Copperized lead for Muzzle loading rifles?

[heelerau]

Gentlemen, my daughters partner is a lead roofer, he has quite a bit of copperized lead left over from jobs,. I don't imagine that it would be any good for minnie' or pritchett bullets as they would have to be pretty hard, but may be fine for round ball and bullets, for say slug rifles or maybe the .451 Volunteer, including the Whitworth rifle ?
Has anyone had experience good or bad with this alloy? He does have plenty of pure lead offcuts so I have a good supply that way.
Does copperized lead cast ok in aluminium or brass moulds? I imagine cast iron mould blocks would be fine.

Cheers

Heelerau

[dondiego]

Is this actually an alloy of lead and copper or is it plated copper or something like that?

[heelerau]

Mate, it is a lead copper alloy.

[bubba.50]

dependin' on what else might be present in it, you might be able to melt it at the proper temp & skim the copper off the top like fluxin' it.

[dondiego]

You will just have to try to melt some and see if it casts well. I bet it might make a good alloy hardener.

[Hellgate]

Please spray your mold cavities with graphite or some release agent. I'd hate to see the alloy bond with the mold. Maybe use some crappy mold you are about to toss for starters in case it gets fused. I'm just a worry wart.

[1Hawkeye]

It may be too hard for a muzzleloader but it might make some good cartridge bullets. A few years back when Remington got back into muzzleloading they were marketing a washed round ball It looked like they were using brass and they were just too hard and didn't take to the patch or rifleing very well hence they didn't shoot well. all you can do is try. We all experiment with this stuff thats most of the fun.

[snoopy]

Thanks 1Hawkeye, I ended up with some of these in a trade and wondered wth!

[mooman76]

A fellow on another board was using pure copper RBs to shoot with and had great success so an alloy would not be too hard with the proper patch. I might add this person was in CA and needed a non-lead alternative. Like others said, you'll just have to try them and see. Some lead had harder alloys than copper and still does fine.

[cpileri]

can this stuff be swaged?

[popper]

Copper is soluble in pure lead @ 0.3% at room temp. You MUST have some Sb to take anything over the 0.3% else you get a MIXTURE of Cu/Pb - not good. It casts fine without Sn. It works great for smokeless boolits. Don't know about the others. It adds some hardness and a lot of toughness.

[archeryrob]

Lead melts at 600 and copper at 2000. You are going to need forge to melt (the copper) and remold this alloy. Your aluminum mold melts at 1200, FYI.

You might try heating it to 600+ and you might be able to flux out the copper as it will not have melted yet.

[Rattlesnake Charlie]

Lead melts at 600 and copper at 2000. You are going to need forge to melt (the copper) and remold this alloy. Your aluminum mold melts at 1200, FYI.

You might try heating it to 600+ and you might be able to flux out the copper as it will not have melted yet.

Not if it is truly "alloyed". It will melt in the temperature range normal lead alloys do.