New to reloading and Casting would like some help.

[Blakemuz]

Hi my name is Blake and i am new to reloading in general and Boolit casting also. I decided to get into reloading because well i love to shoot and need another hobby and .45 acp goes for $350 per thousand. and using local lead supplies i can reload for $67 per thousand so my poor student *** can still shoot 1k a month. i have an Hk USP .45 and I am anything but new shooting I have been shooting all my life and have a few other guns. Today i bought a Lee Anniversary kit along with everything i need to cast from the electric furnace to the 6 cavity mold with a sizer and lube. i chose the (Lee 6-Cavity Bullet Mold 452-228-1R 45 ACP, 45 Auto Rim, 45 Colt (Long Colt) (452 Diameter) 228 Grain 1 Ogive Radius ) because a .452 sizer was only $19 and i did not have to deal with tumble lubing. I have yet to Slug my USP But it shoots great with standard FMJ which i know are .451. Will i need to slug my barrel if i get leading or should i focus on powder and alloy type? I will be using fishing weights which i have read is around 10-13 BHN correct me if i am wrong. i have heard bullseye is great with lead. any tips would be appreciated, i am also not new to casting i have cast with copper aluminum and other metals.
please excuse my terrible grammar and sentence structure its overrated i am an engineering student not a liberal arts major. :D

[williamwaco]

Blake,

Go for it.

Your plan is good and should work fine.

I have never seen a .45ACP that wouldn't shoot .452 cast bullets.
Straight wheel weights make excellent bullets.


PS.

We don't care about your "terrible grammar and sentence structure" here - but if you turn in lab reports that look like that you will never get your sheepskin and if you, do and get a job, emails and reports like that will relegate you to menial tasks for your entire career.

[hithard]

Don't worry about leading until you have some to worry about. When you do, make a post and you will be rewarded with many different possible fixes.

[dromia]

Welcome to Cast Boolits Blake! :cbpour::D

[GP100man]

WELCOME to :cbpour:

I don`t mind the structure or the spelun ,just put a space so those long sentences are easier on an ole fellers eyes:coffee: sometimes it makes my eyes go :veryconfu

Just remember casting is a 24/7 hobby , if ya not scroungin ,your casting.

& don`t pull wheel weights off cars in the wal-mart parkin lot , people don`t like that for some reason :confused:

[cajun shooter]

The best thing that you may do at this point is go to our sticky section of information.
Download onto your hard drive or the better option is to print out the 178 pages of the book, From Ingot To Target.
The book is free and it will supply you with the many thousands of answers you will have, just as we all did upon starting.
It will be the best thing you will ever find for free in your lifetime.
I started casting in 1970 and I find new and interesting information every time I open it up.
Get yourself a large three ring binder and a office type of hole punch and get to work.
The two men who co authored this are very well known in the cast bullet world. Just remember that casting is it's own hobby and not something you have to do so you may shoot.
I have just as good a time at my casting bench as I do on the range.
Welcome and good luck, David

[Moonie]

Let us know where you are, I'm sure someone on the forum in your area would be happy to give you a hand if needed.

[wv109323]

Blake welcome aboard. You may want to make your questions as easy as possible to read and understand. You will get more responses. That said I am not a good speller myself. In matter of fact I think only a narrow-minded person can think of just one way to spell a word.
It seems you have a good jump on casting and loading. I am not familiar with fishing weights but if they are truly that hard you should be O.K. If not you will need to add some tin.
The diameter of .452 should be alright for the .45 ACP. Try it.
One thing you did not mention is the lube that you will be using. Make sure you got a lube that does not require a heater for you lubri-sizer.
Good powders for the .45 ACP are Bullseye , WW231, Clays or Unique. You will need to be around 750 FPS to 825 FPS to function your pistol. 825 FPS is standard Military Ball ammo for the .45 ACP round. There are several web sights that have loading data.
The 230 Round nose is the easiest to get to feed in a .45 acp. A good test is to load two rounds in a magazine. Load and fire the first round. Then eject the second round and look for deformation on the nose of the second round. This is a good test to see if your bullets are hard enough. Also observe if the bullet was shoved into the case by the feeding of the round or recoil. If so you must deal with bullet set-back as excessive High pressures can result.
Another test is to take an "as-cast" bullet and try to scratch the sharp corner on the base of the bullet with your thumb nail. You should be able to just barely "shine"the edge with your thumb nail. Little to no penetration with the thumb nail.
The .45acp is one of the easiest rounds to load for.
I will mention another common error in loading the .45 ACP. You need to bell the cases but you also need to remove all of the bell when crimping the bullet. This can be observed by standing two loaded and crimped rounds along side each other. The sides of the two cases should be in contact with each other the entire length of the case EXCEPT at the case mouth. There the crimp should turn inward.
Good luck and keep those grades up. It is better to be an engineer in this economy rather than a liberal arts major regardless of urine spellun. and Inglish.

[Cherokee]

Welcome to the world of reloading and casting. I'll add that fishing weights would not be my choice because they could be anything, but give them a try while you look for wheel weights.

[Ramslammer]

G'Day Blake
You've now entering a wonderful world of casting. Cajun Shooter has put you on the right path with the free book From Ingot to Target. Get it, read it and then keep it close ( mine lives under the coffee table). Casting is the creative side of shooting we take something scrap and make little works of art.
Enjoy the ride it's a wonderful hobby.
Juddy

[DrCaveman]

Howdy Blake, welcome and good luck with the engineering studies. An engineering sort of mind is very harmonious with the experience of casting & reloading. There will be lots of written instructions, general mathematics, problem solving, and application of theory to actual reality.

Being strict, but flexible, is key I think. As you begin, you should probably follow recipes and published instructions to a T. As you learn how things work, you can begin to ask questions about more involved aspects of the crafts. Soon enough you can safely develop the particular loads which your gun will like best, while staying within the most important guidelines of loading.

If you haven't already done so, you might want to purchase some commercial bullets (jacketed, plated, and cast lead) for some initial reloading use. I found pretty quickly after begining casting that my boolits, powders, lubes, brass, and primers rarely matched exactly what manufacturers approved recipes called for. Since I had already experienced this problem when I started loading jax bullets, I felt fine extrapolating data for my particular home cast (boolit hardness, weight and diameter affect things), but until you are comfortable, take it slow and easy.

Don't rule out tumble lubing as a 'hassle'. Since it sounds like you bought the Lee 452 sizer, it will come with Lee Liquid Alox, and this can be modified (or better yet at your start, use according to bottle instructions) to an awesome lube named 'recluse' or 45/45/10. If you don't tumble, then you will have to dip or pan lube, which I still find to be more of a 'hassle' than tumbling and usually unnecessary for 45 auto.

Don't worry about the grammar, it will be forced into you within most engineering programs, via the liberal arts/humanities portion. Just realize that your discoveries and guidance of other people can be more effective with clear communication. Spelling is overrated but dang my computer sure seems to think it is important! Vocabulary and technical accuracy are at the core of engineering writing, in my opinion.

Last, there are thousands of people on here with waaaay more experience than I, all of whom will be glad to help get you started and continue on to mastery.

Enjoy!

[Blakemuz]

thanks for all the replies guys. I recently went looking at powders at my local sporting store . ichecked powder prices and looked in the Lyman casting reloading book for a lee 230 gainer flat point(closest they had to mine), and I noticed that tight group uses the least powder. all three of the powders i looked at; Unique, Bulls-eye and tight group are all the same price, which powder should i base my load off?

[Down South]

& don`t pull wheel weights off cars in the wal-mart parkin lot , people don`t like that for some reason :confused:

From my only experience of getting my tires rotated and balanced at Wally World, all you need to do is walk the shoulder of the road leaving the store and you should be able to find lots of wheel weights. When I left the store, I could hear the WW's slinging off and hitting my fender wells. I had to go to a real tire shop and have my tires rebalanced.

[DrCaveman]

I've used Unique, a little bit, with pretty good success. This was for higher power loads, a little beyond those published in manuals. Since I didn't find the accuracy to be noticeably better than my standard ramshot competition loads, I switched back.

Many will proclaim Bullseye as the primo 45 acp powder. I haven't tried so can't say, but about 10 decades and prob 4 generations of 45 shooters have been using it. Plus, it's in pretty much every manual.

A friend of mine who loads for sheriffs and policemen competing swears by Titegroup. I also haven't tried that in 45 (just 38/357) so can't really comment.

You should get a huge variety in responses to that question. Bet you won't go wrong with any of those powders, and also bet you'll have a pound of each within the year ;)

Careful with your charge drops using BE and TG. Weigh each charge for your first session (or three) of loading, and after that ALWAYS do a visual check to make VERY sure you haven't double charged. They are fast, dense powders that can sneak up on you.

Be safe!

[HiVelocity]

Unique, Bulls-eye and tight group are all the same price, which powder should i base my load off?


Hey guys, can we send Blake to visit Swede at NOE for awhile? He may fit in real well and finish up all our GB's! Lol!

Seriously Blake, welcome to the forum. Before you buy anything, spend time on this forum and read, take notes, ask questions. I'm on 3-4 hours daily and the wealth of knowledge is voluminous. You'll see.

Now, personally, on your powder thoughts, I favor Titegroup. I use it in almost everything. 9mm all the way to 45 Colt. That being said, Unique is pretty versatile in many cartridges. I load 30-06 with Unique.

Have fun, enjoy!

HiVelocity in SC

[Echo]

Tumble loobing is a piece of cake. I found out the hard way. I cast up some light little 38 boolits (93 gr RN) and they were a pain to try to feed through my Star with my sausage-sized fingers. Tried the Lachmiller, same same. Decided I would try the TL routine. I have a large salad bowl that I could use. Long story short, it worked fine! Five minutes and I had a couple hundred boolit loobed. Dumped them out on waxed paper, next day loaded them, and they shot nicely and didn't lead! I'm a believer, and I use 45/45/10.