Old pewter had real lead in it. That is why you should never eat with old 18th and 19th century pewter spoons and plates. Also a lot of the knife bolsters that you see in books that say they have pewter are actually lead. I see no harm in using wheel wheights for powder horn tips. Most old wheelweights are lead/tin mix.
NO not all pewter contained lead going back well before the time frames we deal with. It was know to be toxic for food use.
So while there are lead bearing "pewters" the non-toxic stuff was lead free and it LOOKS DIFFERENT in most cases. This was the second reason I started using the Silvabrite alloy (primary was at the time when I was casting a lot of pewter tips I had young children and did not like bringing lead dust home.). It LOOKED like the metal in original Sharps pewter tips. A firearm with a tip cast of this alloy can be set aside for 1 or 3 years and never handled and the tip maintains its color. Case one of lead or an alloy with high lead levels and it will have a film of black lead oxide on it that comes off on you hand. This shouts LOW QUALITY to me and I don't care for it.
But then I am not into aged guns either...
From:
http://www.basic-antiques.com/metalware-pewter.htm"The earliest known pewter is that of Imperial Rome. Pewter was taken by its legions to all parts of the empire and samples of it have been found as far east as India and as far west as England. Incidentally, the old Roman formula was lead-loaded, having approximately 71.5 parts tin to 27.8 parts lead. Then came five hundred years of oblivion. By 1047 pewter had re-established itself sufficiently so that the Synod of Rouen ruled that church vessels of pewter could be substituted for those of gold or silver. The first domestic use is the mention of pewter meat caldrons at the coronation of Edward I of England in 1274. By 1437 the pewterers of Montpellier were making dishes and salt cellars of an alloy that adhered to two established formulas. In turn, Limoges, Nuremberg, and other European cities saw the establishment of chartered guilds. By the beginning of the fifteenth century the famous Worshipful Company of Pewterers of the City of London had come into being.
This London guild interests us most, of course, since their trade practices and ways of working were the background of American pewter making. The first formula of the London guild, established by decree of 1474, was as much brass to tin "as it wol receiuve of his nature." Then, the formula shifted to twenty-six pounds of brass to a hundredweight of tin. Later "tin glass," bismuth, was added, first as an adulterant and then as a legalized part of the formula. Next the use of antimony crept in.
Generally lead was added when making spoons and other moulded articles. There is a pretty tale that some of the English and French pewter of the sixteenth, seventeenth, and eighteenth centuries was made with a sizable proportion of silver. Assays of pewter of this era disprove it entirely and establish the fact that the formulas in turn were:
Tin 112 pts. Copper 26 pts.
Tin 100 pts. Copper 4 pts. Antimony 8 pts.
Tin 90 pts. Copper 2 pts. Antimony 8.7 pts.
For spoons and other cast pieces the formula generally was: Tin 95.6 pts. Copper 1.06 pts. Lead 3.64 pts."
With this in mind some of the non-silver bearing solders would be correct as well. But I tried one of these in the past and they did not pour well.
I would have to dig for it more than I care too but I have found pewter formulas with silver added as well.
There are so many different alloys that were referred to as "pewter" that almost anything, including some Babbits could be called "pewter".
Why solders like Silvabrite 100 have a silver content I cannot say. I can only assume it has to do with how the metal flows ? Need a white metal specialist for this.
My point is that I see no point is using WW etc for casting on horns or rifles or knives. There is better material that is perfectly acceptable from the historical standpoint and it LOOKS better.
But its folks are free to use what ever they want...
Dan
