Anybody know what they're made of ? I need to cast some balls for a ball mill , and have a choice of pure lead or tire weight material . I see sellers on ebay that have 10% antimony/90 lead for this use , others have pure lead . Still others have ceramic balls , but I'm not sure those have enough weight for a small ball mill . The one thing all have in common is that they're around a half inch diameter . I figger the .490 ball mold for my muzzleloader will work just fine .
Can't answer the alloy question directly, but tire weight lead is harder than pure lead. I use it for lead hammers & it's much better than pure for that.
These are the lead alloy , a place my son worked at tossed boxes of new weights when they converted . Most of the boxes made their way into the shop manager's car ... my son managed to get one for me . I also got a bunch of used ones from somewhere , the ones that didn't melt were all steel .
The lead alloy weights are alloyed with antimony to make them harder. Will lead particles in the finished product be a problem? Because there will surely be lead dust in the dust you are making. Eric
Well , since it's intended to push lead , I don't think it'll matter much . I have really gotten into primitive hunting techniques since moving to the woods of North central Arkansas ... next thing ya know I'll be gluing turkey feathers onto wood sticks with glue from boiled hooves . Though I might get into something more modern once I finish my shaper build . With a shaper one can fabricate bolt action receivers . And a lot of other neat stuff . Like falling blocks ...
A few months ago I scored a bunch of .45/70 cases ... I have .454 bullet molds . I'll need a barrel and a chambering reamer . Did you know that it's possible to convert a sidelock percussion arm to use modern boxer primers ?
I just went to the tire shop to dig through the wheel weight bucket. The plan was to just grab some for casting a lead hammer for a nice wood handle I got. I had some battery terminals saved up as well for this.
Anyways, there seemed to all sorts of junk in the bucket that clearly wasn't lead.
Some weights were clearly marked "Zn" while there were some that were clearly lead, some that felt like lead but didn't look like it. It seems they have pained or coated lead weights now too. There were some types of plastic weights too, not sure what was inside them. I left those.
I had to sort the haul at home. A scribe confirmed the obviously lead ones were probably lead. Lineman pliers easily sink right though those.
The dense lead-ish ones also cut easily, but had a coating of paint or metal. Not really sure what it is. They felt too hard to be lead with a scribe.
A few zinc ones slipped into my bag, and those are hard and do not cut at all.
I'll have to melt the stuff down to separate the steel clips and other crap, which should float to the top.
"I found some cases so now I need to build a gun around 'em.", eh? Cool, carry on!
No, and that's not just because I'd never heard the term "sidelock" before, either. :/ I like my guns to be semi-automatic, so I've never looked into muzzleloading, single actions, or things of that sort.
I like 'em all , and have or have owned most types . My personal preference is for bolt actions with high-power scopes ... but semi-autos and SA revolvers are fun too . The only type that has no place in my collection is a full auto . I think they're a waste of ammo in most cases ... though in full combat situations they can be quite handy .
I thought that black powder was made by milling the charcoal and sulfur together, the saltpetre by itself, and then carefully mixing them. I have a recipe somewhere from over 40 years ago that I used to make my own powder. I used a mortar and pestle. Made by Coors. Appropriate at the time because we were drinking some we stole from my friend's dad. I remember wetting the powder and pressing it into tiny pellets about 1/4" diameter and 1/8" long. After drying we made some pretty loud bangs but not as loud as hoped. Eric
It all gets milled together . I'll be using KNO3 prills for some , that material will be milled a couple of hours before adding the charcoal and sulfur . Once it's all milled to the consistency of very fine dust it'll be moistened just enough to be pressed into cakes which will then be processed into granules by pushing it thru a screen . Let it dry out then make bangs .
Man, I thought you had found a bat cave or was saving your pee in buckets to leach through wood ashes. One of the foxfire books had techniques and recipes. If you want, I can dig through mine and give you the reference.
Pee and wood ashes ? Hmmm ... wood burning stove , camper black water holding tank ... I could do that ! But not really worth the effort right now , I have enough ingredients to make a few pounds , probably more than I'll ever shoot . Just a few days ago tried my hand at making charcoal from some black gum . Very similar to willow , which supposedly makes the best .
Agreed. Full auto has its very tiny niche application: Downing (as fast as possible) as many rioters/foreign soldiers which are running at you. If you can't miss and there are lots of them, a full auto is just fine. But people sure waste ammo with them. I wonder if even the select fire (2-3 rounds) on M-16s is truly warranted, or just a lesser waste of ammo than full-auto.
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