making bullets
 

i got my first deer with my hawken this year, 113 yards . am going to spend some time now with the how to be better.. partly because of the cost of maxi balls,, i was wonder if anyone makes their own buletts and where would i find the supplies? thanks

RE: making bullets
 

Well I make for the .50 caliber; .490 round ball, 320 grain LEE R.E.A.L. conicals, and 360 grain Hunting Minnie Balls. I cast all my bullets with pure lead and air cool them to get low BHN.

In the 54 caliber; .530 round ball, .535 round ball, 300 & 380 grain LEE R.E.A.L. conicals, and 415 grain hunting minnie balls.

I was given a big lead pipe but it was so contaminated I decided to buy some pure lead instead. I buy my molds from Track of the Wolf and my lead from MidSouth Shooters Supply I believe it is...

RE: making bullets
 

what do you think of ther.e.a.l. bullets for shooting and what powder, grain laod are you using with them?

RE: making bullets
 

Examples of what can be done at home.

Mark from Minnesota - haven't shot these yet.


Mose from Georgia - I got a .5" group from the first three of these.


Bob from Virginia - I fired a 220 yard group that measured 1 11/16" with these.


Mine pale by comparison, but I've done 5/8" at 100 yards with these.

RE: making bullets
 

underclocked, those are works of art. I wonder where he got the molds for those? I think a nice .451 diameter 45 caliber around the 300 grain range would sure be nice in a keith nose type bullet. I have some I am going to try out once it gets warmer, and if they work I will look for that mold next....

RE: making bullets
 

Underclocked very nice workmanship, I'd be interested on the knowledge of how you put that copper base on your bullets. And how do the load in your rifle hard or just as easy?

I make my own .54 tc maxiballs and I use 1 part wheel weight to 10 parts soft lead. I have gotten superior penetration. But I mainly hunt bear and elk with my muzzleloader.

RE: making bullets
 

Afraid those are made by Mark Lynch in Michigan - the scraper base - and the copper gas checked boolets are made by John Moseley in Georgia. The gas checks are applied with a Lyman lubrisizer.

John Moseley gets his moulds from MountainMolds and I believe Mark has gone primarily to swaging equipment from the Corbins. Bob Bowers has gone to a Master Caster machine that cranks them out. The three of them may combine to form a little venture selling their bullets online.

My casting talents are pretty limited as is my equipment. But the bullets work very well. I may have influenced a couple of those other fellows to get started at the hobby but they have all gone WAAAY past my abilities in short order. Neat thing is they all have sent me bullets to test. :)

Oops, forgot to answer - these bullets load very easily as they are intended to be used as slip-fit conicals (except the knurled bullets which require a little finger pressure to get started). No short starter is required for any of them.

RE: making bullets
 

I personally like the LEE R.E.A.L. conicals. My .54 caliber Renegade which shot this group off shooting sticks at 30 yard with 80 grains of powder has done much better off the bench rest. In fact the one time shooting, I thought I missed the whole target with the second shot until I really looked close and saw the ragged edge on the other side of the original shot.

I shoot the 300 & 380's out of the .54 caliber. 80 grains of powder seems to work real good. Actually one afternoon with friends, I was loading 70 grains and letting them shoot. Due to their size I did not want any of them hurt by recoil. We were shooting eggs off the top of a soda pop can at 30 yards from the sticks. The conicals will hold in there even up to 90 grains, but anything over 100 grains and you start to spread the group out a little. I was shooting some 320 REAL's out of my in-lines and they shot a ragged hole at 50 yards. That was with a scoped T/C Black Diamond XR with I think it was 100 grains of Pyrodex RS off the sticks.

Friends and I have been hunting for years with the 300 grain REAL's because we wanted more range and a little more weight then the 230 grain .54 caliber round balls. They stop a deer in their tracks, and because of the low BHN I get good expansion if I hit any bone at all.

I started molding the 380's just last year. I have not let my friends shoot any of my 380 grain REAL's because I really do not want to go into mass production to fill their hunting supplies, which is what would happen, while it is so cold here.:D Yet I am doomed to go out into the shop and make some more because I have shot my supply of them up. When the new molds get here, I will spend all day casting conicals and roundballs and make plenty for everyone.

RE: making bullets
 

I almost forgot, the nice thing about the REAL conicals I make is you can load them in a very fowled barrel with little effort. Your thumb 99% of the time will seat them in the muzzle, and then you can use the ramrod to seat them. I have been making my own bullet lube out of lard, parafin wax, murphy's oil soap, olive oil, and a little red food dye. So far I am pleased with the results of the lube. A lot cheaper then bore butter. I really need to get some candle wax dye if I contine this. The food color makes them pink. Actually looks like what you might find on a sidewalk Sunday morning outside a tavern. I add the dye because it is easier to see is all.

As you can see in the picture the first is the 380 grain, and second is the .530 round balls I had just made, and the third is an old 300 grain I had laying around the house to compare them too...

RE: making bullets
 

I have moulds for the REALs. A .45 in 250 grains and a .50 in 320 grains. In fact, that .50 mould is the only one I have for that caliber. Results with a given bullet are going to (or make that "can") vary widely from rifle to rifle. I think you might want to stretch your distances a little before taking a bigger leap. How they hold up out at 100 yards will really tell if they are stablizing properly and weathering the storm. :) Some rifles do very well with the REALs and I'm hoping my little G2 will like those 250 grainers. Very easy and inexpensive to make and a couple of hours will get you a season's worth of bullets.

RE: making bullets
 

So far I have had good luck with them all the way out to 75 yards. They seem to group real well still. I shoot open sights in the .54 caliber and off sticks, but the group was just over 3 inches in size which I did not feel was all that bad.

One deer I took three years ago at about 65 yards I shot with the 300 grain REAL and took him behind the front shoulder, actually what I thought was kind of high, and it still knocked him off his feet and he never got back up.

We still have a lot of playing to do with the loads. I would like to get into bullets that are suited to the in lines. That's why the ones you made interested me so much...

RE: making bullets
 

thanks for the pic's and input, i am going to start looking for place to buy moulds, any internet links you guys have would also be helpful thanks

RE: making bullets
 

Track of the Wolf is the cheapest place I have found to get LEE R.E.A.L. molds and the hunting minnie molds. A real nice place to do business with. I ordered three more last week and two days later the UPS man was at the door....:D

Lead I purchase pure from MidSouth Shooters Supply. And I get the rapine mold lube there too...

RE: making bullets
 

I molded the R.E.A.L bullets when I first got my KNIGHT shot very good I think they were 250 gr? 50 cal. killed 2 deer with them. Then I tried other brands found the Remington 303gr.to be be good also and used them till this year.Remington has stopped making them and I can't find any around,so this year I went back to the basic bullet and used the REAL again didnt get a shot this year but they still still group good. The heck with the expensive sabot bullets.

RE: making bullets
 

Very Impressive Guys.

I've really wanted to start moulding my own for years. Just never found all the materials and info to get me fired up and started. I still shoot conicals out of my T/C .50 in Line and CVA side lock. I've been tempted to try a conical and Black Powder in my Knight .45 just to see what it would do at 100-150 + yrds ???