I went through all of those games of alloyment, blending and manipulating the crystalline structure of the alloys, and hated every minute of it - minutes I would rather be shooting. Better things to do with my life than spend that much time making bullets. I have always favored the Swift A-Frame to hardcast bullets, and now that we have so many great copper solids on the market, life is even easier. Then I found myself crimping on gas checks to help hardcast act more like copper, and I just couldn’t wrap my head around what I was doing with my life...

I think a lot of guys feel like they HAVE to start casting if they shoot certain cartridges. I wasted thousands of dollars on molds and hundreds of hours making bullets... after 20yrs of it, I decided enough was enough and I kicked it all out of the door. A lot of guys do enjoy casting and I know a few guys who really only shoot just to get their brass back to enjoy reloading. When I was competing in cowboy action shooting, there were guys who would talk the entire match about the time they spent working with this mold and that mold and blending this lube or trying this sizer or asking how to set ups their PID controller on their pot... It always struck me odd, since only one or two guys out of a fleet of a hundred would spend time talking about technique on the stages we were shooting, or practice methods to actually improve on the firing line - but those guys spent as much time worrying about and working over their loads as most benchrest guys I used to shoot with, when all of our targets were HUGE and CLOSE. For hunting, i only buy a couple hundred bullets each year, so the value of my time is much greater than the small extra cost I spent on those bullets over casting my own. I’ll happily give my money to hardcast manufacturers these days, and NOT pour my own.