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REAL lead/antimony/.05% arsnic WW alone are all that's needed. ure lead stickon-s are garbage and will soften the melt. New, modern Zinc WW are garbage and will destroy the pot of lead for casting good bullets or balls. Avoid putting tin (or very much more than 1/4" of stick) in the melt as it will soften the final ball, both as-cast and if hardened. Tin causes age softening at a greater rate than straight antimony alloys. Adding more antimony will increase the hardness of as-cast balls, but also increases brittleness. Adding shot which contains additional arsnic is not necessary - the arsnic in WW is enough to cause the hardening spoken about below. Arsnic is necessary for hardening lead alloys. Hard balls can be made with alloys of lead & tin, but must be about 10:1, lead/tin mix. Adding more tin than 10% does not further harden the ball much, but will make it considerably lighter, which is bad.

If desired, WW balls can be further hardened by being dropped right from a very hot mould into water. I use a 5 gallon can, with a strip of sheet banded to the top & slit in the middle to stop splashes coming out. You do NOT want water/moisture to EVER enter a molten pot of lead.

I cast at about 800F to get completely frosted bullets or balls. It must take at least 5 or 6 seconds for the sprue to cool. The can is behind me so I turn around and wait for the sprue to harden, open the sprue cutter with a golved hand, then dropping the ball into the bucket(held close to the covering cloth, tapping the hinge nut if necessary to get a quick release. The hotter the ball is when it hits the water, the harder it will become in 12 hours. It takes that time to harden after being removed from the bucket. Tap water is just fine. Have a towel in the bottom of the can to cushion the fall of the balls.

With this method, you can achieve consistant results with brinels hardness of about 28 through about 32. These are harder than Linotype (brinel 21 to 22) but aren't brittlelike Lino is and at muzzleloading velocities will resist both expansion and/or breaking up.

If you want to remove spures by filing, do it right after casting and you won't hurt the hardening process. If you wait 12 hours, any rasping of the ball will soften it at that location. Spruless balls are easier and faster to load. With no sprue, just grab a ball and load it - or if it turns in a loading block - if doesn't matter. This, of course is for moulds that produce a raised sprue. Some don't. I don't use those moulds for large balls ( bore guns) that don't have raised sprues. I like Jeff Tanner's moulds as you have to trim their sprues and the can be made perfectly round.

Hardening balls should not be necessary for any game to be met in the forest or savana for that matter. Straight WW should be enough. If the WW you are using are soft (some US made weights are softer than ours) or you get pure lead in the mix, then hardening by quenching in water will help as detailed above.

Re: use of slugs in a Muzzleloading double rifle. I should have mentioned above that the use of slugs in a 12 bore Pedersoli with heavy charges for dangerous game, is a dnagerous practise. Recoil of the first barrel can cause the second barrel's conical "slug" to migrate forward due to recoil forces, especially with clean clean barrels. It can also happen with dirty barrels. Any movement off the charge by the bullet creates an air space between powder and slug. The resulting explosion on firing the 'gapped' charge, while sometimes quite incredible to witness, is usually very hard on the shooter and rifle - the shooter can be damaged beyond repair - the rifle always is - stick with round balls.

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Daryl

"a gun without hammers is like a Spaniel without ears" King George V

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