BB Gun bb's for "70 Raleigh Sports headset?
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No. Too soft, they are not hardened steel, the copper plating will come off right away, they are not percussion polished and they will almost certainly not be the proper size to fit the cup and cone angle of the headset. Doing something like this is a good way to have binding or loose steering and cause the head tube to become ovalized. Measure your existing balls with a digital calipers. You can get a decent one for $15 - 20 at a hardware store or online. You will use it all the time if you tinker with bicycles. Once you have the bearing size you can go to the bike shop or online to order. You might also find the size given for that bike with a web search and save buying calipers? An all new headset that would fit a Raleigh head tube would be the best option. It would probably have caged bearings.
Bearing sizes would vary depending on what they're for, manufacturer, etc.. Hardware stores sometimes have an assortment of bearings, or at least the smaller ones near me that aren't the blue or orange box do. You could take an old one with you and find its match.
Take your balls into a bike shop and they can measure them for you.
I've used one of those magnets that looks like a telescoping pen. I just ran it across the floor and under things was able to pick up everything.
If you don't have a 'real' bikeshop in the area...go to a decent auto parts store (like NAPA) and they will have calipers and can probably order you ball bearings as well.
edit - go to the oldest counter person, because all the young ones will be stumped when you can't tell them what year-make-model of car its for...the older guys should know how to open a book.
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Get package of 5/32 and another 3/16 balls and compare them to what you have. These are the most common sizes. I hate working on old Raleigh bicycles as nothing is the same as other bikes. There are other sizes but these 2 packages of bearings should not cost a lot and you might get lucky. The headset replacement idea won't work if it has an older Raleigh fork as they had a different thread pattern than other bikes and new headset threaded parts won't fit. You can force on the new headset with a pipe wrench, but you will need a lot of top bearing races as they become stripped as you force them on and need another and another until it gets adjusted correctly. The fork also very likely will just get stripped and ruined so this is a last resort. You can't get this forced arrangement apart without a pipe wrench. I have a lot of junk and in the past I just threw away the Raleigh fork, gooseneck and bars and replaced them with standard stuff that you can get anywhere. It usually doesn't work as well as the original though. Older, Schwinn, French, Italian and Eastern Soviet era bicycle also had a lot of non standard parts.
quote/chuckle of the day: "Take your balls into a bike shop and they can measure them for you."
