Ric- Gotta question on horses footies. What in your opinion is the best cure for split hooves? My Percherons tend to all run vertical splits, not big wide ones, but enough to shove a fingernail in. Tried the burn at the top, cut wit a file at the top, etc. I figure it's a nutritional thing. They run bare foot year round on ground from mud to ledge rock.
I guess our threads do wander a bit, eh?
I can sure remember cattle with part of thier ears froze off. Shoulda wore thier muffs.
The solid soft lead bullet is undoubtably the best and most satisfactory expanding bullet that has ever been designed. It invariably mushrooms perfectly, and never breaks up. With the metal base that is essential for velocities of 2000 f.s. and upwards to protect the naked base, these metal-based soft lead bullets are splendid.
John Taylor - "African Rifles and Cartridges"
Forget everything you know about loading jacketed bullets. This is a whole new ball game!
This may already have been mentioned... But Buff hunters had access to WOOD. Down in the creek bottoms there STILL grows TREES. All ya need to do is gather up some dead fall, place it in your wagon and cast as needed. Buff hunters opperated out of personal camps that followed the GREAT herds. Buff hunters may sit on the same spot for a week or two. When moving they KNEW what they needed and planned their routes accordinly. The molds never got cold. It sits on the edge of the fire and does NOT get cold. Ever wonder why the old molds were all metal ??? No wood handles to catch fire.
Does anyone read history ??? I am in Peru and have 5 old reprints about the Buff hunters... Use the library !
This is a great thread.
I wonder if silver can be melted and cast over a campfire ? Did the southwestern Indian silver smiths do it that way ? Copper I suppose would be possible, too ?
Copper and silver can be melted with charcoal and forced air although they are becomong reactive at those temps and need to be protected from the air. A wood fire would be very marginal. I have never tried it but have found evidence that both became liquid in house fires.
Silver 960.6 deg C 1761 deg F
Copper 1083 deg C 1981.4 deg F
Obtaianable but not practiclal
Jewelers and smiths started doing it to end the stone age without advanced technology.
The man who invented the plow was not bored. He was hungry.
Boys
I enjoyed the thread.Cow chips do burn good.Never cast any boolits over it but think you could.
God is good all the time
Chips don't burn on the other side of the pond because they are soggy wet with malt vineger
I'm with you JR. Smelting lead over a fire , just about any kind of fire, would be a piece of cake in my opinion. With some well seasoned oak it will be quite easy and I have every intention of doing just that as soon as I can make it back up to the cabin. Within the week.
Wow!!!! Raising the dead........from 2008; even!!
Even before the buff hunters Lewis and Clark had the black powder they took with them in lead "kegs" carefully calculated to cast the amount of ball needed for the powder contained there in. They also had arsenal supplied moulds for the arsenal supplied pre Model 1803 rifles. They cast the ball needed along the way. Many accounts of mountain men and buff hunters doing the same. I once cast, at a rendezvous in Bend, Oregon some 45 cal ball for my rifle in a Lyman cast iron pot on hot coal fire made with oak. Worked fine.
Larry Gibson
I have to admit I had not seen this one.
I also have to say that I have melted lead hot enough to cast boolits with a variety of woods, scrub, shrubs.
To use just chips you might need a bit of breeze or a bellows/blow tube.
Put the lead on to melt when you start eating supper. Time your done you can start pouring.
I used to prefer to smelt down wheel weights outside. For one my trailer was small, LP gas was not cheap, and firewood was everywhere plentiful and free for the picking up. Second it left the oil stick outside. Third I did not have to worry where the hot clips landed. If they landed in the fire so be it. They got cleaned up along with the ashes before the next one.
Don't need oak neither. Pine, cedar, hell poplar will do it if you have a good bed of coals.
That is the only thing reallly needed. A good bed of coals and a little patience. A nice cold beer does not hurt anything either.
I'm just reading this post 10 years late but you are right about the trees. I live 60 miles west of Amarillo right in the heart of the southern hunts. I have metal detected a buffalo hunter's camp that is a half mile from my house right by a small canyon with a spring. The canyon is full of cotton wood, walnut, willow, and other trees. I don't know how thick they were in the 1870's but the journals mention them. Mesquite bushes and trees are all over the flats. North of here it gets pretty flat with fewer canyons and springs but they are scattered throughout the Panhandle. The second largest canyon in the U.S. is just south of Amarillo. Anyway the artifacts included (8) 45 caliber paper patched fired slugs, several pistol bullets, 80 some Berdan primers (with a sewing needle that was used to clean flash holes?), 3/4 pound of spilled lead near the primers with indentions of wood where it was spilled in the fire on the larger pieces, and small square nails from packing crates. I have cast many a round ball on camp fires and now I will need to cast some Sharps bullets over cow chips for fun. It was 28 degrees today with 40 mile per hour wind. Will put that project off until green up.
BP | Bronze Point | IMR | Improved Military Rifle | PTD | Pointed |
BR | Bench Rest | M | Magnum | RN | Round Nose |
BT | Boat Tail | PL | Power-Lokt | SP | Soft Point |
C | Compressed Charge | PR | Primer | SPCL | Soft Point "Core-Lokt" |
HP | Hollow Point | PSPCL | Pointed Soft Point "Core Lokt" | C.O.L. | Cartridge Overall Length |
PSP | Pointed Soft Point | Spz | Spitzer Point | SBT | Spitzer Boat Tail |
LRN | Lead Round Nose | LWC | Lead Wad Cutter | LSWC | Lead Semi Wad Cutter |
GC | Gas Check |