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- Thread starter gunsdora
- Start date
No shat, but they weren't always and are no longer.
Old sewage pipes used to be made out of lead. I smelted many of them. Back in the day they wanted soft pipes to be easy to fit if adjustments were needed "on the spot". They are soft lead, great for muzzle loaders. Well, can be alloyed for bullets too.
Just make sure is lead before paying.
Just make sure is lead before paying.
Older homes would have lead pipes for the sewer and drain pipes. Cast iron was used for mains and stacks but toilet bends and sink/tub drains would be lead that were connected with oakum and molten lead.
- Location
- Behind a large rock
Does it make sh!tty bullets?
greywolf67nt
CGN frequent flyer
- Location
- Stony Plain, AB
You might want to be careful using lead from old sewage pipes. You might get sh itty results MWAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA
The Frogge
CGN Regular
- Location
- Prince George, BC
Last chunk I smelted was pretty close to pure.
Smacked it with a hammer to knock out the crud then smelted it down in a gravel pit far from home.
Smacked it with a hammer to knock out the crud then smelted it down in a gravel pit far from home.
Tin won't harden enough your soft lead. Tin is to make the alloy flow better in the mold. You need linotype or a hard lead alloy to give that soft lead hardness.
It is a sheet made buy a guy on castboolits who shows the hardness of different alloys and people claim they can use the sheet to mix components to get a certain hardness, I personally don't know how to use it other than finding the hardness of a certain material which I can find anyway with google.
I took the hard way to get a certain hardness by alloying pure lead with linotype in different quantities.
It is a sheet made buy a guy on castboolits who shows the hardness of different alloys and people claim they can use the sheet to mix components to get a certain hardness, I personally don't know how to use it other than finding the hardness of a certain material which I can find anyway with google.
I took the hard way to get a certain hardness by alloying pure lead with linotype in different quantities.
Bit of a small world. Back in the late 70's when I was keen on getting into casting my own bullets I received 200 + pounds of old lead pipe from Pollard Plumbing in North Bay, the guy was a friend of one of my bosses. The stuff was pure lead, a bit ripe some of it, but pure lead. He is gone now but I wouldn't hesitate for a second to use this sort of stuff if you can get hold of it. Lots of plumbers in North Bay and still probably a fair amount of lead pipe in older structures around that these guys would replace from time to time.
vagrantviking
CGN Ultra frequent flyer
- Location
- High River, Alberta
If you are going to load with black powder the pipe plus tin is going to be what you want. Tin can be bought but it's pricey. Last I bought was $18/lb. Solder or pewter is another good source.
If you are going to use smokeless then adding some wheel weight or linotype to harden it up some might be a good idea. It's not a high pressure cartridge so no matter what you are doing it shouldn't need to be all that hard.
If you are going to use smokeless then adding some wheel weight or linotype to harden it up some might be a good idea. It's not a high pressure cartridge so no matter what you are doing it shouldn't need to be all that hard.
That's what I've done with soft plumbing lead which I have quite a bit of now from various reno jobs. Use the pure stuff for shotgun slugs for now and possibly will be getting into some black powder #### down the road so will have a use for the stuff.
