Casting for pistol

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jporietis

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I'm new to black powder pistol.
I'm trying to figure out casting round ball bullets. I have the mould and means of melting lead but getting a supply of lead is stumping me a bit.
I can buy lead in 30 pound bars for about $3 a pound.
An idea I had but need some comment on is, I can buy shotshell shot for just under $3 a pound. Would it be OK for pistol ball. It would be easier to just add a handful of shot to furnace than try to deal with 30 pound bars.
Any advice would be welcome
Thanks
John
 
Shot is usually not pure lead so be careful with that since your black powder gun should get pure.

Have you tried a wtb add in the ee?

Plumbing lead and divers weights are usually pure. You could check local facebook or kijiji adds for it.

good luck.
 
Bertn is right, shotgun pellets are usually sold as "hardened shot" and , while re-melting and skimming the "good stuff" off the top of your melt can make it a softer alloy, it sure wont be scientifically verified as to hardness.

Pure lead is what you want to acquire for round balls. Hard lead such as the lead shot & commercial WW, linotype etc will unessisarilly stress your loading apparatus of the pistol (requires a lot more force to seat the ball).

Roofing lead, plumbing lead and old buried municipal water lines are good sources for Pure stuff.
 
If I had to pay $3 /lb for lead, I wouldn't bother with casting.


Scrounging for scrap lead is pretty fundamental to casting, and has been for a century. One dollar per pound is an easily obtainable goal. Cutting even that cost in half is still realistic.
 
jporietis said:
I was hoping to hear from someone that casts bullets for black powder.what lead is best for pistols in 44 and 36 cal.
Click to expand...
I used Pistol Range lead, which is mostly .22 and soft core nowadays. Mind you it was for a Ruger Old Army, but the pure lead I cast had the bad habit of oxydizing very quickly.
For a while I went to an open Rifle Range which had a Blackpowder Club, and I could just pick minie bullets and others on my way to the targets.
 
I cast for various calibres of handguns and rifles. ONLY use PURE SOFT LEAD. Range lead or other mystery lead goes for modern casting for my smokeless powder guns. Sources can be hard to find, fishing weight lead, some stickon wheel weights are pure soft, plumbers lead, roof flashing, some solders and autobody work lead. I scored a huge lot of pure lead used by hydro/telecommunications as well. Good luck on your search.
 
Thanks everyone
For my black powder handguns soft lead seems to be the only alternative. Even buying lead at $3 a pound my bullet cost is 1/4 the cost of buying ball ammo. I can make my own percussion caps out of beer cans for a fraction of cost.
John
 
bertn said:
Shot is usually not pure lead so be careful with that since your black powder gun should get pure.

Have you tried a wtb add in the ee?

Plumbing lead and divers weights are usually pure. You could check local facebook or kijiji adds for it.

good luck.
Click to expand...

A lot of divers are like us bullet casters. The scrounge lead and cast their own. You may be ok with store bought covered lead, but you take your chances buying non coated lead
 
jporietis said:
I'm new to black powder pistol.
I'm trying to figure out casting round ball bullets. I have the mould and means of melting lead but getting a supply of lead is stumping me a bit.
I can buy lead in 30 pound bars for about $3 a pound.
An idea I had but need some comment on is, I can buy shotshell shot for just under $3 a pound. Would it be OK for pistol ball. It would be easier to just add a handful of shot to furnace than try to deal with 30 pound bars.
Any advice would be welcome
Thanks
John
Click to expand...

Shotshells may be advantageous as higher-quality ones have some antimony inside to increase hardness. Whether with or without antimony, they will be easier to handle, cleaner to deal with so for the same price, I would go with shotshell shots... I would cast a few to see how they wet the mould and maybe add some tin to improve performance...

However, as many said above, you want soft lead for BP...
 
one source of pure lead that doesn't get much airtime is containment vessels used for transporting tracing chemicals used for radiology in large hospitals and clinics. also dental clinics use quite a lot of very thin strips of lead for patient protection when taking x rays. go talk nicely to the head of maintenance and operations. those items don't go in the garbage, they get recycled, intercept a little bit of it for recreational use.
 
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