casting round balls for black powder

timandkimandshea

timandkimandshea

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I have access to some old foundry type, used in letterpress of a bygone era. It is an alloy, mainly lead with some parts tin, antimony, whatever.
Is it any good for casting of balls for black powder?? Or need pure lead?
thanks
T
 
Lino type is better for casting bullets for cartridges. For round ball you want dead soft pure lead. In particular for use in cap and ball pistols.
 
Pure lead. You can get the alloy out of the lead by keeping the temperature at 219 as the alloy melts at high temps. Skim it off the top as the unmelted alloy floats on lead.
 
I partly agree with the advice offered.
Pure lead is definitely best for round ball in rifled barrels. However, lino or wheel weights are just fine for round balls in a smooth bore. If you can, trade it for pure lead. The cartridge rifle guys will thank you.
 
Linotype, is what you have, it's generally considered too hard for Muzzle loader use. It's not likely it will hurt to use it, but it's very unlikely to be accurate. Soft lead is bumped up in size by BP pressures, to seal the bore, Linotype won't do that at Muzzle loader pressures. This can lead to hot gasses cutting the sides of your projectile, and or gas escaping from one side at it exits the muzzle, tipping the projectile sideways.

You can probably find someone right here on CGN willing to trade for that Linotype, it's gold to smokeless powder bullet casters.
 
Not knowing where you are in Ontario or how much Linotype you have, your question isn't easy to answer. If you only have a couple of pounds it isn't a big deal one way or the other.

You also don't mention how much experience you have with shooting round balls out of your muzzle loader. There is a formula for shooting soft lead round balls out of a muzzle loader that gives you the best patch thickness to round ball diameter for just a bit of deformation and adherence to the rifling. If your ball is undersized you can make do by adding thicker patching material or reverse if the ball is to large.

I have shot linotype out of my muzzle loaders because lead was very difficult to come by at times. I have also shot wheel weights cast into round balls with good success. I find that in hunting situations there is very little if any expansion of round balls after going through or getting caught in the skin on the far side of a game animal. You mostly have to depend on the cross section of the ball for performance and opening a largish wound channel.

Make sure to lube your patches really well and that they aren't tearing when you push them down the bore.
 
there seem to be oodles of different alloys used for linotype. I bought 75 or 80 pounds of linotype letters and melted some of it down for casting bullets. The stuff that I had seemed to be very high in antimony which separated out around 750 F and floated on the surface. Miserable stuff to cast and the antimony did not go back in solution as the pot cooled. I took it to the next gun show and was greatly relieved when someone took it off my hands

You can cast and shoot hard lead balls such as made from wheel weights and for target shooting they are fine. In game they do not flatten out like lead balls do. As a side note, people hunting elephants and similar large game (in the 1800s) did shoot hardened round ball because they penetrated far more than soft lead

cheers mooncoon
 
^Mooncoon, was it not Selous who had his nice European double rifle go missing from just pre-WWII shipment when he was big game hunting on the Dark Continent?

He managed just fine when he got some local old boy to sell him a single shot muzzleloading 10 gauge English fowling piece.
Acquired a RB mold locally, and off he went on many successful hunts, including elephant.
 
Brutus said:
^Mooncoon, was it not Selous who had his nice European double rifle go missing from just pre-WWII shipment when he was big game hunting on the Dark Continent?

He managed just fine when he got some local old boy to sell him a single shot muzzleloading 10 gauge English fowling piece.
.
Click to expand...

If he did, it was not just pre WWII, he was killed in 1917 fighting in Africa. (Gordon?) Cummings wrote a couple of books about his experiences hunting elephants commercially in Africa. I think he spent about 3 years there, in the 1850s or 60s, and used a 10 guage double barreled smoothbore loaded with hardened round ball and usually shot from horseback. He would ride up alongside stampeding elephants and shoot from close range if my memory is correct. It took quite a few shots to kill and elephant that way; around 8 or ten shots I think
Samuel Baker hunted elephants in Ceylon in the late 1840s and seemed to have two principle guns. My memory of their caliber is foggy but the larger one, possibly a 6 guage, must have been a rifle because I think he shot slugs out of it. He preferred round ball because it penetrated better and while not stated in his book, I think they must have been hardened because he says that they penetrated better.

cheers mooncoon

cheers mooncoon
 
I do believe that linotype lead is too hard an alloy for patched round ball in a rifled barrel. See no problem with it in a smooth bore U need pure or near pure soft lead. Go to the local metal scrap yard and buy plumbers or roofers lead. I get mine in Prince George B.C. for around 67 or so cents a lb. One problem with hard alloy lead is that it comes out dimensionally larger than your required caliber and does not cleave the lands and groves in the required manner for patched round ball.
Linotype lead would probably be good for old time black powder center fire or rim fire cartridges such as 45/70 and such.

Did the Indians put U here? Twernt Mormons.
 
Emmer said:
http://www.metalexleadrecycling.com/
Click to expand...

Hmmm, when a battery is electrically discharged (flat) it's chemical properties change. When charged, the liquid in a battery {electrolyte} is water and sulfuric acid {about 50/50% mix}. When discharged, the liquid is water (mostly, or a much higher percentage than when charged.) You may ask where the sulfuric acid went? Into the lead. As this is a battery recycling plant, its safe to assume that the vast majority of their resource batteries are in a dead or discharged state, and therefore the vast majority of the lead cast there will have high sulfuric acid saturation levels in the lead. I'm uncertain that smelting at low temperatures in an acid contaminated crucible will "cook" the acid out.
I guess what I'm saying is...not in my guns thanks much.
 
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