Lead from "lead water pipe"

[Three Hawks]

Your thoughts on using this for round balls??
I still have plenty of plumbers lead, wheel weights

You defenitly hit the jackpot. keep all you can get. I look for this stuff to be very hard to get in the future. as for the wheel weights....I would get rid of them. too much tin.
Just my opinion

[size=150]GET RID OF THE WHEELWEIGHTS???  [/size]Are you out of what's left of your mind?   Wheelweights are the perfect centerfire bullet alloy and are getting hard to find .  I know casters who'd trade their first born for a hundred pounds of wheelweights.

Keep the WW's and cast rifle bullets for your centerfires.  Wonderful stuff.

incredulous ol'

Three Hawks

[Gambia]

Wheel weights made from lead will be all gone very soon.The last set of tires I bought at Costco were installed with iron weights a month ago.The installer told me Costco quit using them some time ago along with a bunch of other large retail tire outlets. Apparently the process is voluntary so far but some states like Ca.have outlawed them I suspect Wa. and Or. wont be far behind.

[Gambia]

[size=150]GET RID OF THE WHEELWEIGHTS???  [/size]

Lets see now, Ifn' I remember right, this is the Traditional Muzzleloading Association and has nothing to do with modern center fire rifles, that would be why my answer is what it is. Wheel weights are too hard for Round balls that you will shoot in your mild steel rifle barrel of your flintlock or percussion rifle.
I hope that is better understood. sorry for all the confusion.

[Riley/MN]

Interesting that we had this thread yesterday...Last night I was in a meeting, was talking to a guy about casting balls and getting lead. There was a contractor in the meeting that offered up what he had laying around...4-500 pounds of pipe. So I guess I better find a mold or two...

[Fletcher]

Riley, It really does not cost that much to get started.  Get a bunch of that lead and a melting pot and some kind of ingot mold.  I even saw a guy use the cast iron pan that had little ears of corn as forms to mold his lead! (I think it was a muffin pan!)

The Lyman ingot mold is better because they are very close to one pound if you carefully fill to the level line.

Follow my directions and you can't go wrong you fuzzy little devil  

If you make more than you ever shoot - sell tham at a trade show or Rondy. Lead is where you find it - gold too!

[BIG SKY TRAPPER]

Just giving it all a good initial cleaning, and getting it molded in manageable pieces/blocks.






All the nasties in your water line, least they float right on top and easy to skin off


ssshhhhhh...dont tell the mrs. i "borrowed" her muffin pan  


just shy of a five pound block.

[Three Hawks]

If you use that muffin pan for food, you're asking to get sick.   Go to a thrift shop of some kind and get an aluminu muffin tin with round cups.   They cast led muffins around a pound in weight.  When mine get a bit long in the tooth they go into the garbage.  I usually pay about a buck for my muffin tins.

Lots of guys use those little cast iron corn fritter pans.  Again, after they've had lead in them, never use 'em for food.  

You should think  about what's going to happen with cast iron cookware you've used for casting lead after it leaves your possession.

Gerry

[Three Hawks]

[size=150]GET RID OF THE WHEELWEIGHTS???  [/size]

Lets see now, Ifn' I remember right, this is the Traditional Muzzleloading Association and has nothing to do with modern center fire rifles, that would be why my answer is what it is. Wheel weights are too hard for Round balls that you will shoot in your mild steel rifle barrel of your flintlock or percussion rifle.
I hope that is better understood. sorry for all the confusion.

I wager none of us shoots muzzleloaders exclusively.   I shoot a bunch of calibers of centerfire arms along with muzzleloaders.  tossing wheelweights is heresy in my eyes.  It's also danged expensive and can be sold to buy muzzleloading stuff.

Three Hawks.

[Riley/MN]

There were also a recent thread (don't have time to search right now) on how wheelweights are ideal for roundballs used on big dangerous beasties...

[bluelake]

I just picked up 100 pounds of wheel weights from a local tire company (they had about 500# on hand).  It cost me $20 (the market rate is about .23-.25 per pound).  I melted some of it down and it works really well.

[snake eyes]

[size=150]GET RID OF THE WHEELWEIGHTS???  [/size]

Lets see now, Ifn' I remember right, this is the Traditional Muzzleloading Association and has nothing to do with modern center fire rifles, that would be why my answer is what it is. Wheel weights are too hard for Round balls that you will shoot in your mild steel rifle barrel of your flintlock or percussion rifle.
I hope that is better understood. sorry for all the confusion.

I wager none of us shoots muzzleloaders exclusively.   I shoot a bunch of calibers of centerfire arms along with muzzleloaders.  tossing wheelweights is heresy in my eyes.  It's also danged expensive and can be sold to buy muzzleloading stuff.

Three Hawks.

 Three Hawks,
                      Sorry,but you would loose that wager with me.
I shoot and hunt with nothing but B/P muzzleloaders, and all
are traditional.
                      My wife does have a Browning .25 Auto for her
personal household protection,being I work nights.I have never
fired it and don't even know where she keeps it. My son is even the
one that schooled her in its use.
                      I will say that maybe 30 years ago I owned nothing
but C/F arms. Then bitten by the B/P bug got rid of them all, and over time have gone to B/P only.
snake-eyes

[pathfinder]

Move over Snake-eye's,make room on that wagon fer one more. I too shoot our beloved muzzleloaders exclusively. our house guns are all Colt army(if the ball don't get ya,good luck with the infection,scumbag)
I do have a Lakeland target .22 I won at a club meeting years ago(harassed unmercifully) that sits in the gun cabinet unfired.
I do use wheel weights in my smoothie's. Have watch fella's shoot 'em bare ball and shoot darn good,so I figure with all that blow by and they still shoot good, impressing the patch on the soft ball probably doesn't matter all that much. My 2 cents after discounts and inflation.

[bluelake]

Today, my .375 cal. conical c&b bullet mold came in (I tried to buy a rb mold, but they seem to be as scarce as hen's teeth; everybody was backordered).  I also ordered some .375 rb and they came this evening.  Anyway, I took a bunch of my wheel weight lead and cast several conicals.

My .36 cal. c&b revolver is one I bought about a decade ago, but have never shot.  Everything finally came together today; I now had not only the revolver, but also the powder, bullets, and percussion caps (CCI #10).  I used 15gr of 3F and only loaded one chamber, as I have never fired c&b before, so I wanted to get used to it.  I did not use a wad and placed the ball directly on the powder.  It all worked wonderfully!  I stood at about 25 yards and shot at a piece of cardboard placed up against the sand pile I had hauled in yesterday.  I hit exactly what I aimed at (I tried two more times after that and had similar success).  What a feeling