Best source for lead

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fljp2002

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Fellows

Will be getting a BP revolver in near future and will want to cast my own round ball.

Been reading about it and it appears that wheel weight and not really recommended for use for round ball.

1. What is your experience with casting round ball and do you use wheel weighs

2. If not wheel weights, what is the best source for lead for round ball
 
Try to avoid wheel weight lead - usually too hard. Speak to a local roofer who re-does older houses - all the old flashings and even some gutters were pure soft lead. Dirty or not , they can give you what you need so if they can save these for you you will have all you need.
 
Stick on wheel weights are soft. I just bought four pails of sorted wheel weights and I bet there’s 30% stick on weights. I’ll just mix it in with the hard clip ons, but some guys keep it separate.
 
fljp2002 said:
Fellows

Will be getting a BP revolver in near future and will want to cast my own round ball.

Been reading about it and it appears that wheel weight and not really recommended for use for round ball.

1. What is your experience with casting round ball and do you use wheel weighs

2. If not wheel weights, what is the best source for lead for round ball
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Any gun ranges around you with steel bullet traps? they would have buckets of lead around. You just need to get the copper out.
 
It's handy if, like me, you have an eight-hundred y/o church lying around that often needs some repair work to the roof sections. The older stuff, often between 100 and 200 y/o, gets shared out between half a dozen of us in my gun club - pre-atomic age lead is absolutely beautiful to melt and cast, and is just about the softest you'll ever find at 99% pure lead.
 
i used to go to gun shows and buy lead shot by the bag, all number 4,2 and BB. Stuff is pretty much unusable now owing to steel shot regs for waterfowl. Mostly got it for cheap. Probably a large amount of it still out there now.
 
Just tried the whhel weight thing, only a small percentage was actually lead, the vast majority being "sticks" with adhesive backing, and a differnet, non melty metal. I need a source of lead for shotgun slugs. I thought perhaps ww from a truck shop might be more lead?? Or if someone cares to point me in the right direction, or can sell some please send a PM
 
the problem with a number of suggestions is that the lead being recovered is not pure lead. Older wheel weights are, I think, around 15% alloy, lead shot is high in antimony, the majority of recovered bullets from ranges is a hard alloy intended for smokeless shooting. Check with some of your local industrial supply business" they may have a source of pure lead. It probably comes in 50 to 75 lb pigs or groups of joined 10 lb pigs in strings of 5 ingots. If you run across lead pigs of unknown purity, what I have done is to drop a 1" ball bearing from chest high onto the lead and compare the diameter of the dent with one in a piece that you know is pure. I index my thumb on my xiphoid bone so that I have a constant height that I am dropping from

cheers mooncoon
 
Another possibility is to check with home supply stores. Some of them were still able to order pure rolled lead sheeting to repair roofs on "period" homes. That was a couple of years ago,so not sure if it would still work, but might be worth a try...catnip
 
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