311 Posted February 17 Posted February 17 Hey guys, I'm wondering if it's fine to use these "Lead Ozark Trail sinkers" to ball mill strictly Black Powder. Here's the link. https://www.walmart.com/ip/Ozark-Trail-Egg-Sinker-3-4-Oz-Fishing-Weight/113388138?from=/search
ThrownBiscuit Posted February 17 Posted February 17 You can use them, they are a bit soft and will wear out quickly, but they can be used. I think these might be a bit cheaper for you though at least by mass/price. 5lb Lead Ball Mill Media (woodysrocks.com)
SharkWhisperer Posted February 17 Posted February 17 You can use those fishing weights just fine but it's probably not economical. Even a single small HF mill jar will take 2-3 pounds of lead milling media. Each package of your sinkers are 3.75 oz. Let's call it 4 oz for simplicity. So it'd take 4 packs/pound, or 10 packs/jar (at 2.5 lbs/media/jar). What does that cost? If you use non-hardened pure Pb like sinkers or musketballs, you're definitely going to have some lead contamination in your comps. I use straight lead, and it will turn white comps grey. Mill KNO3 and it ends up gray. I'm not particularly worried about lead contamination and it has never discernably affected comp performance, but this is a consideration for some who may be worried about lead toxicity or interference with pyro effects. Hardened lead (e.g. wheel weights or purchased milling media) wear slower and are reasonably cheap. I use .50 caliber soft lead musketballs from midsouth shooters supply dot com--whatever's on sale, no real difference between calibers, within reason, and they work great. But I'd switch to hardened media if I found a super-economical option, for sure.
SharkWhisperer Posted February 17 Posted February 17 11 minutes ago, ThrownBiscuit said: You can use them, they are a bit soft and will wear out quickly, but they can be used. I think these might be a bit cheaper for you though at least by mass/price. 5lb Lead Ball Mill Media (woodysrocks.com) Good stuff. But it's also $9/pound and shipping is probably almost product cost.
ThrownBiscuit Posted February 17 Posted February 17 Fair point about the shipping, I didn't think of that. I was mostly thinking about wear and replacement frequency, but I should have considered shipping as well. As an aside, this conversation has reminded me about looking into casting my own, so I will go and look into that.
Arthur Posted February 17 Posted February 17 Lead for milling needs to be hardened by alloying with Antimony. If you can source used linotype it's a very good alloy for our purposes. You need to have balls that are about 1/12 the inside diameter of your mill jar. You will need lots of balls to fill a mill jar correctly, these will then be heavy and likely stall the motor. Can you buy the BP?
311 Posted February 17 Author Posted February 17 10 hours ago, Arthur said: Lead for milling needs to be hardened by alloying with Antimony. If you can source used linotype it's a very good alloy for our purposes. You need to have balls that are about 1/12 the inside diameter of your mill jar. You will need lots of balls to fill a mill jar correctly, these will then be heavy and likely stall the motor. Can you buy the BP? I already have all the chems to make bp, so i'd much rather just buy the milling media then.
Arthur Posted February 17 Posted February 17 Here's hoping that your mill is capable of turning a fully loaded mill jar, usually a rock tumbler designed for two jars will only turn one full jar, or of course you could have a large well powered mill!
All10Fingers Posted February 19 Posted February 19 I use fishing weights the big 6,8 and 10oz cannonballs. Theres only about 12 or so but they do the job. When they tumble they rock the whole unitwhich keeps the mill jar centers. I do see the lead media getting kinda smaller. But buy now these have had 100+ hours going round and round and my BP hasn't suffered
Arthur Posted February 19 Posted February 19 I've always had a preference for ceramic media with a diameter that fits 15 ish balls across the diameter of the mill jar. Ceramic media is very wear resistant (much more resistant than even hard lead) Also the first sign of DIY BP is a small proportion of lead in the mix, Try milling just nitrate with lead balls and see the lead making grey nitrate.
All10Fingers Posted February 19 Posted February 19 I've seen the grey, but my BP is still excellent... I think. It burns instantly with an audible thump, can be easily ignited with a laser pointer, and won't hesitate to take your eyebrows if you let your guard down. I mill for minimum 8 hours, so there's plenty of opportunity for less contamination to occur. That said, I think I would rather use ceramic, if I had it. But why is ceramic good but glass marbles arent? The two materials seen very alike
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