Pure Lead

[Haversack62]

Is pure lead same as soft lead?

 

[BKey]

Yes and no. It depends on your definition of "soft lead". Pure lead has a Brinell hardness of 0 - 5. From there up you get into the alloys. Black powder cartridge shooters generally shoot a 30 (lead) to 1 (tin) mix which is a about a BHN of 9 or a 20 to 1 mix which is about a 10. Wheel weights will go about a 13 - 15 and from there on, in my opinion, you are getting into a hard bullet.

 

[Haversack62]

Ok....... so would pure lead work for my round ball and Minnie type bullet?

 

[BKey]

Yes sir. Pure lead is what you want.

Billy

 

[Haversack62]

Great, Thank you

 

[Haversack62]

I can get pure lead of Brinell hardness of 5 so this will work for what I want to do?

 

[BKey]

Yes.

 

[DixieRifles]

And the age old question: Are wheel weights too hard for Minie balls and pistol balls?

SubQ: Do the newer cars still use wheel weights?

 

[Bob Owen]

And the age old question: Are wheel weights too hard for Minie balls and pistol balls?

SubQ: Do the newer cars still use wheel weights?

Usually too hard and not always lead.

 

[frontrank2]

A friend of a friend gave me some lead ingots that he used for making fishing sinkers. Well evidently they were not soft lead
because I made some 58 cal. minie balls and couldn't hit anything. The lead was to hard so that the minie ball skirts didn't expand enough and grip the rifling in the barrel.

 

[Tin cup]

A friend of a friend gave me some lead ingots that he used for making fishing sinkers. Well evidently they were not soft lead
because I made some 58 cal. minie balls and couldn't hit anything. The lead was to hard so that the minie ball skirts didn't expand enough and grip the rifling in the barrel.

Been down THAT road!

Kevin Dally