WOW!!... This takes me back to Xmas weekend of 1973. I was given a T/C Hawken .50 percussion rifle complete with the accessory kit (mould blocks and handles, ball starter, nipple wrench, powder measure, jag, etc.) as my premier gift that year but I had one big problem...no powder and no lead! Back then, no stores near me had pre-cast balls and even though black powder was readily available where my parents bought the gun, I had nothing to shoot out of it! Well, as soon as the dealer that they bought the gun from re-opened, my Dad bought me a pound of FFg and a tin of #11 caps and then I started begging soft lead from anyone that had it to spare. I cast my first hundred or so round balls by heating my old sinkers and chunks of soft plumbing lead in the dipper (that I bought with some Xmas money) with a propane torch and making round balls so I could start shootin'!!! Shortly thereafter, an Ol' timer that my dad worked with gave me a cast iron lead pot and I melted lead with that on a Coleman stove for a long while thereafter. I now have an RCBS Pro-Melt that makes life SO MUCH easier, but I will never forget my first lead balls dropped out of that mould when I did it for the first time as a 15 yr. old kid!!!...BPS