Is Lee round ball mold ok?

[RSVP2RIP]

Virgin lead form a plumbing supply house runs $1 a lb. if you can find a plumber that has some on a regular basis. I'm fortunate because in Chicago all comercial plumbing has to be bell and spigot so there is a lot of it lying around unattended, where a box of donuts gets a couple strips of pigs.

 

[a1rstreamer]

One of the local guys here demo'ed melting lead from wheel weights and I ended up with about 30 lbs of ingots. So I got a production pot and started casting .454 balls - that part ran smoothly. However, because WW lead is harder than pure lead, the balls were difficult to load with the loading press (pure lead .454 slips in easily, but WW lead is quite a bit harder). So I melted the .454 balls and recast them with a Lee .451 mold. They're still hard to load, and I plan on getting a better loading press than the $10 one I have now.

Last time out, I used purchased pure lead balls and I was grouping in the kill zone at 50 feet. Since I'm the only one at our local range shooting BP, I'm somewhat of a novelty. The 1858 Remmie in stainless steel is an impressive looking firearm.

 

[Black Toe Knives]

I hate to hear that..... I thought I had the ultimate hook up on revolver balls... But yeah, I don't wanna develop a case of hard balls and a bent rod.

Junk yards have plenty of lead usually 50 cents a pound.

 

[Noz]

When casting round balls in Lee molds flux very often. I ruined several molds by not doing so. The grit in the used lead will erode the sprue opening in the aluminum and cause some rather nasty looking balls. Eventually the sprue opening becomes so ragged that the balls have to be plucked out of the mold. Any type of flux will do, just do it often. I generally will flux every 100 balls or so.

 

[robert garner]

Noz: two things
1
welcome to the board! my first time gettin to do this!
2d When melting used lead don't settle for "just melted"
Once it's melted keep adding the heat( I use charcoal, so
a small oscillating fan is plenty for this, or a hair dryer)
cover the melt with crushed/broken charcoal,allow this to burn offleaving the ash as a blanket this will add heat and give the dross
the undesireable elements in the lead some thing to cling to,flux well and keep skimming the dross!EVERYTHING floats in lead, soon there will be no impurities left,save the tin and antimony, some say if hot enough you can get the tin out mostly tho I've never tried!
again Welcome
robert

 

[WALKERs210]

I have never used Lee mold before today and so far they are great. Only problem that I encountered was by the carrier that delivered ( GET Ready for Rant ) All I would say is the slogan should not be WHAT CAN BROWN DO FOR YOU but more like WHAT CAN BROWN DO TO YOU. Set my rig up and only cast a few rounds to get the feel and see how the molds would turn out finished shot. The molds were really just getting up to proper temp but I did cast enough .530 RB to get a good idea as to what to look forward to. Each one was right on at .530 and weight was dead on at 14grams (my scale don't do grains but can convert). The information I have read in this post has helped me get back into this part of shooting BP again.

 

[Bluehawk]

The grit in the used lead will erode the sprue opening in the aluminum and cause some rather nasty looking balls.

Interesting...I've never come across that problem with any molds and I've used everything from soft lead to linotype in Lee, Lyman,Saeco, Cramer and RCBS molds for over 30 years. I flux maybe twice during a long casting section...if I remember to...and I get excellent bullets.

 

[StrawHat]

Noz ...When casting round balls in Lee molds flux very often. I ruined several molds by not doing so. The grit in the used lead will erode the sprue opening in the aluminum and cause some rather nasty looking balls. Eventually the sprue opening becomes so ragged that the balls have to be plucked out of the mold. Any type of flux will do, just do it often. I generally will flux every 100 balls or so...

Sounds like you need to smelt and clean your lead supply in a separate pot. I used to routinely aquire scrap lead. I would use a cast iron pot to melt all the gathered stuff and melt it down. Once molten, flux it frequently and then cast it into ingots sized to fit in my production pots. Once the lead is cleaned and ingotted, there should be no grit or impurities in it. Not only sdoes this save your molds but it also saves a bottom pouring pot from seeing the grit.

Welcome to the forum.