Wheel Weight RB's

[Billnpatti]

When you can't get anything else, wheel weights will work. Soft lead is always preferable but is less important when making patched round balls since the patch is what grasps the lands in the bore. But, if you are casting conicals, it is very important to use the softest lead you can find because the lead of a conical must be soft enough to be deformed into the grooves when it is loaded in the bore. Check with local plumbers and roofers for soft lead.

 

[tom deinek]

With a tear in my eye, I recall promising my 5 year old daughter we would cast some sling shot ammo when we were at my deer camp. Of course I forgot the lead. Kid cried.

Went into town, found the tire store & told him my story of woe & perfidy to my kin. Asked to buy some ww. He gave me his entire ww bucket, free. Took 2 guys to lift it into my trunk.

Those were the days; God bless him wherever he finds himself today.

 

[David Grout]

Ranch, Maven is correct. Tin and Antimony do not separate in mixture. Melting points for lead is 621.43 degrees F. Tin is 449.47 degrees F. And Antimony is 1167.13 degrees F. If it wasn't a chemical mixture the Antimony would not mix at the temperature to melt lead.

 

[curator]

As always both good and well meaning but incorrect information for the original poster. Wheel weight alloy is just that, an alloy. It will not separate by being melted and skimming off the surface. Also, it will age harden over a 2-week period, starting out at a soft BHN 6 (as cast) and gradually ending up at BHN 12 after 14 days. If you intend on shooting tomorrow morning, you can pop your wheel-weight alloy balls into your oven at 375 degrees for 30 minutes then turn off the oven and let them cool overnight. In the morning they will be dead soft (almost as soft as pure lead) This way they will be easy to load and take the rifling. They will gradually harden again over the next two weeks. Since they tend to cast a couple of thousandths larger than pure lead you may need to test various patch thicknesses to get the best accuracy when using them. If you want really hard balls like for use as buck shot or large game with a smooth bore, try dropping wheel weight alloy balls right from the mould into cold water. Wheel weight alloy will "water-quench harden" to nearly BHN 24 in 48 hours if subjected to this treatment. They will retain this level of hardness for several years of not subjected to prolonged heating.

 

[Ranch 13]

Boys you believe what you want to believe. Me I'll keep on doing what I've been doing for most of my life, and that's believing what I've seen and done.
Now notice I did not say it would take it all out, just that it would remove some of the hardening parts of the alloy.
You can also get a lot of the stuff to separate by using paraffin wax as a flux. (any of you ever read the intructions with a lee mould? or actually tried it if you did?)
So in the end , yes wheelweights will work for round balls, they can be softened somewhat during the melting fluxing process.
Not all wheelweights are created equal, and some of them are nearly pure lead.
Lot of bullspit floating around the internet, a lot of it just keeps getting repeated over and over and over again by folks that don't really have any first hand experience, but do have a good memory and a keyboard. :hmm:

 

[BrownBear]

I gotta say a degree and career in metallurgy trumps both. :wink:

 

[M. De Land]

Who told you that bit of apple sauce.Lead, tin antimony alloy is not a mix but is in solution and once dissolved together they don't separate, how ever, the tin and lead will oxidize out to a small degree.
The antimony crystals forms a structure known as "trees" which are surrounded by lead and tin making an aggregate, for lack of a better descriptive term, which both hardens and strengthens lead.
The antimony alloys maintain there hardness better than just lead and tin alloy. I hardness test regularly and have some bullets made ten years ago that are nearly as hard now as when they matured at the first. MD

 

[nkbj]

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.

:thumbsup:

 

[Bon Sauvage]

:thumbsup: