corey012778

everytime I got to the range, I try to go when it is the slowest. I have about 12lbs of range lead (not in ingot from) and about another 10 to 15lbs in ingots. when I get home I am going to start working on casting up some conical for my ML. It is going to be more when I start going to the range again

Is range lead soft enough?

I don't own an tester and how much I cast I can't justfy getting one.

note:
I am going to start taking my sandbucket with me to save mainly my powerbelts I am going to be shooting out of the apex.

frontier gander

There ya go. You'll get pure lead out of the powerbelts and they make excellent round balls and if i had a conical mold, they'd do great for that as well.

If your finger nail easily cuts into the lead you do have, it will work.

Wheel weights are really hard and thats why i only use them as target rounds for my round ball shooters. Probably be great for game too as they are hard and would offer deep penetration.

corey012778

I forgot about the finger nail. have other things on my mind. like two days to go. until FL.

cayugad

When you get all your lead smelted down and into ingot form, take a nail and scratch a bar. It should make a considerable mark into the lead if it is real soft. If you have any doubts, cast it as range ammo and then make sure you use a know bullet for hunting. Although we shot a lot of range lead in our days. We even hunted with it and killed deer until someone told us it was too hard to use hunting.

HuntAway

I've never shot anything with a rounball. Do they expand when shot at the 70-85 gr loads? I would think a harder ball might be beneficial. 1/2 inch hole in and out, let's in a lot of air and a lot of blood out. When you used the hard ball Dave, how did they perform on game?

frontier gander

Hunt away, a .490 powerbelt lead ball expands to the size of a nickle with 40g pyrodex p. I have some wheel weight lead that i can try out tomorrow and see how they do. Probably wont expand much, but they'd be great for deep penetration.

cayugad

With a pure lead roundball the expansion is excellent. That .490 or .530 ball turns into an easy .60 or bigger diameter and they hold together a lot better then people might think. That is a big hole in anyones terms.

I shot a deer at 80 yards using 80 or 90 grains of Pyrodex RS many years ago. That .530 ball went through one deer and killed a second deer that was behind it. The ball only lost a very small amount of weight. The expansion was excellent.

Years ago (and we are talking 20 years) we used to make our own ball out of wheel weights. No one ever told us about pure lead. There reallywas not a lot of people or information on muzzleloaders at that time. In fact there were three of us that hunted with traditional rifles and we were basically teaching each other as we go. Most people thought I was nuts for using a muzzleloader. I shot a lot of deer with wheel weight ball. Never recovered a ball. Had deer take a hit and not really go too far. Also the wounds were excellent, even when bone was hit.

HEAD0001

This one has been thrown around before.

Once you have your ingots just drop them on the floor. Pure lead makes a thud. Harder lead will "TING". I know this sounds stupid, but try it. This is an easy and fast way to sort your lead without a tester. The harder the lead the sharper the "TiNG" will be.

I disagree with the above statement about WW being really hard. But then that is just my opinion.I have read a lot of Frontier's post and find him to be very knowledgeable so I hope he is not offended by what I said here. If so then I apologize to him. I have been shooting and casting, and hunting withstraight WW for more years than I care to talk about with no problems. I personally believe WW is just the right "hardness". I get some expansion, and the bullet stays together.

With pure lead I normallylost at least 1/2 my bullet weight. But that is just my experience. I shoot 50 caliber bullets, andWW wilexpand out to about 70 or 75 caliber when it hits game..7 of an inch is plenty of expansion for me. Tom.

frontier gander

Im not offended I was just saying that its a lot harder than the powerbelt lead/store bought balls, and it doesnt expand no where near as much. I plan on trying some .530 WW balls one hunting season to see how they do. Have a bunch made for the .54 but no black powder

idahoron

Scratching lead is not a real good way to go. I have lead that is 22 BHN and I can scratch it. If the ingots are about 1 pound they shoud thunk if the lead is soft. If they ring they are hard. Soft lead is between 5 and 8 BHN. A ingot that is in the 9 to 10 BHN range will have a slight ring. A BIG chunk of hard lead will thunk.
I would melt the range lead. I would smoke a miffin tin and pour them up. Drop them and see what happens. If they are hard use them for round balls, if they are soft it is conical time. Ron