Melting down lead balls to make larger balls....

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warrenlikesboats

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I currently shoot .50cal, which is easy cus most sporting goods stores have .50 round balls readily available.

But I am soon going to be shooting .69cal balls, which are impossible to find in stores, I have a .69cal ball mold coming in the mail.

So I need to find a source of lead, tire weights seem to be sarace to find now, so what other sources are there?

What keeps me from buying lead shot or .50 Cal balls from a sporting goods store and melting that down ?

Or would it maybe be cheaper to buy lead ingots from some industrial place ? Thanks
 
Nothing wrong with wanting bigger balls.......yes, I said it! I got here first!

Seriously, Nothing wrong with recasting, but it might be a bit cheaper to by lead ingots and tin. My local source is Metal Supermarket (Redmonton), I do believe they have one in Cowtown too. Remember if you buy ingots, they will be pure lead, ok in a muzzleloader, but too soft for much else. Buy some tin at the same time, to harden up the mix. About 80/20 (lead/tin) by weight is a good starting point for other bullets.
 
Scrap yards would do your best bet,plumbers lead, roof flashing lead try not to use wheel weights as they contain silka sand and you need pure lead for muzzleloaders
 
Buy your lead direct from a foundry. If you melt down round balls not only are you paying for the lead but also the manufacturing costs, marketing and shipping. Canada metals is located in Calgary and you will find that your best source for the pure lead that you need for muzzleloaders.
 
Put an ad on the EE
Lead is relatively easy to find, I find it at gun shows and got about 200 lbs waiting to be cast.

To buy lead bullets then melt them down to recast to another caliber sure works, but it is the most expensive way to do it.
 
Things military in Calgary sells musket balls but they aren't cheap. Western metal sells pure lead and if you ask nicely they will meet you somewhere in town to avoid shipping costs. Unfortunately they don't allow local pickup because they remanufacture ammo on site
 
Out of curiosity what are you shooting and where do you go? I thought I was the only one in town who shot blackpowder
 
Watch out for what lead you buy. You want dead soft lead ideally. Although some harder stuff can be used since you'll be using the balls with a patch for anything with a .69.

If you are going to get into casting your round ball anyway pick up a .490 or .495 mold for your .50 at the same time. The cost of round ball these days is crazy. I can buy LUBED bullets for just a little over half as much. So buying your lead as store bought round balls and re-casting them is a crazy expensive way to find a lead supply. In fact just buying your .50Cal balls from a store is crazy expensive.

Roof flashing lead from scrap dealers is one source of softer material. Other than that you'll need to find a metal supplier in your region that sells lead. Wheel weights are too hard for round ball.
 
Roof flashing and lead pipe are good sources of pure lead. You should be able to scratch it with your thumbnail. Recasting round balls would be a crazy expensive way to get material.
 
I have a couple tons of refined pure lead on hand, you can buy a 60 lb ingot for what I paid if you pick it up. About $1.80 lb.
 
If you are shooting .69 cal smoothbore then soft lead is not necessary and wheel weights should be fine as they seem to be about 15% tin. Patched round ball in smoothbore only needs to be very tightly patched to get the accuracy available and hard lead is not an issue at least IMHO.
 
another thing you can do is recover your target shooting lead. i built a 24 x24 x 8 box to staple my targets to.
its essentially 2x8 lumber with plywood sides. line the inside with cardboard .take it where you shoot, fill with sand. make sure you have a lid for said box.
shoot merrily away.
when you are done, dump the sand into buckets or what have you, pack up and go home. sift the lead at home and remelt. very little mass is lost, and the sand target will stop just about anything you shoot at it. destroys most hunting rounds
it even stopped 2 of 5 FMJ 7.62 x 39 russian bullets
 
I buy pure lead at Canada Metals in Calgary. Casting .490 RB for .50 comes to about 7 cents per, 405 gr boolet for a .45-70 is 16 cents.

I know exactly what I'm getting and could do my own alloy if I chose.
 
Most times you can buy scrap lead at Federal Metals scrap yard (52nd St SE) for about $1.00/lb). I have bought several hundred pounds of quite clean scrap there over the years. Canada Metals sells pure tin as well as both pure lead and re-refined lead scrap but for higher prices, of course. You do not need any tin for your round balls and tin is much more costly ( $25/lb) than lead. The problem with wheel weights, if you can get them free anywhere, anymore, is that many are no longer made of lead and the dirt and grime makes sorting and melting them a dirty, smelly, smokey ordeal. Lead shot is outrageously expensive and melting down 50 cal balls to make 69 cal is only cost-effective if you have no other options, and you do have options. Buying lead from Metal Supermarket will be relatively expensive too - try Federal Metals first.
 
MikeD81 said:
Out of curiosity what are you shooting and where do you go? I thought I was the only one in town who shot blackpowder
Click to expand...

Ive got a .50cal Kentucky rifle, as my first black powder gun. And I very recently purchased a Pedersoli Brown Bess .75cal. Im a member of the CDTSA range, so I may be smoking them out from time to time haha, but alot of my black powder shooting is done on family land, far far away.
 
warrenlikesboats said:
Ive got a .50cal Kentucky rifle, as my first black powder gun. And I very recently purchased a Pedersoli Brown Bess .75cal. Im a member of the CDTSA range, so I may be smoking them out from time to time haha, but alot of my black powder shooting is done on family land, far far away.
Click to expand...

Was just at milo admiring someone's pedersoli brown bess yesterday.
 
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