Question for Zonie

Zonie,You have the knowledge :bow: IF we did have a shortage of lead for our ammo,what will work in our smokepoles? I was "told" steel shot is bad on a muzzleloader,so what will be our alternative for RB's be? All these news broadcasting on closing the smelting plants,I don't want to think what .62 caliber in Copper will cost :nono:

Ive gotten creative I horde every bit of lead I can get. I've been known to recover it from ranges and old gravel pits. Make friends with plumbers,junk dealers and contractors. I stow my lead and buy new balls to shoot. When I shoot I like to shoot into the ends of logs I toss them in the stove
And recover my lead in the ash box I toss it on the horde. I have a 15 meter pistol range in my basement all of the modern stuff gets saved and melted too
Copper jackets float to the top.

Well, I'm not Zonie, but there will be lead used in batteries for a while yet. Lead can be extracted from them (carefully). I'm your age, and can't see lead being too much of a problem to find.

The thing to do is think ahead, and determine exactly how much lead do you need? What I'm talking about is how much would you need to actually put meat on the table. Enough for a couple hundred balls would/should take care of any real necessity needs for several years.
Shooting smoothbore? an extra bag of shot laid up in the cellar will kill plenty of ducks,grouse etc. to keep you in fresh fowl for many years.
Think back to the depression era , folks didn't shoot just for the fun of it, they shot for a survival reason, we may very well end up in that position again.

Just another method... junk truck tires stacked vertically and filled with dirt for a backstop makes recycling kinda easy.

Yes. Great idea

Ranch,That is where I am afraid we ARE heading,My elders told me a long time ago,I would live to see the unbelievable, they were correct,I cannot believe what this Country has allowed in the past 49 yrs,bad part was,I was in school when they started,and wasn't old enough to vote :nono:

Flintlock, I hope you are right :idunno:

I stockpiled lead back when I was working and I have enough to last me as long as I will be shooting. The same with powder, I have plenty stockpiled to last as long as I do and will probably leave a bunch for my son. But, you young folks will have a different problem. I think there is enough demand for lead that foreign smelters will keep up with the demand but lead will quite likely not be as readily available as it is today and will likely cost more when you get it. My advice is to gather as much as you can NOW and stockpile it. Melt it down, clean it up and cast it into ingots. If you are lucky enough to end up with more than you can use, just sit on it and as the price goes up, you can sell the extra and make a few dollars on it. If you belong to a muzzleloading club, offer to straighten up the range and in doing so, "mine" the lead by making a sifter from a few boards and some hardware cloth. Shovel up the dirt from the backstop and run it through your sieve. After removing the lead, move the sifted dirt back up on the backstop and rake it smooth. You will be doing your club a favor by straightening up the backstop and paying yourself in lead. Also talk to your local roofers and plumbers about buying their scrap lead. It's out there right now so gather while you can.

Just because the last lead smelter in America is closing doesn't mean lead will disappear. Mexico is right next door.

I don't think lead is our Achilles heel but rather powder.
One can always come up with some kind of projectile. Mike D.

Mexico? :nono: wonderful :shake: more jobs lost :td:

This is just a scare.
The same has happened to the steel and coal industry. It's more profitable to let other countries mine and smelt lead than to do it here.

By the time these American companies meet all the regulations, pay the wages and jump through the environmental hoops, it's more cost affective and profitable to have it shipped in from overseas.

Also the use of lead has significantly lessened over the years. It's not used in paint and plumbing anymore and that's the big reason there was just one US smelter left.

Also this was a smelting plant to process ore. There is still lead being imported and and plenty of it in the recycle industry.

That's why the plant shut down, there's no real demand for new lead. All this lead shortage stuff is pretty much "Henny Penny" nonsense.

The real threat is Local, State and Federal regulations or Legislation making the use of lead illegal for all sporting purposes.

Roundball was shootin' glass marbles a couple of years back. It might not be a good idea to shoot a deer with em',if they shatter it would be hard on your intestines. :td:

I lost all my marbles. :surrender:

smo said:

Roundball was shootin' glass marbles a couple of years back. It might not be a good idea to shoot a deer with em',if they shatter it would be hard on your intestines. :td:

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flintlock62 said:

I lost all my marbles. :surrender:

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yah-ha-ha! Brother and I figured out marbles were fun to shoot back in the 60's when those "Tower Horse Pistols" hit the market. Still love the old Dixie catalogs where they'd tune and harden the frizzen for an extra $6:00! Anywho, we soon discovered that if you shot them at concrete, they'd turn to dust. Never shot a real critter with one...since the frizzen would't spark we had to figure out a way to light'er off using Mom's kitchen matches...yes, took about once to realize you needed to do it from the rear and at an angle! :rotf:

Boy Mike!

I don't know why your picking on me for an answer. :hmm:

First off, I don't think lead is going to disappear in the US.
Like 54ball said, lead will continue to be recycled and imported. It's used in too many different things and as long as there is a demand, there will be suppliers.

The cost will undoubtedly go up a bit but what's new? The cost of everything keeps going up.

In the meantime, if you've got a place to store it, search out the local metal scrap yards and buy some.

As for shooting steel balls (or brass/copper/bronze) if your using thick patches to cushion them and reduce the chance of them contacting the bore they will work. I wouldn't recommend using a thin patch though.

Lead will never disappear it is far too good of an electrical conductor. And then there are things like tin, solder, and pewter. Lead shot is already being reclaimed from shooting ranges. Build yourself a bullet trap of some kind and save your practice lead. The day will come when we start mining our land-fills and garbage dumps. Lead and lead alloys are used for far, far more things than bullets; heck the Chinese still use it in our toys. Outlawing lead is politically motivated by both parties based on a worldwide study that showed a direct correlation between high lead blood levels and increased violence. So let’s not be haters and fuel their fires. :v

Zonie said:

As for shooting steel balls (or brass/copper/bronze) if your using thick patches to cushion them and reduce the chance of them contacting the bore they will work. I wouldn't recommend using a thin patch though.

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The idea of shooting steel,copper,brass bronze balls scares the cr_p out of me. it has the potential to be more dangerous to the shooter than the target. in more than one way.

Zonie ole boy :wink: I was taught when I needed a correct answer,,ask the right person :bow: