"Pure lead" and Black Powder...

[Etienne Brule]

Hi,

I would like to know the reason(s) why we have to use "pure" lead with muzzleloader (round ball and/or conical)

You have a wonderful forum.

Thank you

Etienne Brule

[randyrat]

I'll make an attempt to answer this,but reserve to be corrected if i'm wrong. Using the slower less pressure powders such as black powder,pyrodex and such. You have to use a softer lead so the bullet will OBTURATE or seal the bore quicker. In other words, Harder lead won't seal as good with lower/slower pressures.

[DLCTEX]

The reason I use pure in all but my ROA is the harder alloys are too hard to load. You have to give them quite a pounding to get them started, and the boolit is usually deformed by the time it's seated. In revolvers the boolit goes into a chamber usually larger than bore dia. so loading a properly oversized boolit is easier. The bullet seater on the ROA is strong enough to handle a lot of pressure. DALE

[44man]

It's a hard question. I do know that depending on an undersize boolit to expand does not result in accuracy. Better to start with the right size boolit. Black reaches a pressure peak very fast and it is much lower then smokeless plus the velocity is low in comparison. Then most black powder boolits carry a lot of lube although some are shooting grooveless, dipped boolits.
You CAN get leading in a black powder gun though if something is wrong. I have also had a lot of leading in my BPCR using WW lead and an over groove size boolit. Softer lead stopped it. Soft lead in my revolvers always leaded badly.
I can't answer it, some get all kinds of different results.
There are strange things I can't explain like my .44 with WW and a gas check. Things shoot bad but if I anneal the check, they group tight. These are boolits over throat size. If I alloy the WW metal to make it harder, they group tight with un-annealed checks. I also get some leading with water dropped WW metal (Even with a little tin added.) but none if alloyed just a little harder and water dropped.
The real reason for softer lead in a muzzle loader is that with the right size boolit or patch and ball made from hard lead, you just can't load them. Some use hard, undersize boolits or balls and try to make up for it with patch material or depend on boolit expansion. Either way, super accuracy is lacking although some say "Not". Depends on what accuracy is expected or needed. You will get 1000 opinions with this. I use larger balls and thicker patches then anyone on this whole forum, pure lead, and will never change. A maxi ball has different size bands so it is easy to start and will expand to fit when fired, but the top band has engraved the rifling deep to hold it straight. Make them hard and you need a hammer, plus they don't expand good to fill the rifling.
Even a .58 Minie' ball needs to fit the bore snug for top accuracy. A hard thumb push will quadruple accuracy over one that drops in. I have gone from not hitting a large cardboard target at 50 yd's to hitting a swinger at 200 meters by lapping out a Minie' mold. (Many times, with many muskets.) If hard lead, you could not load it.

[jonk]

I have found that it is more crucial with Minies than with patched balls, but it DOES help the patched ball get started easier if it is softer.

[OLPDon]

Softer is better for all the above and if you are intending to use for Hunting the ball will expand to the point of almost inverting. Have recovered some of the balls from Whitetails and expanstion is quite dramatic. Most of the Whitetails I have had engaged with a 54 cal. RB have been recovered within 20 to 30 yrds some droped in there tracks. And as for penitration have had RB from front quartering shot exit rear quarter of Whitetail.
I have had nothing but steller performance with soft lead easy to load and pillow ticking is easy to find at local sewing shops.
Don

[leftiye]

It is because the boolits are sitting atop the lands. They must obturate or the boolit will not (cannot) take the rifling. BP is an explosive, and it does explode, and there is a pressure wave produced that obturates boolits way better than smokeless will even with the lower pressures. Round balls don't need to obturate, though I'd bet they do some. But being of low sectional density, and contained in a patch in the bore, it isn't too much. Alloy used to make B.P. boolits can be anything soft enough to obturate in the given gun/charge situation. Most people just use pure PB. There's no real advantage to harder boolits, and pure also obturates (expands) better in a target (Deer).

[versifier]

A comment that Waksupi posted last year made me think about it all over again. Pure lead needs to be cast at a higher temperature to get good fillout, especially with large diameter slugs like MaxiBalls and MaxiHunters. Adding just a little bit of tin to the melt helps fillout a whole lot while not appreciably effecting the hardness enough to make loading difficult. I tried it and it works great.

He is also a big advocate of moose milk for patch lube, but the cows tend to kick when you grab their nipples and those cloven hooves really hurt. I'll stick to spit or beeswax as they are much less painful to obtain. [smilie=1:

[leftiye]

I knew a guy once with a crippled hand. Seems that when he was younger and stoopider he had roped a deer while out riding in the mountains. So far so good, but when he tried to get his rope off of the deer's neck it came up and slashed his wrist with one of its hind hooves. Cut all of the tendons I guess, and that was before they sowed as well as they do now down at the hospitals. Be careful milkin them deer family creatures! Moose are a da** sight more powerful than deer! Maybe tie 'em down first?

[Wayne Smith]

One slight but important distinction needs to be made a little bit clearer, methinks. We must distinguish between muzzleloader rifles, pistols, and using BP. In BP Cartridge there is no need to use pure lead. In using caplock revolvers, it is as Dale explained above, an issue of ease of loading. Harder lead does break loading levers! In Muzzleloading rifles, and especially in patched round ball rifles, ACWW balls shoot just as accurately as lead but won't have the terminal performance.
I think I'm agreeing with all of you. I wouldn't try milking a moose, either!

[twoworms]

Back in the early black powder days they could not find any WW's to melt down. :)

Tim

[waksupi]

Check with Carpetman about tying up animals. I hear he has experience.

[DeanoBeanCounter]

OK OK I've got a related question. If someone happen to have a ruined batch of lead with zink in it, would a muzzleloader be a good place to get rid of it? For that matter, is there anything that can be done with contaminated lead? Almost seems perfect for a frontstuffer.:)

[OLPDon]

OK OK I've got a related question. If someone happen to have a ruined batch of lead with zink in it, would a muzzleloader be a good place to get rid of it? For that matter, is there anything that can be done with contaminated lead? Almost seems perfect for a frontstuffer.:)

Smoke Poles and sinkers come to mind.

And as for wheel weights in the good old days haven't you guys heard of "wagon wheel weights?" I don't recall the ratio of wagon wheel weights to Lead but I'm sure Buchshot has some knowledge on it (driving them Mules).:kidding:

Don

[GrizzLeeBear]

Wow, some of you guys are right on and others.....well you must have had some different experiencse than I have. I used to shoot a lot of rendevous and traditional ML shoots and still hunt with a .54 flinter. Don't know that much about BP cartridge guns, but most everything I see from guys that do, use like 20:1 or 30:1 lead/tin alloys. Still pretty soft but the tin aids in mold fillout of those big bullets I guess.
As far a ML's, pure lead is the only way to fly. Obturation really doesn't enter the equation with roundballs. The patch does not just fill up the grooves around the ball, but it does help seal around it, kind of like a cloth gas check. The best accuracy comes from a TIGHT ball fit and the only way to get that with a ball that you can load without a hammer is with pure lead. I have pulled my fair share of "dryballs" (mine and others) and the rifling is VERY evident on the ball. I have shot around a lot of the ML benchrest shooters and some of them shoot a .50 cal. ball in a .50 barrel AND a patch. Even with pure lead balls most of those guys use a small hammer to start the ball. My dad cast up some balls out of some 1/2 WW, 1/2 pure lead one time. You had to just about bruise your hand pounding on the short starter, and they shot like doo, doo. In our rifles that shoot under an inch at 50 yds. with pure lead, they wouldn't stay on the paper with the alloy balls.
I also used to hunt with .50 Cabelas Hawken that loved a 300 gr. Keith nosed HP full bore conical bullet that was swaged from pure lead. The HP on these were about 6mm! With a 100 gr. FFg load the bullet did NOT exit on broadside shots, was usually just about pancaked on the far side under the hide. The damage it did was incredible. I shot a bunch of deer with that gun before I got my flinter built and seeing how that pure lead bullet worked convinced me that pure lead is by far the best bullets for muzzloaders.

[MT Gianni]

The problem with zinc contamination is poor fillout. I can't imagine any kind of accuracy with round balls on only 3 quadrants and a wrinked mess in the other. Gianni.

[OLPDon]

I should of refinded my answer to RB as stated by Griz patch has much to do with it. When I go to sewing shop with a mic. I do get more then strange looks.
In this case size does matter, as some of the more overt females might admit, "It don't look good but it sure do fit."
Don