Cold day again... Finishing up some smelting

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fishindad
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Cold day again... Finishing up some smelting

Post by fishindad » Wed Mar 27, 2013 10:40 am

Trying to take advantage of the cold... I finally smelted most of pipes and wheel weights I had around. Its amazing how once its cleaned and consolidated how much lead you can fit into a small area. The ingots are perfect sized. With all this crazy cold and wind... Turkey hunting and fishing are rough... I decided to finish some of these "chores" and will be casting some bullets today with these ingots.

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Re: Cold day again... Finishing up some smelting

Post by 30.06 » Wed Mar 27, 2013 7:36 pm

i still have those muzzleloading molds if you are interested.
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Re: Cold day again... Finishing up some smelting

Post by nachogrande » Thu Mar 28, 2013 10:35 am

nice biscuits, good idea. casting is something I always wanted to try and never got around to. do you add any antimony or anything to make the lead harder/better? a good skill to have if tshtf.
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Re: Cold day again... Finishing up some smelting

Post by fishindad » Thu Mar 28, 2013 6:42 pm

I dont add anything. The loads I do with these are just for the range and not for accuracy. Mainly just loads for the pistols and I use the rest for fishing weights and jigheads.
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Re: Re: Cold day again... Finishing up some smelting

Post by fishindad » Thu Mar 28, 2013 6:43 pm

30.06 wrote:i still have those muzzleloading molds if you are interested.
I never got into the muzzleloading.... but that could change next year.
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Re: Cold day again... Finishing up some smelting

Post by blackpowderscout » Thu Mar 28, 2013 6:57 pm

You care to get rid of few biscuits? Say, a half dozen? If so, PM me a price. I'll be down in Plant City this weekend.
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Re: Cold day again... Finishing up some smelting

Post by sparkfly88 » Thu Mar 28, 2013 7:19 pm

They are from clip on wheel weights... They have tin and antimony in them already. Perfect for regular rifle and pistol use.

For muzzle loading... You want the stick on wheel weights or roof flashing. Both of those are really close to 100% lead. Muzzle loaders need the very soft lead.

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Re: Re: Cold day again... Finishing up some smelting

Post by fishindad » Fri Mar 29, 2013 9:18 pm

sparkfly88 wrote:They are from clip on wheel weights... They have tin and antimony in them already. Perfect for regular rifle and pistol use.

For muzzle loading... You want the stick on wheel weights or roof flashing. Both of those are really close to 100% lead. Muzzle loaders need the very soft lead.

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Intetesting... at some point I want to get a lead hardness testing tool. For now... I will go with what you mentioned. Interesting.. thats good info on muzzloading too. Thats on the agenda at done point. Right now... I just want a turkey.. ;-)
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Re: Cold day again... Finishing up some smelting

Post by Iluv2hunt » Sat Mar 30, 2013 6:43 am

I thought lead was lead, and all the stuff that is not lead gets skimmed off during the smelting process??? I may be wrong, as my only experience is just pouring egg sinkers and bank sinkers. Of course, beer was involved so I can't remember if we skimmed them or not
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Re: Cold day again... Finishing up some smelting

Post by fishindad » Sat Mar 30, 2013 7:12 am

LOL. Yeah. there are different hardness numbers for different used. When casing jigs or sinkers.. it really does not matter. The lead with the perfect hardness numbers for bullets is linotype. If you don't have access to that, its best to understand the ballpark hardness. That all being said... they will all shoot. The hardness numbers impact accuracy, pressures and leading in the barrel in some cases. Adding antimony etc can increase the hardness numbers.

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Re: Cold day again... Finishing up some smelting

Post by sparkfly88 » Sat Mar 30, 2013 8:35 am

Yeah. The soft lead for muzzle loading is required for the round ball to oval more to fill the bore, also, a lot easier to load.

The softer lead is also required for casting minie balls because the soft lead allows the skirt to expand to fill the rifling.

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Re: Cold day again... Finishing up some smelting

Post by blackpowderscout » Sun Mar 31, 2013 11:33 am

I think the patch thickness vs ball size matters more than the hardness of the lead when chasing accuracy....
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Re: Cold day again... Finishing up some smelting

Post by sparkfly88 » Sun Mar 31, 2013 11:49 am

If you shoot patch n ball.;-)
I prefer my minies
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