Old Army.....

[Biggred]

Here I go again showing my lack of knowledge... I want to cast round ball for my Old Army and my Squirrel Pole, is wheel weight OK as is? Do I need to find PURE lead? Signed....Chomping at the Bit. Frank

[R.M.]

You definitely want pure lead for the ROA. I've tried range scrap, and it's just too difficult to stuff in the cylinder. Too hard on the loading lever pin.

R.M.

[jh45gun]

Yep Pure lead for any muzzle loader is best. Wheel weights may be too hard though I know they make a hard cast roundball for patched ball shooting so hard to say if that would not work, but the pure lead I think is best as in a roundball it will mushroom better than a hard ball would.

[Old Ironsights]

ROA needs a .457 pure lead RB or .45 REAL for proper seal... BUT

If you get one of the .453 Conicals available and use grease & a "wonder Wad" then WW alloy is OK.

But that's too much trouble IMO.

Stick with 200gr REALs or standard RB.

[Howdy Doody]

Yup, .457 pure lead balls is the way to go. I recently bought some Speer balls at a gunshop and noticed right away that they are somewhat harder than the pure lead I cast. I determined that by the effort it took to ram them. I never have had a chance to try the conicals for ROAs, but I have seen the mold in the Lee catalog.

[mooman76]

You could get by with WW on your squirrel pole. To help make the lead softer you could heat it up hot as you could get it and skim of some of the tin on top. Keep it hot for awhile and keep doing it. Won't probubly get it all but could help make it better.

[DLCTEX]

I load wheel weight balls and boolits all the time in mine, no problems. I have loaded 255 gr. .454 dia boolits ac ww. I do use a .452 size die to taper 1\2 of the base band to make starting easier. The seater mechanism is very strong. This is the Old Army, I'm refering to.

[Old Ironsights]

The 200gr Lee REAL (in pure lead) is the absolute best bullet for the ROA if you want to kill things. In the states that allow it, it's death on Deer - every bit as good as an intermediate velocity .45LC

I'm not a fan of the other Conicals available for the ROA - with one caviat:

If you invert a "ballet" type of ROA conical and use light target loadings you get a monster Wadcutter.

But for General use, stick with .457 ball.