• Friends, our 2nd Amendment rights are always under attack and the NRA has been a constant for decades in helping fight that fight.

    We have partnered with the NRA to offer you a discount on membership and Muzzleloading Forum gets a small percentage too of each membership, so you are supporting both the NRA and us.

    Use this link to sign up please; https://membership.nra.org/recruiters/join/XR045103

source for lead

Muzzleloading Forum

Help Support Muzzleloading Forum:

This site may earn a commission from merchant affiliate links, including eBay, Amazon, and others.
Galena lead came from Galena, IL
Sorry Kansas

I think strictly speaking galena is the ore from which lead along with other metal can be refined. Galena isn't pure lead, and pure lead isn't galena. It's sorta like bauxite is the ore aluminum is refined from, but aluminum isn't bauxite.

Galena, KS is a mining town where galena was mined. There's a galena deposit under SE Kansas, SW Missouri and NE Oklahoma. The mines are all shut down now.
 
x-ray department at our hospital gave me a plastic milk carton full of small lead containers used for radioactive cancer treatment. Several hundred pounds of the softest lead I've ever used. About the size of a 35mm film cannister with matching lead lid. About the time my hair started to fall out, thinking back a bit.
 
x-ray department at our hospital gave me a plastic milk carton full of small lead containers used for radioactive cancer treatment. Several hundred pounds of the softest lead I've ever used. About the size of a 35mm film cannister with matching lead lid. About the time my hair started to fall out, thinking back a bit.
Shoot them at night and watch them go downrange like a tracer
 
The Telephone Co.! When I retired in '94 almost every telco truck carried 200 lbs or more of pure lead s leaving plus 100 lbs or more of lead ingots. So, do you know any old Telco workers?
John
 
They don't use real lead anymore, at least in craft businesses. I gotta think real stained glass places are few and far between. Lead is considered "toxic" in today's weenie world

Sure they do. It is called "lead came" and is used for old style "leading" rather than the more frequently seen "solder and foil". Available at stained glass shops, or online. Just sold about 60# to a friend, as my wife no longer does stained glass (due to problems with standing to cut, grind, and solder the pieces).
 
The Telephone Co.! When I retired in '94 almost every telco truck carried 200 lbs or more of pure lead s leaving plus 100 lbs or more of lead ingots. So, do you know any old Telco workers?
John

I retired from the phone company after 45 years Feb 2020 and we took down tons of lead cable in decades past and my coworkers were like hungry vultures stripping the lead sheath off. At the time I could care less about lead but, now I wish I had been right there with them...

Most of the "old" guys have used or disbursed of their lead, or they have gone to the great pole yard in the sky.

Good idea, though, since there is still lead in the air around here.
 
Last edited:
try searching old plumber shops, hardware stores, salvage yards,.
in my state RI, it is illegal to buy it at scrap metal yards , they will not sell it to you because it is a HAZARADIOUS MATERIAL. only licensed plumbers can buy it from plumbing supply houses..
 
Ha- As a cable splicer for ma bell I to laid in a supply of lead before I retired. Unfortunately Or fortunately, at 80 years of age I’ve out live my supply. Now it’s mining the back stop at the gun club, that’s becoming a bit strenuous. so more and more I depend on a plumber son or buying it.
A note on the telco lead. Depending on how he sourced it the lead can have a fair amount of antimony tin or calcium content.
isn't hoarding lead a wonderful thing!? the older that we get the more we do it. I guess that that the GRIM REAPER will not come to our door? GUESS WHAT?
 
I retired from the phone company after 45 years Feb 2020 and we took down tons of lead cable in decades past and my coworkers were like hungry vultures stripping the lead sheath off. At the time I could care less about lead but, now I wish I had been right there with them...

Most of the "old" guys have used or disbursed of their lead, or they have gone to the great pole yard in the sky.

Good idea, though, since there is still lead in the air around here.
You sound like a Lineman. Did your company test its outside craftsman for lead. The linemen were more exposed to lead poisoning as the cables would release the lead oxide into the air as they took it down or pulled it from the underground. I was a cable splicer for thirty years, New England Telephone in 67, by 97 when I retired it had become Verizon. I had a good supply of lead ingots stashed away, now all shot down range.
FiberOptics have replaced a good deal of the copper telephone cables around here now.
 
Pardon my ignorance, what’s is “sweet” lead.
The old name for lead acetate was "sugar of lead" which is why the Romans stored wine in lead containers to sweeten the wine. The gray scale on oxidized lead has some lead acetate in it, Which is why you should always wash your hands well after handling lead.
 
I just put local feelers out through friends that shoot muzzleloader. Ended up in the barn of a retired phone company guy, he had sheets of lead that took 2 of us to load in my truck. I'd guess about 500 lbs total, for $150. My friend and I split it. Should be good for a while. He uses to make shot for skeet shooting but has aged out of that and didn't need the lead.
"Phone Company Lead" is a bit harder than the plumbing variety. It will still shoot well, but as an "alloy" may cast a bit differently.
 
"Sweet Lead" is from thae taste it has when you bite down on it. small freshwater Fishing Sinkers used to be put on the line by biting down on the tabs or the spilt shot and you could taste if it was Sweet pure lead or if it was an Amalgamate like the dentist used to fill your cavitys. the old expression to Bite the Bullett would let you know if you were biting a Gold Dubloon (Piece of Eight) or a Lead coin with a thin gold layer on it. Try it. the Gold does Not taste sweet but the lead does! pB ( PlumBob)
pB.jpg
 
Another vote for Rotometals, They will have sales sometimes if you sign up for an account.

When you buy lead from them you know your getting 100% lead with no impurities.
As soon as you melt the lead the impurities rise to the top and can be scraped off
 
Back
Top