weights for 48 years, shooting patched round ball. I never have used a short starter for over 40 of those years. Those balls have managed to kill a fair amount of game, and a fair amount of shooting matches. If you hunt elk and bear in the west, you come to find those slightly harder balls will give you deeper penetration. This is a good thing,

 

[Ohio Rusty]

I have heard that a soft lead ball will imprint in the patch, making the patch hold on to the ball and not slip. The better reason for pure soft lead is the CVA stuck ball thread. I'm not saying you can't use a hard lead ball in your muzzleloader, but If you have a hard lead ball, like made from wheelweights that gets stuck in the barrel, you will never get a ball puller down into the ball to pull it out. Lastly, soft lead expands and adds to the killing energy.
Ohio Rusty ><>

 

[deerstalkert]

i have screwed into linotype Balls. i think linotype is a fair bit harder than dead soft. or wheelweight .