Bird shot melting for bullets

antiqueguy said:
Fumes are not really the issue with lead and it’s alloys unless you get them to their boiling point of 3180F.
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See this was my understanding and I was taught that by someone who worked with lead commercially, but I also see the point that it might not be the lead itself so much as the recycling of lead tainted by other nasty chemicals which might be burning off at lower temps.
 
MosinMan13 said:
See this was my understanding and I was taught that by someone who worked with lead commercially, but I also see the point that it might not be the lead itself so much as the recycling of lead tainted by other nasty chemicals which might be burning off at lower temps.
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I do all my refining over a fire or camp stove outside. I have also experimented with the last fire pit I had at refining dross. if you throw it in the coals when you are done for the night the next morning you have a clean nugget of lead in the ash.
 
A mixture of thoughts relative to the various replies. Battery lead is bad because it contains cadmium, the vapours of which are very toxic. Locally, some years ago, a fellow in town was buying all the wheel weights he could, in order to cast cannon balls, so there is significant risk of getting mostly wheel weights when melting down cannon balls and dive weights.. Relative to hardness, many of the better black powder cartridge shooters are using 5% alloy for their slugs, probably because its lower melting temperature allows the mold to fill more completely while leaving a slug which will still obturate in the bore. The method that I use to identify alloyed lead from pure or near pure lead is to index my thumb on my xyphoid process and drop a large ball bearing (over 1" D ) on a flat piece of the lead and compare the dent diameter with that on a known piece of pure lead;

cheers mooncoon
 
mooncoon2 said:
A mixture of thoughts relative to the various replies. Battery lead is bad because it contains cadmium, the vapours of which are very toxic. Locally, some years ago, a fellow in town was buying all the wheel weights he could, in order to cast cannon balls, so there is significant risk of getting mostly wheel weights when melting down cannon balls and dive weights.. Relative to hardness, many of the better black powder cartridge shooters are using 5% alloy for their slugs, probably because its lower melting temperature allows the mold to fill more completely while leaving a slug which will still obturate in the bore. The method that I use to identify alloyed lead from pure or near pure lead is to index my thumb on my xyphoid process and drop a large ball bearing (over 1" D ) on a flat piece of the lead and compare the dent diameter with that on a known piece of pure lead;

cheers mooncoon
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For round ball and say snider with a .60 caliber bullet is all I am concerned with getting pure or near pure lead for. Everything else I load for has no problem with wheel weights. I picked up last year a lee lead pot and a couple hundred pounds of mystery alloy that I think it’s wheel weights. At one time stick on wheel weights we pure lead or atleast softer then clip on now that lead wheel weights are banned take what you can get.
 
When I was mixing alloys for pistol/rifle Boolits, I picked up a LEE hardness tester. It requires a reloading press and is real easy to use.
I found straight WW lead good on its own for hunting Boolits.
As for black powder I use pure lead.
 
For my antique .500BPE double rifle I use down rigger weights for my lead I then size the bullets to .510 at about 510 grains. Is it the best idk but it works for me but one of the things I learned is dropping the bullets immediately into water makes them really hard and very hard to resize so if you want soft just drop them on a damp cloth to "air" cool should keep them soft enough even with out pure lead.

Amazon does sell "pure" lead ingots for about 18 dollars a pound plus shipping, average down rigger weight I buy is 6lbs for 34 dollars at local stores.
 
I’ve got a full 25 pound bag of some older #9 shot that I was thinking of melting down and using to cast some bullets or buckshot pellets
I don’t use #9 for anything as I find it’s too small for my use so might as well try to do something with it
 
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