Stickey on on clip on WW's for Sharps 45-70?

[Just Duke]

I am told that I should use a softer alloy for the Sharps rifles. I have a couple hundred pounds of the stick on WW's so should I use those or the clip ons?
I do have the option of making ingot lots of 140 pounds at a time to keep the bullets consistant.

[Jon K]

Duke,

I would use the stick-on ww+tin(most stick-ons are soft as pure lead), before you make up a big batch of boolits, I'd see what you like, and what the gun likes first.

Start out making some 1:30/1:25/1:20 and test them, see which one pours the best for you, which one shoots best, before making a big batch.

Several guys have pure, soft lead, on the swappin & selling right now. The softer lead/tin alloy works better for me and easier to duplicate. Clip on ww is a crap shoot, you don't know the exact alloy mix, and consistancy is a key factor in shooting BP at longer distances. Some guys will tell you they use ww and that's cool, but try to keep it the same from batch to batch and soft enough to bump up, is a harder task than meets the eye. More work than I want to tackle.

Jon

[Don McDowell]

I'ld suggest working up several different alloys from 40-1 to 16-1 and then trying a good variety of all before settling in on just one alloy.
Some bullet/lube barrel combos work better with softer alloy gently eased out the muzzle, some liker harder alloy pushed really hard.
Its to bad that the standard montra now days is always go to the soft lead, folks are likely missing out on some real good loads .
Loading black powder is exactly like smokeless loading in that each gun is a rule unto itself, what works well is one persons loads, might be the drizzling squirts in the next guys gun.