casting round balls for black powder

plinker 777 said:
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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WOW are you making a ton of assumptions, but feel free in that. Maybe watch a few more YouTube videos on battery recycling, you may be a little more educated on it.

Just an fyi, they sell ..... A lot of lead to a commercial caster, I don't know who it is, but that's what I am told.
 
I've used lino , wheel weights and old fishing weights in making roundballs. 35 years.
Never had issues , rifle was a first placer many times. A good patch should be the only thing that touches the barrel anyway.

Never melt down old battery lead , fumes could be a killer........
 
I considered this source of lead too, once upon a time.
A few old hands at the pistol club strongly discouraged me of going this route.
For number one the more obvious danger of off gassing fumes during the casting process and number two, do you really want to subject your expensive handgun to that?

These were good enough reasons to convince me otherwise.
 
in no way am I advocating someone trying to recycle their own lead from batteries, that is just insane.
The lead I refer to has been recovered by certified professionals in a plant designed specifically for the recovery. lead, pure lead as in the element PB is then sold off to many different buyers and it is as pure as it is in its elemental form.

lead cannot absorb sulfuric acid, this is just not possible, however, lead is converted to lead sulphate. this lead sulphate is very easily separated from the lead base as it is much lighter than lead.

science is fun, you just have to pull your head out and open your eyes lol.
 
tonyg said:
I've used lino , wheel weights and old fishing weights in making roundballs. 35 years.
Never had issues , rifle was a first placer many times. A good patch should be the only thing that touches the barrel anyway.

Never melt down old battery lead , fumes could be a killer........
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We used to shoot round fishing weights out of an old small black powder cannon.....worked well. Just clip the pinch tips off weights.
 
Emmer said:
in no way am I advocating someone trying to recycle their own lead from batteries, that is just insane.
The lead I refer to has been recovered by certified professionals in a plant designed specifically for the recovery. lead, pure lead as in the element PB is then sold off to many different buyers and it is as pure as it is in its elemental form.

lead cannot absorb sulfuric acid, this is just not possible, however, lead is converted to lead sulphate. this lead sulphate is very easily separated from the lead base as it is much lighter than lead.

science is fun, you just have to pull your head out and open your eyes lol.
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If you're not comfortable with the term absorption that's fine. Know this, sulfuric acid at a molecular level is present within the negative and positively charged lead plates...forgive the dudes accent. Yes its science, yes its fun, and using this material in your gun is a bad idea IMO (I hear ya about the patch...but, still not for me.)
...Thank you.
 
It's all cool.
Be aware that the number 1 Producer of lead in north America produces 1.296M tonnes of lead last year, 90%.of that was recycled lead.
Guess where the #1 source of recycled lead comes from?

Yup, batteries.

If you think your putting virgin lead down the pipe, guess again.

Something to think about.
 
It doesn't matter where the lead came from anyway, once it melts, everything that isn't lead floats to the top. Non issue here.
 
Ok, so we're comfortable that sponge lead in lead acid batteries does indeed contain acid? Let's see some evidence that the acid is no longer present once smelted. Or are we coming from the standpoint that sulfuric acid isn't a concern when coming into contact with steel, and potentially this contact is long standing if not cleaned out completely? (corrosive salts from BP or older primers will turn a bore frosted if given half a chance. Compound that with corrosive lead and you're begging for problems IMO.)
 
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