The Russian Mosin Nagant Forum

Now that I'm going hog wild with black powder weapons, I decided to splurge on a Lee Production Pot IV. I ordered 25lbs of soft lead off of ebay to get started as all I had were wheel weights, and I've been told that they are to hard for cap and ball revolvers. I also ordered a Lee dual .454 round ball mold and a .440 + 200grain Lee REAL mold for the CVA/Jukar flintlocks. I'm going to be contacting all of the local roofing companies to try and score a few hundred lbs (or tons ) of soft lead. Let the fun times begin, no?

In a month or so I might have some more ingots cast up for sale, but as of right now my entire summers production is already spoken for by various board members.

Put me on the waiting list! I payed $32 for 25lbs. Not terrible but not great either. I think...

With shipping that's OK. I have to come up with 150 pounds of ingots to fill the current need, but once that is done I will list some for sale. I sold a huge amount of lead in the last two years, and the supply will start to run low as it doesn't come in that fast anymore.

Sounds like fun . I guess its only a matter of time before I start casting my own stuff. Just got my first black powder firearm and I'm getting started to begin reloading. Sooner or later it will snowball into me casting haha. Just not right now, I don't want too many irons in the fire just yet haha. Good luck with your casting and lead search!

The weather has been okay for casting here but my casting buddy has been a little under the weather and SWMBO has had some other things for me to do. As long as it's not raining we are good to go.

iwuzwhatiwuz wrote:Now that I'm going hog wild with black powder weapons, I decided to splurge on a Lee Production Pot IV. I ordered 25lbs of soft lead off of ebay to get started as all I had were wheel weights, and I've been told that they are to hard for cap and ball revolvers. I also ordered a Lee dual .454 round ball mold and a .440 + 200grain Lee REAL mold for the CVA/Jukar flintlocks. I'm going to be contacting all of the local roofing companies to try and score a few hundred lbs (or tons ) of soft lead. Let the fun times begin, no?

Many of the local scrap yards around here have roofing lead they will sell. It's gone up a bit since last time I bough a roll but it still around 50 cents a lb.

I don't usually buy lead or lead based alloy as I've gotten pretty much all mine just for the asking of the years. Metal prices are taking a beating on the stock market the past couple days so it might be time to buy so lead as the price changes on a daily basis.

The problem is not price, but supply, these days scrap yards do not see the influx of lead we once did, this is mostly due to lead being used less and less in many areas. It's rare these days for plumbers to use lead, or find it during overhauls on older homes, roofers don't use it as much either, and wheel weights on tires are zinc now. Roof lead is the worst because of the heavy tar that tends to be on it, it must be cooked outdoors, exactly what's holding up my lead production, smokes real bad. Plumbing lead can be shitty, literally, 100 year ago it was used to plumb toilets, handle it with heavy gloves. Water pipe lead is great, a little crust on the inside, but overall clean stuff, and soft. For a patched ball you can use hard lead, only the patch is in contact with the rifling, not the bullet. You can use hard in a revolver also, but it will be more difficult to stuff the ball down into the chamber, but it will not hurt the revolver. Mini balls must have the softest lead so the cone will flare open on firing and engage the rifling.

Sounds like fun!

Junk Yard Dog wrote:The problem is not price, but supply, these days scrap yards do not see the influx of lead we once did, this is mostly due to lead being used less and less in many areas. It's rare these days for plumbers to use lead, or find it during overhauls on older homes, roofers don't use it as much either, and wheel weights on tires are zinc now. Roof lead is the worst because of the heavy tar that tends to be on it, it must be cooked outdoors, exactly what's holding up my lead production, smokes real bad. Plumbing lead can be shitty, literally, 100 year ago it was used to plumb toilets, handle it with heavy gloves. Water pipe lead is great, a little crust on the inside, but overall clean stuff, and soft. For a patched ball you can use hard lead, only the patch is in contact with the rifling, not the bullet. You can use hard in a revolver also, but it will be more difficult to stuff the ball down into the chamber, but it will not hurt the revolver. Mini balls must have the softest lead so the cone will flare open on firing and engage the rifling.

Oh come on Jim, the lead is not on the shitty side of the joint. I must have poured 10,000 joints in the first few years I was plumbing. Besides that, shit washes off, trust me, I know. Tar burning on roofing lead will make your babies born naked.

When the house is old enough they didn't use cast iron pipe on the crapper, they used lead from toilet to septic tank.