Anybody ever try wheel weight lead for round balls. I recieved a whole bunch of it and was just wondering if it would work. I understand that it is not pure lead and pure lead works best but if this will work then what the heck.

A lot of guys use it. I don't like it. The balls end up harder, and if you have a tight barrel, they're harder to load. They don't expand as well as pure lead either.

I like pure lead.

I have been casting round balls and conicals for years(many years) with straight WW and with pure lead. I have never been able to tell a dimes worth of difference between the two in accuracy. I have noticed I have better retained mass with WW.

I believe the harder lead was a bit of a problem in some of the old soft steel barrels. But I only shoot modern barreled MZ's. And with a round ball that would not matter. It would only matter in a conical. Round balls will work perfectly.

Some people say WW will not expand. But that is simply not true. Pure lead round balls do not "expand" either. A properly expanding bullet does not shed any of its material. The proper term is a "mushroom" of the bullet. And WW will "mushroom" very well, and it will retain more weight than a straight lead round ball. Which will in the end yield more penetration if you need penetration.

What a round ball does on impact is what limits their range. A pure lead round ball sheds its mass quickly for less retained weight. That is a problem-not a good thing.

And as far as a tight fit is concerned?? Well we all use patches with a round ball. So you adjust your patch size with WW the same way you adjust your patch size with pure lead balls. You have three variables in a MZ when shoting round balls. That is the ball, the patch, and the internal dimension of the barrel. In order to accurately shoot an MZ you need to sometimes adjust these dimensions. And the easiest one to adjust is the patch. So you need to adjust patches with pure lead as well as you need to adjust with WW. And the real size difference is almost immeasurable. Tom.

well i guess i will try them then, i was thinking that even if a ww ball did not "mushroom" when hitting a deer it is still a deer with at least a .530 hole in its pump station, probably not going to go far. I was mainly concerned with accuracy compared to pure lead and how ww lead would grip the riflings and if you cannot tell the difference then i will try it.thanks

Why not use a 60/40 mixture of lead and ww?

they'll work. I have run into problems with the WW balls swelled in size a bit which made loading a bit more tougher but it was doable and accuracy was just as good as soft lead.

I'll stick by everything I said.

I don't feel like arguing about it.

X2 on what muley said!!

Don't let them wear you down.

Hard sometimes.


One comment...Not all guns that use round balls use a patch.