Bullet casting

[fatcpa]

Couple of questions for you bullet casters out there. There isn't much of a supply of wheel weights around here nowdays. I get lead scrap from the local scrap metal dealer when they have it. It usually melts down to fairly pure lead with a brinell hardness of around 5-6. If I add enough tin and antimony to get it up to 15-16, it starts to get pricey. I mostly shoot 44 spl and 45 colt single action revolvers at velocities quite a ways below 1000 fps. Question to you guys, how soft do you cast your bullets? I know a lot of commercial casters sell 12 brinell cowboy action bullets. Do any of you cast softer than that? Second question deals with Lee moulds. I have Lyman moulds for all the calibers that I shoot, but decided to try a Lee mould to see if the Lyman moulds were worth 3 1/2 times the cost (more if you include the handle for the Lyman). I bought a Lee 44 mag 2 cavity mould (gas checked) to mess with. I can get some decent bullets out of it for a while, then it heats up and things go south. I've tried adjusting the melting pot temperature without much luck. It takes a while for the mould to cool down when it gets hot. How do you guys with the aluminum Lee moulds handle the excess heat?

 

[Fyrtwuck]

With lead getting more scarce, the prices involved in casting are almost equal to buying bullets that are already cast or plated.

I have a friend who owns a tire shop who gives me lead weights that are unusable. I spoke with him yesterday and he said lead prices are going up and now more and more cars are coming in with weights that are not lead.

 

[fatcpa]

That's what I am finding. I usually buy lead bullets from Mitch at J&K. Before that it was Missouri Bullet Co. For what I've spent on casting equipment, I could probably have bought enough of his bullets to satisfy my shooting needs for the rest of my life. The main reason I started casting was that it seems like a natural progression of the hobby, especially when most of what I shoot is single action revolvers. My old eyes and beat-up body make it hard to do anything other than shooting paper, so I started reloading, and now casting, to mix things up. It isn't cost effective, but it keeps me out of trouble.

 

[Blitzfike]

I have tried many different styles of molds over the years, I still have Lyman, Saeco, RCBS and some custom steel molds, but for the most part, I use the Lee 6 cavity molds. The trick to keeping your molds casting well is to alternate molds to keep the temperature down. I usually have at least two molds working at a time, dropping the cast bullets into a bucket of water. Doesn't matter whether I'm using steel or aluminum, they will get too hot if run continuously. Adjusting the temp of the lead pot is a must, but alternating molds is the answer for me. I buy scrap lead whenever I can find it at a reasonable price. I currently have about 400 pounds cast in small ingots already alloyed for bullets. I also have a couple of hundred pounds of pure lead. You would think that was a lifetime supply, but its not. I share casting duties with a shooting buddy who lives on the street behind me. Works well for us, we usually try to do about 6 months worth of casting at one time. We cast everything from 22 to 58 caliber in rifle, and 32 acp to 45 colt in handgun. Be careful when melting wheel weights, the new ones are zinc and if you use a large BTU rated burner as I do for the smelting, it will melt the zinc as well as the lead/tin combination. Zinc contaminates your mold and makes it very hard to fill out the sharp edges of the bullet. If you end up contaminating a steel mold, you can etch away the zinc with some good old muriatic acid concrete etch. Careful not to use it on the aluminum molds, they go away pretty fast if you do.. Blitzfike

 

[Calamity Jake]

First thing, read this, http://www.lasc.us/Fryxell_Book_Contents.htm, then some of this, it's about lee molds,
http://castboolits.gunloads.com/sho...-Lee-Menting-Technique-(Aimoo-Post-Revisited)

As far as hardness goes I use BHN 9-11 for all hand gun cast bullets, I get this by mixing WW and pure lead in a 50/50
mix with no more than 2% tin added, sence you can't get WW try mining the burm where you shoot(with permission)
or buy some hard alloy from http://www.rotometals.com/Bullet-Casting-Alloys-s/5.htm,
it's a bit pricey but you will mix it 50/50 with your lead therefor cutting the cost.

Controling mold temp is easy as Blitzfike has stated or if you can't use two molds at a time then use a wet towel to set the mold on
to cool it.

Now someone is going to jump on me because of the water around hot lead thing. Understand this, as long as the water DOES NOT get under
the hot lead all is well, you can pour water onto the top of hot lead and it will just boil off, BUT if you happen to drop a wet ingot of lead
into the pot then you will get a steam explosion spraying hot lead everywhere so make sure your lead is dry, I like to preheat
my ingots by putting them on the pot rim to drive off any moisture. If your starting with a cold pot then it won't make any difference
cause as the pot heats up it dries the lead.

You can also buy good lead from here http://castboolits.gunloads.com/forumdisplay.php?18-Swappin-amp-Sellin
but you will have to join and be a member for 30 days in good standing before you can post in the
swap and sell section.

Anymore ?'s feel free to ask!!

 

[rebelracer79]

Sorry to high jack, but didn't think we needed more than one bullet casting thread.

I've been reloading for a few years now, and just started loading .45 acp. So I've been pondering getting some casting equipment, what would the start up price be?

Also I have a lot of lead headed screws(steel threads and drilling tip with lead molded on the head) could these be melted and used(just the lead part of course)?

This thread is full of mixed opinions on whether you can save money casting or not, so is it worth it?

 

[technetium-99m]

The Lee 6 cavity molds are great for production. I ran one of them and sort of power cooled the sprue plate on a damp towel before I opened it. This helped keep the mold from getting too hot. I cast and shot over 20,000 40 cal bullets before I got out of the hobby. I might have stayed in if I dropped the coin on a Star lubrisizer.

If you can keep a supply of good metal its a fun hobby that lets you shoot a bunch.

 

[fatcpa]

rebelracer,

My casting experience is very limited, but it's easy to see that the cost of casting depends on your ability to find a cheap supply of lead. You can spend a relatively small amount of money for equipment and produce very serviceable bullets or you can go first class and spend a lot. You'll wind up with a similar product with a little less time and effort. My experience is that if you shoot popular caliber guns and you're looking at cost only, you're probably better off buying your lead bullets. Like I said in my original post, it's all part of the hobby to me. There is a lot of satisfaction in being able to do it yourself. As far as adding another thread about casting, it's a heck of a lot more interesting than what ammo Walmart has in stock. Hope we get more hands-on topic posts.

 

[Pulp]

I like to cast .44-40 bullets and .45-70 bullets at the same time. When one mold starts producing frosted bullets, I'll go to the other one for awhile. Same with pure lead bullets and round balls. I'll cast .454 and alternate with .375 as the molds get too hot.

 

[dlbleak]

sort of related.does anyone know of an economical thermometer for use while smelting? i use a turkey fryer base and a cast iron skillet. i could raise and lower the heigth if i had an accurate temp. i've tried infrared guns with not much success.mainly want to catch the occasional zinc weight that gets by every now and then.

rebelracer,most of the satisfaction of casting come from knowing that ammo or component shortage will not affect you as much.most commercial casters can sell bullets for a price that makes it seem like its not worth it,but if you factor shipping or gas, the price goes up