mauser06

i can cast lead....but it was sinkers and we were using scrap lead....nothing special....but is there a special process to cast conicals and roundballs?? does it save some money over the years? i think it would be neat to kill a deer with a bullet you made....and also be something to do when im bored and cant hunt.....and possibly save money....but anything i need diffrent for casting bullets?? thanx

Underclocked

You need a decent mould and certainly for starters the Lee molds will do the job and some do the job quite well. You need the purest lead you can locate, something to flux it to an even purer state, and a means to drop the bullets from the mould without injuring them.

If you can cast sinkers, you should have everything needed except the mould and possibly better lead.

cayugad

As underclocked said, Lee molds do a fine job. The conicals I make from them I would rate as very good. I buy pure lead from Midsouth shooters supply. You might want to get a could molds, a dipper, some rapine mold prep, a little beeswax does not hurt to flux the lead if it is real dirty, I bought a cheap turkey cooker and use the gas burner as my smelter. A lead pot is nice to have too.. that way you keep it all in one place. Also some gloves because that stuff gets hot. But casting is a lot of fun and will save you a ton of money in the long run. I shoot all my practice rounds into a sand trap and then recollect the lead down the road.....

mauser06

thanx guys.....will old wheel weights work for bullets?? i know they will need scrubbed and steel clip removed then id have to clean the lead.....but after that is that good lead? or do i need better lead? my shop teacher should beable to point me into the right direction of bullet lead.....or i could buy 25lbs of shot for shotshells and melt it down if worse comes to worse...id pay more though...i think i might start casting my own.....75 bucks or so and im set....and my dads going to get into muzzleloading so he can use my bullets if he wants too....though he wont fish with my flys i tie....it would be neat to kill a deer and say hey......i made that bullet!

cayugad

Wheel weights I personally avoid. The problem is you do not know the amount of pure lead in the weight. One must consider the BHN (Brinell Hardness Numbers) of the lead when they take into consideration casting. Some people do use wheel weights but they they add a lot of pure lead to the mix. I want a soft lead conical for my target and hunting loads.

I bought 30 pounds of pure lead from MidWay USA. This is a real nice lead to work with. I also air cool all my casted conicals because if you water cool them it increases the BHN. I have posted a couple of links that explain all of this much better then I can.

As for the satisfaction of casting your own bullets, your right. It is a kick. Just today I was out in the back yard shooting off 380 grain LEE concials that I made. They shot fantastic out of my T/C .54 caliber Renegade and 70 grains of Pyrodex RS and wonderwad. We were shooting eggs at 30 yards off shooting sticks I made. I really enjoyed myself, and the trap behind my target catches all my lead which I will later recover and re-cast into more conicals.

Hope these sites help answer your questions....


http://www.sixguns.com/crew/castbullet.htm
http://www.sixgunner.com/backissues/taylor/hardness.htm

mauser06

thanx alot cayugad..thats alot of help....ill talk to m shop teacher and see if he knows where i can get pure lead....or order it from midway.....i always air cool my lead...seems it dont turn out as good if it is dropped in water...i had them crack and stuff like that when i did sinkers with my friend...i think we used about 10lbs of bullet lead....his dad or grandfather left it in the garage so we melted it in a coffee pot because the lead melter was gone...we found molds for sinkers in a barn on his property...i think we found bullet molds once but we were young and i dont know where they went...and what they were for....thanx alot.....i plan on shooting my flinter alot so im sure ill save a few bucks in the long run and have fun casting my bullets....my friends will die when i tell them the deer i just shot died from a bullet i made!!!

Big Guy01

Lead wheel weights are too hard for casting ML. projectiles, ditto for lead shot. It works great for casting bullets to be loaded in modern rifles , there you want it to be as hard as possible. With a Ml projectile you want it as soft as possible. The harder it is the harder it is to load. You should be able to buy pure lead at a plumbing supply company.

762mm

Yeah, that's where I get my pure lead for molding roundballs and conicals, at a plumbing supply company. I guess they keep it on hand for plumbers still joining together old cast iron pipes. I believe it's called pig lead, and sold in 5lb ingot blocks paired together. The stuff is dead soft and must be about 99.9% pure.