[Eric F]

where do you guys find sutibale metal for bpcr? I had a question in the reloading section but folks there say wheel weights are too hard for bpcr. More specificaly I will be reloading for 50-90 sharps bp loads.

[smokeeater]

I found a source at one of our local scrap metal places. You can find soft lead in old lead pipe, or especially shower pans. The man at the scrap place was very helpful in helping me pick out stuff that was soft lead. Wheel weights contain too much antimony. The going price for scrap lead here is 75 cents a pound.

[Pancho]

Eric, Smokeeater got it right and there is another way to guess if lead is soft enough and that is to scratch it with your fingernail. If you can score it with your nail it's soft enough for muzzleloading but you're not muzzleloading. Muzzleloaders need the soft lead because we grave the rifling into the bullet with the ramrod.
If you're shooting a modern repro breechloading gun you can use harder alloys but you're out of my field now and I'd wait for a more informed comment.

[Misfire99]

It's getting harder and harder to find lead for casting. You can use wheel weights for BPCR but I have found pure lead works best. If you can't find a scarp dealer locally then try here:
http://www.rotometals.com/

They have free shipping on orders over $99 and under thirty pounds. You have to be crafty in your order but it can be done to get free shipping. My self in a few weeks I am going to be driving to the area where they are. I am going to pick up a couple hundred pounds of lead while I'm there and I will get some tin also. Most people say 20-1 is the right ratio for lead to tin to make a good bullet.

[Pancho]

I've read on previous posts that the small amount of tin gives the lead better pouring properties but doesn't effect the softness enough to matter in muzzleloaders. I haven't tried it yet.

[sundance44s]

Wheel weights work fine for target shooting ..I use them for casting my 45/70 target bullets . But when I cast for hunting loads I use round ball lead , it`s much softer lead , and expands well in game ...The wheel weight lead doesn`t expand as a hunting load .

[Old Fuff]

When you seat a ball or bullet in a C & B revolver it is swaged into the chamber. In fact you are supposed to shave off a small circle of lead. Soft non-alloyed lead is recommended to reduce the strain on the bullet ramming assembly - particularly the screws, and make the process easier.

In conventional muzzleloading rifles the ball or bullet is undersized, and a cloth or paper patch takes the rifling. An alloyed projectile might work, but old-timers used pure lead because that was the way it came.

[Macmac]

I am not familar with bpcr? What is the "cr"?

I find lead flashing, old pipe and castings of finger nail soft lead in scrap yards and boat yards where ballast is made for sail boats.

If you find ballast in a keel from a old sail boat, you might never have needs to find more.

You can use wheel weights if you use a loading tool with the clyinder out.

In long guns with a patch wheel weights are a sin, if there is ever a chance a screw worm would be used to "pull a load"

Wheel weights work well in brass cat'ridge reloading however. I use these in my 30-30 lever gun all the time.

[mykeal]

bpcr =

black powder cartridge revolver,
black powder cartridge rifle, or
black powder cartridge reloading,

depending on what the subject of the discussion is.

[mykeal]

duplicate post deleted

[Wildfire]

Hey there:
I got a lot of sheet lead from a dentist office that they were tearing down.
The walls are lined with lead in any room they use X-ray machines in. Keep your eyes open. This is pure lead. Soft. And there is always plenty of it.
Plumbers lead at the Hardware is pure lead also. Then you can add just a little tin and end up with good casting lead for BP.

[scrat]

that or buy like i do. i usually buy around 50lbs at a time. purchasing on ebay.

[Misfire99]

that or buy like i do. i usually buy around 50lbs at a time. purchasing on ebay.

I have seen some of the lead for sale on ebay. I suspect that most of it is exactly what they say it is. But I also suspect that a lot is not pure lead. I would bet it whatever the guy could come up with and then he smelted it into ingots. If it is soft enough and you buy enough to last a long time this would be OK. But if you buy a little, something like fifty pounds, when you run out your consistency goes out the window because your lead alloy has changed.

You can get cheaper prices on ebay then from places like rotometals but when you buy from rotometals you know exactly what you are getting. And when you go back for more it will be exactly the same.

[Pancho]

lead is easy to come by It's tin I have trouble finding locally. I've been wanting to try that 20 to 1 lead/tin alloy.

[Macmac]

mykeal, Thank you...
bpcr =

black powder cartridge revolver,
black powder cartridge rifle, or
black powder cartridge reloading

I'll try to remember that..

I am not so sure I should mention car batteries.. You can get lead from car batteries, but you need to do a few things to get at it safely...

If so then perhaps it should be a topic alone. You can get burns, and even dead if you mess with a car battery and don't know what you are doing, not to mention take out a lot of pets.

[Pancho]

Batteries are not such a good idea. Yeah,they're 100% lead but they are coated ,through use, with compounds of sulfur. By the way I've tried it. I emptied the battery on my limestone driveway. Lots of reaction lots of hydrogen gas but the result was inert. The lead was terrible.

[Macmac]

Well see? I have and can get the lead to be ok, but first I neutralized the battery with baking soda.. I collect the mess and add water to boil it off, so there isn't much left but solids, and pack these with more baking soda, and end up buring them in a already very hot fire.

The lead gets fluxed, and fluxed again until it is clean. I take that crap to a dump, where it is set up for heavy metal recycling.

Then I add more lead to this recycled lead I plan to use and alloy the 2 as one and I get a pretty decent product. At the time I was in need of ballast, about 500 pounds worth, and free + labor always works well for me.

I still have lead from making ballast. Any of that is good for casting anything in pure lead. if I want other alloys I might buy tin in solder, and just have to figure the percentages I want to alloy.

That depends on what I want to do. I also make my own silver solder for jewelry quaility solders. I use a weighed amount of sterling, or .999 Fine, and melt down cleaned .22 cases, or copper alone depending on what the planned use is.

It is work no doubt about it, but if and when the Gov outlaws lead.. There will still be plenty of lead around.

So ya kilt the drive way huh? LOL

Don't feel bad I messed up a cast iron pot in the early days of melting brass..

I had collected a lot of 1895 brass plumbing and built a brush fire to ge rid of the brush and figured I could also melt the brass. WRONG...

I melted the brass alright, but I also melted the cast iron pot! All I got was soft feeling gold tone lucky pocket rocks, like are made of colored glass..

I can assure you I was in a state of total shock seeing 1/2 of the pot gone!

Every so often Ol' Mac's attempts at certain things go way wrong. I made fish glue and pulled a chip from a pyrex dish! That came as a surprise too.

The dish wasn't broken, but it was ruined just the same.

[scrat]

buying lead on ebay i do buy from the same guy which makes it easier as he ships out like immediatley. i am pretty darn sure its pure lead as i its very very soft. most of the time it will not be in ingont forms it will be some wierd type of blocks or shape from where it was originally used. So with that the first thing i so is melt it all down clean it up and pour it into ingot blocks. 50lbs still goes a long way though. At least for bp. Now on my regular rifle and handguns there is a guy on handloads.com forums. from this guy i usually buy around 80 lbs. Good stuff hard lead

[Eric F]

Thanks for all of the answers guys I think I like the boat ballast since I live in south east va there is boat yards but the hundreds and always some junk boats here and there.