boolits too hard

[fatelk]

I sure messed up. I cast about 10 pounds of lead balls for my .44 C&B revolvers. I sure thought I used soft lead, but obviously I didn't.

I tried to shoot some yesterday and it was all I could do to ram them in the cylinder. I'm pretty sure I would have bent or broke the lever if I had shot more than a few. I can sure see why soft lead really is necessary for muzzle loaders!

[hoosierlogger]

well the good thing is you can always re melt them.

[docone31]

Melt them and sweeten them with pure.
Go ask a roofing contractor for some, or at the recycling place. They have roof boots there.
Sometimes, one or two boots in the mix and it is good.

[LewR]

Anyone have a shortcut for finding out how hard your casts truly are?

[George Tucker]

Thumb nail works for me.

[fatelk]

Now that I think about it I'm pretty sure it was range scrap I used. It's been a few months and this is the first time I used any of them. I'm surprised at how hard they actually were for range scrap.

I have about 30 pounds of dead-soft pure lead, and just got done making about 300 slugs. That should last me quite a while.

I'll melt the others back down and make some .38's or something out of them. I'm still fairly new to the whole black powder thing, and had wondered before just how important it was to have soft lead for black powder. I guess I know now.

As to how to tell how hard your lead is, it seems that there are a few ways to tell. I am too cheap to buy an actual hardness tester, myself, so I just have a few ingots of known composition, such as soft lead, wheel weights, and linotype. I'll hit them against unknown metal to see which is harder. I've seen some threads also about art pencils of specific hardness. I've been meaning to look into that, but haven't yet.

[mooman76]

You can get away with the harder lead in the ML rifles because you have the cloth patch to give way but not the revolvers.

[missionary5155]

Good Evening
Are you using the correct size ball ?
I ran into that once ... I tried ramming some .454 into a Colt replica that needed a .451.

[Old Goat Keeper]

You will not get good accuracy using hard lead in MLs. And the patch is there to grab the rifling for the undersized ball and NOT to cushion the ball. Been shooting and messin with these rifles/pistols for over 30 years now.

Tom



You can get away with the harder lead in the ML rifles because you have the cloth patch to give way but not the revolvers.

[fatelk]

Are you using the correct size ball ?
I'm using .451 Lee molds, and balls from this mold are all I've ever used in both my 1851 Colt and 1858 Remington replicas. I ran out of the first batch I'd made from soft lead (worked fine), then without thinking made a bunch out of range scrap.

[mooman76]

You will not get good accuracy using hard lead in MLs. And the patch is there to grab the rifling for the undersized ball and NOT to cushion the ball. Been shooting and messin with these rifles/pistols for over 30 years now.

Tom

I just said you could get away with it. I know it isn't made to cushion the ball but none the less it does. I have also been shooting for 30 years and get good accuracy with WW lead balls. Some people even claim better accuracy but I'm not trying to go there.

[waksupi]

You will not get good accuracy using hard lead in MLs. And the patch is there to grab the rifling for the undersized ball and NOT to cushion the ball. Been shooting and messin with these rifles/pistols for over 30 years now.

Tom

I would beg to differ. I have been shooting them for nearly 40 years. On a day when my eyes are good, wheel weight balls go through all the same hole at 50 yards.

[bob208]

when i got into muzzloaders many years ago i was told to use pure lead only. now in the last few years i have seen people trying to tell me and others you can use wheel weights in them. i say not if you want to hit anything.

[mooman76]

when i got into muzzloaders many years ago i was told to use pure lead only. now in the last few years i have seen people trying to tell me and others you can use wheel weights in them. i say not if you want to hit anything.

I was told that too but all I had at the time was WWs. So that is what I used. I find they shoot very good, maybe just as good but I have neve done a side by sid comparison. Have you actually tried them or are you still going by this is what I was told?

[waksupi]

when i got into muzzloaders many years ago i was told to use pure lead only. now in the last few years i have seen people trying to tell me and others you can use wheel weights in them. i say not if you want to hit anything.

Bob, I would suggest you try them, before making that statement.

[RBak]

There are probably as many thoughts on using wheel weights are there are shooters but I have to agree with those who feel WW's are okay for round ball....in fact, I would say they are just fine, and often times even hard to beat.

I have also read and "heard" that you should only use pure lead, and that is fine. If you have pure lead, and you feel that's all you should or all you want to use, by all means use it!

The patch grips the ball to the rifling which imparts the spin to stablize the ball, and the ball never touches anything...end of story.

However, there are times when a "harder" ball is desireable, and since WW cast a wee bit smaller than pure lead, you just might want to use a patch that is a wee bit thicker...therein lies the most likely cause of the problem when it comes to accuracy.

Like several others here, I also have a few years of experience shooting the lowly muzzleloader. Started with my first front stuffer sometime in the 1950's....long before they were in vogue, and long before there was a whole lot in print about you must do this, and you must do that.
(To many, my first Muzzleloader might have been called "custom made", but back then it was simply called homemade.)

Thinking back, I believe this thing about using only lead with Black Powder Muzzleloaders began when your choices were lead, brass, and copper and other than lead, everything else required too much heat to be practical to cast, while the barrels of that time were much to soft to allow for hard ball being shot.

After many years of shooting wheel weights, you can rest assured that I have complete confidence in using it in all my muzzleloaders.

Just my thoughts on this age old discussion.

Russ

[bob208]

no i have not tried them and will not i have shot in too many matchs aginest people that do and i allways beat them.

for the patch to grip the ball the material has to beable to leave an imprint in the ball. to do that the ball has to be soft lead.

[chief3]

Once again, every gun/shooter is unique. What works for one may not work for another.
I bought my first muzzle loader in 1954 and am still learning. What I do know is experimenting is at least half the fun.
Yes that was an original half stock in 1954. Didn't get my first reproduction until 1963.

[357maximum]

I have shot ww V.S pure roundballs side by side in several very accurate frontstuffers. IF the patch/ball combo are right there is NO difference in accuracy. I have also noticed that ww balls tend to strike a bit higher than pure lead. I am not sure if that is a fit/pressure, weight or both thing, but it is negligeable anyhow.

That being said I normally use a pure or at least soft lead ball as i want it to expand a bit when it runs into a brown antlered critter.

[waksupi]

no i have not tried them and will not i have shot in too many matchs aginest people that do and i allways beat them.

for the patch to grip the ball the material has to beable to leave an imprint in the ball. to do that the ball has to be soft lead.

My WW balls do get the imprint in them. If you know what you are doing in loading a ML, they do everything a soft ball will do, in accuracy and hunting use. I personally like the harder ball for hunting here, as critters tend to run on the big side.
Don't knock it until you try it. You won't learn much, otherwise.

[Maven]

+1 to what 357Maximum and Waksupi said! In fact, Waksupi convinced me to try WWRB's in my ML's as I have more WW than Pb and they perform very well indeed. I can't tell the difference between Pb and WW RB's with respect to accuracy, except the former are, of course, heavier.

[Fly]

Well I was always told the same & never tried anything other than pure lead.With that
said I can't say one way or the other.But if I had to chose I would go with pure lead.

But I'm old & set in my ways

Fly

[BAGTIC]

[QUOTE=bob208;906030]no i have not tried them and will not i have shot in too many matchs aginest people that do and i allways beat them.

It takes a humble man to admit that he didn't win because he was a better shot but only because he had better equipment. It is usually the other way around.

[Bloodman14]

In my '51 Confederate Navy, I use .451 WW RB's, to make up the difference in diameter/hardness. My reasoning? As the .451's are harder, they are a bit smaller in dia. in order to get them into the cylinder. For backyard plinking, they are fine. I loob with LLA.

[Charlie Two Tracks]

I am getting back into shooting my Pietta .44 and was reading a bunch of posts here. There will be many questions I have but the first one is: How do you lube with LLA? I would think that all of it would be gone when the boolit is shaved.

[Jayhem]

I would beg to differ. I have been shooting them for nearly 40 years. On a day when my eyes are good, wheel weight balls go through all the same hole at 50 yards.

I agree. I have always cast my T/C maxi-balls from wheel weights for my .50 cal inline and they shoot 2" groups at 100 yards. :drinks:

With heavy loads the harder boolit alloy grips the rifling better whereas a pure lead slug might smear a bit, especially in the fast 1:24" rifling of modern muzzleloaders.