Making Minies from round balls

[David LaPell]

I have a slew of old lead roundballs that I picked up in .50, .54. and .58 caliber. I don't have a .50 or .54 anymore, and my Enfield doesn't like roundballs, so I was thinking about melting them all down into Minie balls for my Enfield. I was going to order the mould this week from Dixie, so what is all involved in recycling old lead roundballs into Minie balls? Can i just drop them in and flux away?

[gnoahhh]

It is an operation best carried out on the first night of a full moon after a total lunar eclipse, after first dancing around the front yard in your skivvies while chanting Druid incantations. Water quench in a bucket full of Holy Water to further dissipate all evil spirits.

Pardon my attempt at humor. Yes, just melt the buggers down and cast up your Minies.

[Jim]

Yeah, David, that's about the size of it buddy.
I don't know the level of your experience, so if I'm preaching to the choir, forgive me. It's been my experience that adding just a touch of tin and casting hot helps with fill out. Although, that's only one of about 17,000 ways to do it.

[John Taylor]

Now comes the time to get a good lead pot like a Lyman or Lee. Then the bullet mold of your choice, shop around for price. Don't be afraid of aluminum molds, they will cast as good as cast iron.
If you really want to get into casting bullets then you can spend all your extra money on this. Get a lathe and mill so you can make your own molds and spend the rest of your life trying to find the perfect bullet design for your rifle.

[Razor]

I don't know that I'd flux them...
Flux keeps an alloy mixed.
I don't want anything but pure lead for minnies
I'd melt and skim off anything that floats. several times.
As was said, : "1 of 17,000 ways to do it"

[59sharps]

I have a slew of old lead roundballs that I picked up in .50, .54. and .58 caliber. I don't have a .50 or .54 anymore, and my Enfield doesn't like roundballs, so I was thinking about melting them all down into Minie balls for my Enfield. I was going to order the mould this week from Dixie, so what is all involved in recycling old lead roundballs into Minie balls? Can i just drop them in and flux away?

I would not mix them w/ my pure lead unless I knew for a fact that they are pure. Minies need to be pure lead to get the skirt to expand.
If not sure and do not have a way to test I would empty my pot then refill w/ with the round balls cast a few and do the squeeze test once they cool.

[mazo kid]

I don't know that I'd flux them...
Flux keeps an alloy mixed.
I don't want anything but pure lead for minnies....

Once an alloy, ALWAYS an alloy. Flux helps remove impurities, and yes, pure lead for the minies. The lead may have to be hotter than when casting round ball, and the core pin needs to be kept hot.

[Baron von Trollwhack]

To cut through the smoke, legend, and baloney, even WW minies will expand to shoot well if properly cast, sized and lubed. RB too of similar lead to WW alloys with good patch selection and correct diameter. I do prefer a mostly lead, fingernail soft lead though. It's just not worth worrying about from the melt material you mentioned. BvT

[gnoahhh]

Ditto. I go so far as to add a bit of tin to my "pure" lead just to get decent fill-out in a particularly cantankerous (but accurate) Minie mold. Other Minie molds do just fine without it. Like so much else, it's a **** shoot. (I do prefer the softest lead possible for PRBs though. My current crop of MLs have tested out to be slightly more accurate with lead PRBs vs. alloyed PRBs- not a universal truth though.)

Edit note: What, you can't say cr*p and not be bleeped? Guess I'll have to be careful what I say next time I'm at a casino and win big shooting craps!

[59sharps]

To cut through the smoke, legend, and baloney, even WW minies will expand to shoot well if properly cast, sized and lubed. RB too of similar lead to WW alloys with good patch selection and correct diameter. I do prefer a mostly lead, fingernail soft lead though. It's just not worth worrying about from the melt material you mentioned. BvT

would like to know, what is a properly sized WW minie that will work. .001 .002 under? I have yet to see any thing hard work. How may guys you know using WW Minies. I do Not Know of any. If I can not squeeze it w/ 2 fingers it is to hard for anything other than my smoothbore or breech loaders.

[cwskirmisher]

would like to know, what is a properly sized WW minie that will work. .001 .002 under? I have yet to see any thing hard work. How may guys you know using WW Minies. I do Not Know of any. If I can not squeeze it w/ 2 fingers it is to hard for anything other than my smoothbore or breech loaders.

+1 agree completly. Have never seen WW minies work. In fact, that's the first question asked of noobies when their muskets keyhole, is what is the alloy they are using.

I would imagine that a really heavy/stiff charge might make a WW minie work somewhat, but it would have to be hefty indeed, and if it worked, it would probably blow the skirt anyway. But for 'standard' target charges of 40-45 of 2F/3F and hunting charges of >60+ 2F/3F, using WW successfully is doubtful and most likely would get tumblers. That has been my experience. Pure lead for minies works well, exceptionally well, and no leading if sized/lubed properly.
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16 years N-SSA competitor

[nanuk]

I don't understand why WW won't work for a minie.

the PP guys shooting black use harder alloys and have the whole boolit bump up, so WW skirts should expand....

[Tammany42]

The PP folks are shooting breechloaders. Minies are undersized to start, you need reliable., repeatable expansion. Many of the N-SSA folks can get MOA accuracy from the bench. That gives you a little wiggle room, offhand. Pure lead.

[gnoahhh]

When I add tin, it's just barely enough to get good fill out, in the one mold I mentioned. It only raises the bhn about one, maybe two, points. Accuracy is superb, but due to uneven results with pure lead minies from that mold, it's impossible to tell if the absence of that smidgen of tin would increase accuracy. Frankly, I have other more pressing concerns than to worry about it.

[nanuk]

The PP folks are shooting breechloaders. Minies are undersized to start, you need reliable., repeatable expansion. Many of the N-SSA folks can get MOA accuracy from the bench. That gives you a little wiggle room, offhand. Pure lead.

So, what are you saying?

that WW won't bump up .010? or that a skirt of WW won't flair .010?

I don't understand what you are saying?

Minies are unsized to start, and so are the BP PP'er boolits.

I am having trouble wrapping my head around what you are trying to say

[Tammany42]

Sorry, if I communicated poorly.
Everybody I know sizes their minies to .001 or .002 below bore size for maximum accuracy. There are many different skirt thicknesses etc. that behave differently. A significantly undersized minie will "bump up" but you may not get the maximum accuracy. I am looking for MOA accuracy.

[Baron von Trollwhack]

Accurate shooting minies, be they pure lead, or a ww/lead alloy, all require sizing to fit your bore properly. If you cast a lead minie and it measures X diameter, adding WW to the mix will make it X + diameter. Now a minie gun also requires a lube so it can be repeatedly fired, hot or cold, without fouling out and ruining accuracy.

My practice was to mold minies as well as I could and cull severely for visible defects. I always wanted a slightly oversized ball so I could size it down to the fit that worked for me, AND TO ENSURE ROUNDNESS. Due to the nature of the near molten minie coming out of any mould, it is hard for a cast minie to be round. You must size them so. For the last number of years I was shooitng an .58 Italian Mississippi and later a Hoyt barreled 2 band Enfield. The 1841 copy took a RCBS-58-500M sized to .576. The 2-bander took a .5755. The fit I wanted was a perfectly round naked minie that would slowly slide down a clean, upright bore and I could hear the trapped air slowly hissing out and the soft "thunk" when it hit bottom. I wanted it to slide out the same way with a soft tap of the muzzle on the floor. This was my experience with bullet fit. BTW, the crown must be perfect and the rifling near the muzzle must be undamaged. A perfect lube star must form. You have to use a sizer to get this kind of fit unless St. Pete has his hand on your shoulder. Your mould must be a little oversize the bore to size down, the mould a very good one, and your handling of potentially
"best" bullets very careful. Don't just order out the cheapest, potentially out of round .58 something to shoot and expect MOA shooting. Some designs are on auto-failure.

I found that a lube of home rendered beef tallow and beeswax about the hot weather consistency of chapstick worked well in the summer and a different mix of the same consistency in 30 degree weather. Two lubes for my shooting. I skirmished so I shot in timed events , sometimes shooting 5, sometimes 10 rounds. The lube must work, warm or cold.

Now I tried and used WW minies and they work just as well under these conditions. They do expand to seal. They don't deform as well on impact. I do prefer the mostly lead balls though. Now they do not shoot like a golf tee, with only the base expanding. Even with quite a bit of WW in the mix, the whole thing expands with any reasonable hunting or target charge. Go dig some up out of the backstop and when you see rifling engraving on the nose, it expanded in the barrel. Do not shoot significantly undersized minies seeking accuracy, no matter what you make them of. BTW, Lube is for the grooves, not for seeing the bullet smoke as it travels down range to see where you are shooting.

Next comes the same dedication to the charge as the BPCR fellows take. It must be utterly consistent in measuring, making your cartridge if you use them, and in loading . Three of 45 grains going on the ground does not help.

Nipples are critical. My Enfield shooting 40 grains of Goex FFFg and the heavy RCBS could burn a iron nipple out in 200 shots, stainless and ampco were much better. Now don't just go buy one. buy them at least 6 at a time so you can at least look a handfull in the flash hole and select the smallest six. Make a buy pin gauge and a toss burnedout pin gauge for the holes. Why buy a new nipple with a burned out hole size? You wouldn't reload that way. These are some things that worked for me. BvT

[cwskirmisher]

Now I tried and used WW minies and they work just as well under these conditions. They do expand to seal. They don't deform as well on impact. I do prefer the mostly lead balls though. Now they do not shoot like a golf tee, with only the base expanding. Even with quite a bit of WW in the mix, the whole thing expands with any reasonable hunting or target charge.

I'll shoot my pure lead minies next to you while you shoot your pure WW minies and let's see who has the higher score consistently. And you do not need tin to get them to fill out if you have the lead and the mould up to proper temp.

[Baron von Trollwhack]

Armed musket shooters are free to shoot what they like. Serious ones will form their own results by testing as they see fit according to the standard they seek. I first went to Skirmish Nationals in the spring of 1967 with the DSR. I finished two years ago having shot as a member with five seperate teams for many years due to career moves. I always had a great time and learned a lot. Now, age and eye, let me shoot flint RB at 25 & 50 in smaller calibers and shooting them even for an longer time is still pretty good too.

cwskirmisher, your challenge is not being very helpful to the folks seeking to achieve some of the great shooting we have experienced in shooting the minie guns. I only told what worked for me. Take the time to really give them the details of what worked for you. They will form their own opinions as to what works for them.

You can easily see from some of the inquiries that many need assistance with the very basics.

BvT

[oldhickory]

I skirmished with the N-SSA for almost 30yrs.before retiring from it in 1999, and like Baron, I used the thumb nail test for my boolits. A little alloy in the lead doesn't hurt a thing. I never shot w-w alloy out of my Springfield, but if that's all I had, I'd give it a try. Skirmishing ain't bench rest shooting, and some tin/w-w alloy doesn't make a difference.