I appreciate how you "dumbed" it down for people like me that have never cast before and are interested in doing so.

Thanks

Rob

I'm looking at casting boolits myself. Yesterday I bought 2 boxes of 50 9mm cartridges for $40 per box. I'm afraid reasonable ammo is a thing of the past. The days of plinking at the range are limited too.

I haven't shot anything but cast wheel weights in my 357 since the early 80's. (yes I have some still "hoarded" away). Shoot fine. Have killed two deer with two shots.

I have salvaged lead from old car batteries and used it for fishing sinkers but the hazards are not worth the lead. Half of what is in one is zinc.

I never saw a need for gas checks in my pistol. I guess the velocity is not great enough. Shot some in my son in laws 357 henry rifle and they worked good also. At least on paper.

I have never bothered to make ingots. I just melt the wheel weights, skim off the steel and crud and start making bullets. Never saw where fluxing with wax made any difference. The stuff you skim off looks like carbon from burnt wax to me. Once they are melted and nice and hot I just stir it a little. Then skim it off.

I have some soft plumbers lead I use for black powder stuff. I let a guy use a couple of my molds and the trade was a bunch of soft lead. I thought I was loo tent ant from dances with wolves.

Cheap lead gets harder to find every day. Used to be able to get a 50 pound roll of lead flashing at any lumber yard. Cheap. That stuff was soft plumbers lead but those days are gone. Everybody had their own recipe for making it hard. Most involved zinc and tin.

If you get a chance to get your hands on some linotype, or xray shielding, or a bucket of wheel weights at a farm auction, even if you don't want to cast anything, its a real good trading commodity.

I bought a 69 caliber ball mold and a slug barrel for my mossberg 500. Made those balls from wheel weights also. I would be afraid to shoot them out of anything with a choke (need plumbers lead, pure and soft, for that). Out of that slug barrel they are pretty cool. At 50 yards I can hit a pie pan.

I enjoyed your video. Thx for posting.

45 colt. Lyman 452423 mold.

P.S. It pays to weigh them. Occasionally one will look fine but have an air bubble in it. Those bullets tend to create "flyers". I never had a problem with the fact that there will be a 3-4 grain spread with cast bullets. Any more than that though they need to go back in the lead pot

That's interesting about the mossy barrel.
I will pay attention to that.

Scrap lead dropped a little here locally, odd.

Old scrap guy told me lead paid well until the overhead power lines (with lead sheath) were phased out.
That flooded the market.
Now with that mostly gone and the ammo hoarders it's going back up.

Wonder how much a large flat rate box would weigh.

Wright Brothers , or anybody else reading this, doing what I did is dangerous and I recommend you don't try it.

The roundballs weighed 484 grains, plus or minus 2 grains with the wheel weight lead I used. 1 1/8 ounce is about 492 grains.

I used 21 1/2 weighed grains of Unique. Federal 2 3/4 inch hulls with CCI Magnum 209 primers. Bought the wads online from ballistic products. I put the ball in, and crimped them pushing the crimp down inside the hull. Then put the shell back under the station used to put the wad in. I used that station to push the crimp down even more. Everything snugged up real nice. I left the petals on the wads for that reason.







Remember I shot these out of a smooth bore, unrifled, slug barrel. If I was going to use a barrel with a choke or rifling I would want to use soft plumbers lead. I would not use a full choke at all.

Wolfie, before I forget, I liked your video too. Sorry for dragging your post off topic.

Did some 54 caliber last weekend, I'd like to get a mold for my 41 mag.

Us? Off topic??
LOL
Thanks Danny and WD.

Lol no it's fine seemed pretty in topic to me lol