Wheelweight lead... Good or bad?

[Rasch Chronicles]

You guys have me on a roll today. Lots of wondering going on.

Is wheelweight lead a bad choice for roundballs?

Best regards,
Albert “Afghanus” Rasch
The Rasch Outdoor Chronicles™   
Learn to Shoot, Break the Flinch!

[heinz]

In general wheel weight lead will have a high antimony content.  This makes it very hard and also makes it expand on cooling so you will throw slighty larger balls with it than with straight lead.  This can make ofr hard loading.  It does work well for black powder rifle bullets but they will need to be sized.

[Roger Fisher]

Round ball rifle bad.

Smoothbore r ball okay.

For target

[mjm46@bellsouth.net]

There is always a lot of talk about wheelweights. Some are saying there is a lot of tin in them now, don't know. I've used them in the past, and will probably use them in the future if I find a cheap source. If the ball is a little bigger use a thinner patch if you find the ball too tight. It's all relative. If you have to get a smaller ball mould.
Just my humble opinion.

[westerner]

I use wheel weight round balls for plinking  and practice.  I cant tell much difference in loading or accuracy.  But then I'd shoot marbles if I had some. 


                          Joe.

[alyce-james]

My two-bites--to hard for muzzleloader rifle or riffled pistol, unsafe. AJ

[Habu]

I've used a ton of wheelweight lead in my smoothbores, but never had much luck with it in rifles.  But if you sort your weights, the adhesive ones are a different alloy--not pure lead, but soft enough for practicing etc in a rifle.  for hunting and match use in a rifle, I'd still go with the purest lead you can get. 

Jim

[Leatherbelly]

My two-bites--to hard for muzzleloader rifle or riffled pistol, unsafe. AJ

Explain: unsafe?

[Rasch Chronicles]

Can the thickness of the patch make a difference? Why would a patched pure lead ball be any different than a hard lead ball of the same diameter? The ball never touches the lands... or is the lead and the patch upset into the lands upon firing?

Best regards,
Albert “Afghanus” Rasch
The Rasch Outdoor Chronicles™ Albert Rasch in Afghanistan: She had Beautiful Green Eyes

[D. Taylor Sapergia]

When you are seating a ball and patch into the muzzle, two things (at least) are happening.  The patch is being compressed into the grooves of the rifling, and also into the lead.  If you pull a patch and ball, you'll see that the lands of the rifling have pressed the weave of the cloth into the lead.  Or you should;  if you don't you are not using a tight enough combination.  If the ball is not pure lead, but some alloy such as wheel weight material, it is much more difficult to get the same impression of the lands and patch, into the ball.  Thus, it is harder to start the patch and ball.

[R.W.D.]

My experience is that WW lead is too hard for muzzleloaders.  I've shot a lot of it but it's hard to load and in my opinion isn't as accurate as pure lead.  A friend gave me a bunch of soft lead flashing from a home remodel so I now have big stash of lead for RBs.  I use the WW lead for my centerfire pistols and rifles.  Just my 2 cents but if WW lead is all you have then by all means shoot it.

[heinz]

As Taylor notes, when you load a tight combination things are getting swaged together.  I load an 0.018 thick patch and a .394 ball in a 0.40 bore with .010 grooves.  This load requires the ball to get slightly swaged on loading and the thickness of the patch all around the ball to compress and swage into the bullet.  I cannot get a wheelweight ball in without seriously banging on a bullet starter and accuracy would be affected by the beat up bullet and other things going wrong.  If you shoot a loose fitting ball or a smooth bore, you are not that concerned about accuracy.  So if a wheelweight ball fits with your patch combination you will get what you deserve.

[R.W.D.]

Good points.  You will end up wishing for a rubber mallet to get those things seated.  You can really tell a difference when loading a cap and ball revolver.

[camerl2009]

i use pure for round ball and keep wheel weight for other bullets

WW's is good for handgun,buckshot and slugs,and when water droped rifles now the only round balls i cast with WW's is .690 but i only use them in shotgun safe the WW alloy as thats going to get harder to find soon over in the US with the main ones now being zinc and steel

here in canada where still using lead alloy WW's i can get all i want in fact right now im hroading them and any lead i can get  i got so many differnt alloys i find my self haning to stap what it is on the ingots

save WW alloy for other things get pure or lead/tin mix for round ball a lead hardness tester is good for the job but pure lead and lead/tin mix's can scratch easy with your finger nail

[54Bucks]

 I try to stay away from anything but pure lead which is the softest and easiest to load. But I do think that a harder lead has it's place. There was a good article in the latest issue of Muzzleblasts. It dealt with taking large game (African) with a .72 cal. using roundballs. The author claimed the harder printers lead he used maintained their shape better and plowed thru in a straight line vs. pure leads tendency to expand quickly and travel on a very erratic path in large animals. I've seen that myself on smaller animals such as whitetails when a larger bone was encountered. Granted the use of a harder lead is not often needed in  the USA,but it could be beneficial with Elk and Moose with a marginal calibre. I think the tricky part is actually determining the actual hardness of much of the lead we encounter.

[hanshi]

WW lead is all I use for my smoothbore.  I had a .590" mould made and the balls come out around .593 to .595.  I'm working up a deer load in my .62 smoothie with patched ball.  This combo thumb starts and seats with moderate pressure.  Trying to patch a .600" ball requires a mallet to seat.  This is not possible in the field even though it's accurate.

[camerl2009]

I try to stay away from anything but pure lead which is the softest and easiest to load. But I do think that a harder lead has it's place. There was a good article in the latest issue of Muzzleblasts. It dealt with taking large game (African) with a .72 cal. using roundballs. The author claimed the harder printers lead he used maintained their shape better and plowed thru in a straight line vs. pure leads tendency to expand quickly and travel on a very erratic path in large animals. I've seen that myself on smaller animals such as whitetails when a larger bone was encountered. Granted the use of a harder lead is not often needed in  the USA,but it could be beneficial with Elk and Moose with a marginal calibre. I think the tricky part is actually determining the actual hardness of much of the lead we encounter.

oh yes a hard cast round ball will out penetrate a solid cast conical with printers leads as you called it (really linotype alloy) if you water drop it you got a ball thats close to copper in hardness but if you dont water drop it its the same hardness as water droped WW's

the hardnees of normal round ball non water droped ww's is hard enough pure lead with some tin is better then pure lead because the tin helps fillout

[Daryl]

Taylor's post spells out the problems of WW alloys in normally loaded muzzleloading round ball rifles.

We have found WW is useable, in smoothbores - or IF the ball diameter is reduced and a heavier patch is used with hard compression.  The crown must allow seating the hard ball without cutting the patch.

Example of what works - .690 bore, .675" WW ball and .030" denim patch with 140gr. 2F- THAT works, shoots cleanly and does it with sufficient accuracy for hunting to 150yards and it's as accurate as a pure lead ball of the same size, same patch.  It is NOT as accurate as the same powder charge with a .682" pure lead ball and that same .030" patch.

[camerl2009]

clip on WW's alloy is 12 BHN when not water droped and 18 BHm when water droped and oven heat treated its 30-32

pure lead is 5 BHN water droping does not work with pure lead or a lead tin alloy

stick on WW's are about a 6 BHNsome are pure tin and some are pure lead thay should say PB for pure lead and SN is for tin

some clip on WW's are marked too if you want a lead tin mix with no Antimony in it sort all the ones you can that have SB for Antimony

anything 12 BHN and under should be ok for round ball in a rifle ive used it from time to time with no problem


range scrap is soft enough most bullet cores are pure lead or a softer alloy i use it for most of my shotgun casting slugs and buckshot and its free

[Rasch Chronicles]

During the costruction boom, I ended up with a lot of left over lead flashing also, so I have a small (50lbs) stash of pure soft lead. I have a friend that runs a huge tire shop and he has barrels of wheel weights, so that' s where the question came from.

I think I better stock up on pure lead in the very near future...

Thanks!
Albert

[Daryl]

Do NOT put 'Z' wheel weights in the mix. That is zinc. It will ruin a mix of lead, and will also contaiminate the pot for future casting- apparently.

I've never heard of a "Tin" wheelweight. Those, I'd like to find.

[Rasch Chronicles]

Good info Daryl, Thanks!

Albert

[Leatherbelly]

  I'd like to try them in my .50. Daryls, is a .490 WW ball too large? How much do they swell? Probably a good ball to have on hand in case bullwinkle stands proud! No prob with deer as it'll run 'em thru,end to end but could be  handy for stand shooting moose or elk.(biggest rifle I have right now,sorry)

[Maven]

All, Taylor's concerns re WW roundballs notwithstanding, I sometimes cast RB's of WW alloy because I have more of it on hand than Pb.  A couple things about WW's:  Sb and Sn content has varied over the years, but both are minimal now (economics I suppose + metal that's been remelted who knows how many times).  Also, finding a Pb-Sb-Sn wheelweight is becoming more difficult as they've been replaced by Zn (Don't use them!) or Fe.  As for RB's, my nominally .50cal (.492", RCBS mould), casts ~.0005" larger with WW's than with Pb and weighs ~4gr. less.  I find NO difference in starting the harder ones even when using the same patch material than I do the ones I cast from pure Pb.  And, yes, accuracy has been indistinguishable in my rifles.

[Leatherbelly]

 Hey Thanks Mavin,
  Just what I wanted to hear. I have some real old wheel weights from the 80's. I used to cast pyramid weights for fishing. Should be good stuff.Thx agn.