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Wheel Weight RB's

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Gene Perryman

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Has anyone used WW's to make RB's for use in say a FL............as around here there are NO lead RB's to be found !!!

Gene Perryman
 
Gene Perryman said:
Has anyone used WW's to make RB's for use in say a FL............as around here there are NO lead RB's to be found !!!

Gene Perryman


WW weights are not recommended at all, they are too hard, this been discussed forever here and goes on and on.

Go to a re-cycling yard and buy roof vents and a mold. Last resort go to a plumbers supply place and buy pure lead.

There should be a sticky on this, it's a repeat about once a week or so.
 
Gene Perryman said:
Has anyone used WW's to make RB's....

Sure. No sweat, but with a little adjustment. They'll cast slightly larger than pure lead, so you're likely to need a slightly thinner patch. You'll never notice a difference in accuracy, in my experience.

But for hunting, you have to realize you won't get any expansion, either. Not really a big deal since RB's don't need expansion to work right, but some guys like to see a little. I've recovered expanded balls, but that's real rare. I've never recovered an unexpanded round ball. Boils down to expanded balls not penetrating as well, which makes sense.

Lotta guys up here use wheelweights for casting round balls to be used for moose because they want all the penetration they can get. The roots of the thinking are in all the African hunters long ago who used hardened balls for more penetration on the big stuff. May not have been wheelweights 150 years ago, but there was no shortage of big game hunters adding stuff to their round balls to make them harder.
 
You might give Eddie May a call in Chatsworth GA. He'll send you a good supply of balls at a real reasonable price. 706-581-8225
 
Mr. Perryman,
We have been using RBs cast from ww for over 20 years with no noticeable loss in accuracy.

As others have mentioned, the mold will cast a slightly larger ball, easily compensated with a thinner patch, in our experience.

For our use we find them to be superior to the pure lead ball as they do not normally expand; providing excellent penetration on Moose, Caribou and Bear.
Best Wishes
 
When you melt those wheelweights as soon as the stuff gets liquid enough to get the dipper thru it, skim the unmelted tin and antimony (they both melt at a higher temp than the lead ) off the top, it'll soften the alloy up a little bit. Watch for the stick on weights they are pure lead.
 
Thanks fellows....
I spent one Friday and Sat morning calling every scrap metal dealer and plumbing supply within 75 miles, NO Pure Lead. I found one dealer that had scrap WW's. They were expensive and it would have been a 100 mi round trip....The local tire dealers won't sell or give away any because of the EPA !!!
I figured that they would work with some minor changes.......I don't hunt so expansion is not a problem...
Thanks again
Gene P
 
Is there an indoor range anywhere near you? They collect bullet fragments from their backstops, often selling them by the pound. Locally, the scrap is going for 10 cents per pound, and even free when they are overloaded.

Sure there will be jacket fragments in the mix, but in my own experience they account for something less than 5% of the weight. Easy to scoop off once the lead is melted, since they float on it.

In my long history with the stuff it's a little softer than wheelweights due to the alloying of lead for jacketed bullets. Good stuff. And cheap or free.
 
WW's are a trinary alloy: mostly lead, with a bit of tin and antimony added (which makes it harder than pure Pb). I.e., it's a chemical compound, not a physical mixture and it does not separate [by gravity] when melted. Check out Lyman's "Cast Bullet Handbook, 3rd. Edition" for metallurgist Dennis Marshall's detailed description of WW's. Btw, he's also written similar articles for E.H. Harrison's "Cast Bullets" (NRA publication), and RCBS' "Cast Bullets, Vol. I.
 
Maven said:
WW's are a trinary alloy: mostly lead, with a bit of tin and antimony added (which makes it harder than pure Pb). I.e., it's a chemical compound, not a physical mixture and it does not separate [by gravity] when melted. Check out Lyman's "Cast Bullet Handbook, 3rd. Edition" for metallurgist Dennis Marshall's detailed description of WW's. Btw, he's also written similar articles for E.H. Harrison's "Cast Bullets" (NRA publication), and RCBS' "Cast Bullets, Vol. I.

Have no idea what someone else may have wrote and got someone to publish.
I do know however over about 50 years of casting bullets and such with wheelweights, that lead does melt at a lower temp than tin and antimony, and other wonderful things that crop up in wheelweights, and while you won't get rid of all the stuff stirring and skiming the melt before it reaches the temperature at which the less wanted things melt and they being less dense than lead will float to the top.. No you won't get rid of all of it, but you can get rid of a bunch of it.
 
Gene if you look around you can find reclaimed lead from shooting ranges that are mostly 22 bullets, those are usually pretty soft, also ask your dentist offices for their xray lead, that is dead soft lead.
Another way to get dead soft lead is to buy the swaged handgun bullets, and remelt those.
And there's always good ol rotometals.com
 
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I prefer WW metal for my smoothbore and like to save my soft lead for rifles. WW ball will cast up slightly larger but we're not talking much. My Lee mold casts a true .600" ball from soft lead and only .605" from WW.
 
Ranch, Have you actually read any of Dennis Marshall's articles? His bonafides are impeccable and he was a highly respected metallurgist and authority on alloys, particularly those used in bullet casting, e.g., wheelweights. Those sources are often available from various booksellers, e.g., Amazon, and are worth a look. Btw, the NRA, Lyman, and RCBS were not known for publishing bulls--t when it came to bullet casting.
 
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