What kind of lead for molding conicals?

[coloradoclyde]

Old roof flashings make awesome bullets.....pure plumbers lead...

 

[Loyalist Dave]

If I had 60 lbs of WW lead, I'd use it as is. What can go wrong? So it's a little inconsistent or too hard...so what. After casting a few from the WW lead, mike the dias and then load 'em up, check for "fit" in the bore and shoot. Why waste that much lead....doesn't make any sense?.......Fred

I don't think folks are talkin' about the waisting of that castable alloy. :wink:

As for "going wrong" well that depends on what one means by "going wrong". :haha:

For example, one thing that can go wrong is the diameter of the cooled projectile is too big to function well with the shooter's old ball and patch combo, but you mentioned measurement to avoid that...which it would when the patch was adjusted.

Next, the shooter might be relying on deformation of the bullet on impact with a deer to help cause damage..., and the harder bullet might not deform much. The Lyman #2 alloy is liked by cast bullet cartridge shooters as it doesn't lead up the grooves of the barrel too much...and that's because of it's hardness. Now I shoot a .54 which is a honkin' big hole in itself so I might not care if it went through a deer and didn't deform, but were I using a .45 I might just want the softest bullet I could get so it would make a bigger hole on exit. YET, on the other hand some folks simply want good penetration and any hole from .45 upward is large enough for them...a harder bullet might give them deeper performance...


Then, you have the conical shooter who wants that bullet to obdurate onto the rifling...the harder the bullet the harder it is to make it do that. Not to mention if the alloy is a lot harder than the pure lead conical that the shooter used in the past..., it might have a lot more tin or other, lighter metals, and the impact of the bullet on a target or deer might be significantly higher than expected.

All of these factors can of course be remedied, and if a viable solution is not found....

The ingots could be traded to a cartridge shooter/caster for an equal weight of all-lead. I'm sure one could advertise for a trade and find a willing person in a short amount of time.

LD

 

[Kylongrifle]

Yes, I also buy plumbers lead when I can too.

 

[coloradoclyde]

There's an easy way to get free lead for casting.......Any guesses?

 

[Vaino]

You've raised a whole lot of "what ifs"....the OP should cast some bullets and find out. My suggestion was to mike the bullets and then load. If they load w/o difficulty, then shoot.

Asre shooting a deer...whether pure lead is used or WW lead, w/ a proper hit, the deer won't know the difference.

All I'm saying is to cast some bullets and shoot....just like to keep things simple and use what's at hand.....Fred

 

[mooman76]

I did do Lee REALs with a harder alloy because that is all I had it worked well but hurts the hand pounding them down. I don't know how hard my alloy was because it was mostly range scrap and some WWs but a guess would be right in between WWs and soft lead.

 

[Naphtali]

In my .72-caliber rifles I cast 30:1. A small amount of tin causes complete fill of the 775-grain conical's large cavity with close to zero rejects. Whether tin would provide similar assistance when used in smaller bullets, dunno.

Hope this helps.

 

[nkbj]

775's! Oh my gosh you remind me of my brother... gonna give yourself shaken baby syndrome just sure as the world!

 

[Ethan Grotheer]

I really appreciate all the info on here as its a big help. Killed a nice big doe with my grandfathers TC Hawkin and a maxi ball he had molded when he was alive and the performance was incredible and yet I don't want to shoot all of his conicals up just yet, so I'm shopping for a maxi ball mold and then I'll commence with getting softer lead. The alloy ww metal may prove useful for rbs in my .54.

 

[BrownBear]

The alloy ww metal may prove useful for rbs in my .54.

There ya go.

Quite a few folks here and in Canada prefer casting their balls from alloy for better penetration on moose. They're slightly larger than balls cast from the same mold with pure lead, but that's an easy fix with a slightly thinner patch.

I got a ton (literally) of "lead" from the cleaning of the backstops at a local indoor range. It's range-run, so there can be a lot of variation in alloy and hardness from one small batch to the next. My solution is to melt very large batches so I can have consistent hardness and diameters in balls within that batch, then start "fresh" next time I melt up another big batch. My rifles don't care in the least, and neither does the game.

 

[dwr]

I just can't get away from pure lead in either RB (which I mostly shoot) or Maxi Balls.

It performs great in either for me, also in black powder cartridge loading.

I have about 2 lifetimes supply, but would probably buy some more if it was a bargain :wink:

Not to hijack the thread.....but I wonder what the Rendezvous era lead was...pure lead I would guess, but I would stand for correction (I'm used to it)

 

[Rifleman1776]

I wonder what the Rendezvous era lead was...pure lead I would guess, but I would stand for correction (I'm used to it)

Historically interesting question. In my area (north central Arkansas) there used to be a lot of mining for lead, zinc and some silver. We had towns named 'Lead Hill', 'Zinc', etc. Freshly dug up lead is often referred to as 'galena'. I have been told it contained some zinc and silver. Not a stretch to believe the mountain man era lead contained some of those as impurities. But, that would depend on who smelted it and whether they removed those lighter metals. I'm just suppositioning here. Really, dunno. :idunno:

 

[Auldgoat]

Balls made from WW are rather difficult to extract w/ a worm.

 

[dwr]

[/quote]

Historically interesting question. In my area (north central Arkansas) there used to be a lot of mining for lead, zinc and some silver. We had towns named 'Lead Hill', 'Zinc', etc. Freshly dug up lead is often referred to as 'galena'. I have been told it contained some zinc and silver. Not a stretch to believe the mountain man era lead contained some of those as impurities. But, that would depend on who smelted it and whether they removed those lighter metals. I'm just suppositioning here. Really, dunno. :idunno: [/quote]

Yes, I was raised in Benton County and went to 1 year of tech school in Harrison before moving to Okieville to become a lineman (35 years). I know where Lead Hill and Zinc are.

Interesting about the galena. It made me Wikipedia
Gelena, Ks (A place I used to frequent as a youth) and it was named after lead was discovered in 1877 and was mined for a long time. Hadn't the foggiest raw lead was called that. Learned something new today,thanks.

I suspect your right about the source of lead and the impurities, probably depended where it came from. :wink: