Only because i am curious........................

[rmark]

Round balls are under bore size, wrapped in a cloth patch, and expand when fired to grip the rifling - soft lead is best. Maxi balls have a bore sized base and groove sized nose, so the nose is forced into the rifling when loading, the base expands when fired to grip the rifling - soft is best. Minie bullets are under bore size and the hollow base expands when fired to grip the rifling - soft is best.

However, round balls don't expand that much, and with a tight patch I've used range, wheel weight, and even linotype lead.

The most important reason for soft lead is to get the dang ball screw into the ball you loaded with no powder under it

[Tom W.]

Yup, first the powder then the ball, do it wrong you'll surely squall.

[Walks]

Long time past I was given 25lbs of range scrap that consisted only of .45acp 230gr G. I. round ball. I melted it down in a 10lb cast iron pot over a small propane burner. I pulled out each jacket with a pair of needle nose pliers, shaking out the lead from the bottom of each jacket. It was poured into 1lb ingots. They cast soft enough for MAXI-BALLS but not round ball in my .44 REM Army replica. I DID BREAK THE RAMMER ON MY UBERTI.

[Traffer]

I use the jacketed range scrap for my 22lr bullets. They test pretty close to pure lead in hardness. I would say about 7bhn to 8bhn. But that is a guess.