Going to kick the hornet's nest, wheel weights for round balls.

[dondiego]

Soft lead for Cap and Ball revolvers but WW works well for patched ball.

[Longknife]

Soft lead balls will imprint with the pattern of the rifling when started when the fit is correct. When using WW balls, they will mot imprint as easily. If they are too tight to load go to a .005 smaller ball and a .005 thicker patch. I also shoot WW balls in my smooth bores, same thing, shoot smaller ball and thicker patch. I have been shooting WW ball in my rifles and smoothbores for 40 years, targets don't care, game don't care! The Englishman Frederic Selous, 1851-1917 was one of the greatest big game hunters in Africa. He always shot Hardened ball in his guns. They would not expand and penetrate deeper thus making a quicker kill,,,,,,,LK

[sledgehammer001]

I've had no issues using WW RB in my .50 or in my .58..... I actually deliberately cast my .58 Minie` out of WW and it keeps the skirt from deforming with a hotter load. I've ran them up to 120gr of Pyro RS without them blowing the skirt.

[GhostHawk]

I've done it. Way way back when I had my fling with Holy Black pure lead was hard to find and cost money. COWW's were everywhere and mostly free.
Some work needed to get clean alloy out of it. Sweat equity, but I shot almost all COWW lead in my CVA .45 caplock.

[Geezer in NH]

I have always used pure lead for my rifled guns. Easy to find to me. WW's I use for my unmentionable or my smoothbores, n fact I like hard buckshot.

Today I find more pure scrounging than alloyed WW's. Home depot even sells pure in the roofing dept if I ever become that hard up for it.

You want to shoot WW's in patches but many will trade you pure for it.

[dtknowles]

I have used harder than pure for muzzleloaders when that was all I had. It was fine. Now harder alloys are harder to find than pure. My scrap yard has lots of almost pure lead but almost no harder alloy. I would check for scrap roof lead as that is what I find mostly at the scrap yard. I did find some solder but that is too precious for round balls.
TEK

[GregLaROCHE]

Hard lead has always worked for me with a smooth bore and patched.

[triggerhappy243]

I know this subject has been debated on end, but I have to ask because I want to actually know if someone has done it and what their results are. I want to know if you can cast round balls for a muzzleloader from wheel weights. I know what you're supposed to use, soft lead, but lead in some places, where I am, is getting tougher to come by. Even the wheel weights themselves is getting tougher, plumbers lead, everything is harder to come by and the more we see the "green" campaigns keep trudging onward, I think we're going to see less lead to use. I do have some soft lead on hand for round balls but I want to know if need be, can wheel weights be used. These would be for new production guns, nothing antique. Also, in my Pedersoli Indian Trade gun and French Cavallerie carbine, these are smooth bore guns that I use balls undercast anyway. For instance, my French gun is .69 that shoots very well and surprisingly accurate with a patched .648 and .662 roundball. My Indian Trade Gun is a .61 caliber roughly that does very well with a .570 roundball and .015" patch. So for at least those two guns, there isn't a super tight fit to worry about.
So, can it be done?

If you are really really concerned about the lead being too hard, you can always give it the sulfur treatment to weed out the zinc and antimony. do it outdoors on a breezy day.