new reloader - cheapest price for bullets?

[kellyj00]

I'm new to reloading, and I've discovered that buying lead projectiles is the most expensive part of my ammo. I load 9mm and 45acp only right now, and my bullets cost about $25 per box of 500. that's 5cents each round.

I understand how this could look like bad form to make this my first post, but I'm having trouble understanding how someone with one of these fancy machines could charge $25 for essentially a few pounds of lead that they've reformed through their fancy machine.

I would love to get into casting my own, but I have no supply of cheap lead. The best I can find readily available is Midway USA for about 50 cents per pound. with 7000 grains per pound, we're looking at making around 30 230 grain 45acp bullets. So, if everything works out well I'll need 17 lbs of lead for about $9 or so plus shipping, and lube and sizing equipment.... so, what it boils down to is simple, is there anyone cheaper than $25 for plinking lead for my 45? If not, I guess I'll have to just 'bite the bullet' and start casting too....which means I'll spend around 1 hour of work for 1 minutes worth of shooting, and that takes all the fun out of the sport for me, just like the costs.

[45nut]

Welcome to :cbpour: ...and the real world. Shootin' is just not gonna be getting any cheaper in the future for us civilians. I would scope out the box of those bulk cast and try to contact him for a direct buy in bulk and cut out the middleman and his profit. Needless to say, we are all in the same boat or worse the way the future is looking.
As an aside, plinking boolits are not where the biggest savings are for the caster, its a vast savings over XTP's and premiums however, and if you cast for 416's or the like the savings is huge over say,,Barnes or Woodleighs.
The "one hour of work for one minute's shooting" sounds like you might want to consider something like a Hi wall or a shiloh sharps or even a TC so you can savor the recoil and perfect shot placement a bit more.

[OeldeWolf]

Kellyj00:

I first started shooting handguns when I was in hte middle of child-support-hell. I got a binus where I worked, and bought 3 cap and ball revolvers from a friend. Becausae I was money-challenged, I also bought a lee 10# production pot and a mould for them. It is not that sloow to cast bullets or round ball. But it sure drives the costs down. Buying only pyrodex, caps, and sometimes wads, I was able to spend 1 to 3 enjoyable weekends a month shooting. On a VERY limited budget.

Admittedly, revolvers (esp C&B) do not burn through your ammo as quickly. But still, I would spend a couple of hours casting a month, and always had plenty of ball fro basically free, as I salvaged lead. Wheel weight lead does not work as well in a revolver, but it does ok. So you can find lead to salvage if you look hard enough, and that rteally drives the prices down for you.

And besides, there is a cetrtain pride in casting and loading your own ammo. It is more uniquely yours, at that point.

OeldeWolf
who may yet get kicked out of the Republik of Kalifornia for owning too many firearms.

[buck1]

Welcome..
I dont think your going to beat that price by much.
But think about this,
For about $20. you can get a Lee tumble lube mold, Johnsons past wax for lube $3, a few bucks for a ladle , 2nd handcamp stove, and a old fle market cast iron pot. And you are making boolits. As good if not better than what your getting now.

Lead can be found once you look a bit. Tire shops have wheel wts, scrap yards have anything almost. Put the word out and you will be suprised how much you can get and for free no less.
Then your set for years and years. you can upgrade if you wish as you go.
If you gave most of us pre cast bullets , we would melt them down and make good ones. FWIW>>>>BUCK

[hunter64]

Welcome to the board. How most of us started was exactly where you are right now. Take some time and read the many posts on here, that will answer alot of questions. If you want to start out on the cheap here is what I did. I bought a tumble lube bullet mold from LEE and a sizing kit, I had a cast iron pot and a camp stove, a ladle and that was about it.

Bullet mold $25.00
Size kit $17.00
Ladle 5.00
Total $47.00

So for 47 bucks you can get into one caliber of bullet. As far as the lead goes for 9mm or 45 acp all you need is used Wheel Weights. You can find these at tire stores sometimes for free and sometimes you will have to pay for them. I guess you could even go to a re-cycler but they charge and arm and a leg. You need to melt them down and clean and flux the lead and pour it into a mold of some kind, muffin tin at the dollar store works good.

Now you could take a big steep up and get a bottom pour pot, something small to start off with like a Lee 10 lb one for 65.00 but that is up to you. So you can see that if you can find the lead cheap it doesn't take long before it pays for itself.

Do some reading on how to process used Wheel Weights and start there and once you have that down then get the other stuff and away ya go. Have fun and it is very addictive.

I have an old .455 Webley from WW1 that I love to shoot once in a while and I wouldn't think of buying store bought ammo for it 50 bucks for a box. I have a mold and make my own ammo and every time I am at the range I always get someone that wants to try it.

It won't be long before you get hooked and I shoot cast bullets in all my rifles and pistols, couldn't afford to shoot otherwise.

[45nut]

Bullet mold $25.00
Size kit $17.00
Ladle 5.00
Total $47.00

that $ will enable you to keep a gun,,a gun,, when others will be paperweights.

No bullets and you have a piece of steel that won't even cut a potato.

Home cast CB's = freedom. There might be a time coming when the cap'n balls are the last step between you and tyranny. They did the job before.........

[Goatlips]

If you gave most of us pre cast bullets , we would melt them down and make good ones. FWIW>>>>BUCK

Home cast CB's = freedom. There might be a time coming when the cap'n balls are the last step between you and tyranny. They did the job before.........45nut

......Reasons I love this place.......

kellyj00,
Look through some of the posts here and you'll find that there's lead around and you'll have tips on how to get it, start with telling everyone you need some (to make sinkers, if you have to).

Anyhow, have a look at my site (below) which might help to get you going. As said above, we all started from where you are. :Fire:

Goatlips

[45nut]

Mighty proud to have you aboard as well.

Honestly, forums such as this are the sole reason I do have any hope for the future.
If I was to judge our future by the actions of some factions of .gov, and the personnel I have had to deal with in the workers comp and medical professions I doubt I could find a difference between us and Hitler, Stalin, Mao, & Mengele and the rest of the Doctors in the Death Camps and Gulags that felt no shame in performing human experiments.

[trickyasafox]

if your looking to buy boolits,
http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item=290140889877&ih=019&category=31825&ssPageName=STORE:PROMOBOX:NEWLIST#LIST
there is a link for lead 9mm at 33 per k 9 dollars shipping. however, its only 5 additional dollars shipping per k you buy, so a big order might be worth while. i'd contact the seller and see if they'd cut you a bulk discount. Before i started casting, 5k was kinda the starting point to start jones'in for a deal.

they don't list any 45 cast, but they may have them too.

hope this helps!

[Leftoverdj]

I understand how this could look like bad form to make this my first post, but I'm having trouble understanding how someone with one of these fancy machines could charge $25 for essentially a few pounds of lead that they've reformed through their fancy machine.

Shipping.

The commercial caster has to pay freight to get his alloy. If he sells through a middleman, he pays shipping to his seller. When you buy bullets, you pay shipping unless you pick them up yourself. Shipping adds up to a lot more than the cost of lead and casting.

We scroungers don't pay shipping. We find our alloy locally, often from people who would rather give it away or sell for a nominal sum than deal with shipping or hauling.

As for the time factor, you're way off. I do my scrounging as a part of normal travel, and it might take up an hour a year. My cleanup and ingoting gets done while I am mowing the lawn on a couple of Saturdays a summer. When I was shooting PPC and using 5-10k WC a year, I could cast a year's supply in one rainy weekend using a Lee six cavity and two melting pots.

[Dragoon]

I cast bullets because I enjoy it. I don't know how the "fancy machines" work but I dang sure wouldn't cast and size five hundred bullets for $25 for somebody else.

[targetshootr]

Call Valiant Bullets in Alabam and see if they travel to a gunshow in your area. If so they can bring your bullets and charge about as much per thousand as you're paying for 500. Order enough to last till they come back.

[hydraulic]

Speaking of gun shows, there are always several guys selling cast bullets at the shows I go to. I cast my own, except for a few I rarely shoot, and I don't think I've ever paid much more than 10 bucks for a box full that will probably still be sitting around when I'm giving St. Peter instructions on how to run the place.

[Bret4207]

Welcome Kelly. As for the cost the commercial guy is charging, thats been covered a bit. Remember his machine probably cost $2000-50,000.00 depending on how big he is, he BUYS ALL his lead, he has insurance, a building, taxes, packaging, advertising, haz mat fees, etc,etc,etc. It's a business and he needs at least 40% to have a hope of profit, if not more. I've run 2 businesses into the ground trying to avoid that 40% rule. These days 50-60% would be more reasonable. Fact of life #1 is that the business will die without profit.

On to your issue. I don't know where you hail from, but now is the time to do as some of the other guys suggested. Start asking around for wheel weights, tin and lead. Mention it at work, at the grocery store, at church, at the tavern, your clubs, your local garages and junk yards, yard sales, feed stores, any where you stop by. The key to finding WW, the most available and useful alloy, is to get to some garages and grease the skids with good donuts, cookies, muffins, beer- whatever it takes. You may even consider PAYING for them!!!!!!! I haven't had to go that far yet and hope I never do. Some things just ain't right. Get some 5 gallon buckets and store as many WW as you can get till you smelt them.

(Point of order! Rendering is how you get lard. Smelting is how you get ingots of WW alloy. I've seen "rendering" used a lot lately. No idea why this bothers me, but there you have it. Feel free to ignore this.)

Lee makes acceptable low cost moulds, sizers, and lube. It's a place to start. See if you even like casting. You may find you hate it. It's not a real chore to make 1000 boolits, even with a 2 banger mould. Takes maybe an hour or a bit more if you get a good pace going. Your biggest problem will be keeping enough alloy ready and your mould in shape. Read through the older posts here and you should be able to get some ideas on high volume, quality casting. "The BruceB Speed Casting Method" sticky should get you started.

The rest is mostly shopping around for the best buy on powder, primers, cases, etc. If you enjoy casting it'll be a breeze. If you hate it or it's a job, then shop around for cheap commercial cast.

[arkypete]

Kelly
Keep in mind you usually get exactly what you pay for.
Jim

[JohnH]

Casting, no matter if you cast 100 or 1000 at a time, pays you, not someone else. I couldn't afford to shoot more than 500 rounds a year if I had to buy my bullets, as it is, by casting my own I shoot several thousand rounds a year.

I have found casting to be it's own form of relaxation and enjoyment, equal to that I get from shooting. Every three or four weeks I'll cast up 300-400 bullets of one caliber I shoot. My casting pace takes me about 1 1/2 hours to do that, from plugging the pot in to putting the bullets in a box.

[stubert]

Casting gives you a great sence of accomplishment. You made the alloy, cast the bullet , loaded it, and hopefully put it where the sights were aimed.

[swoter]

If moneys tight, you can do without the sizer for awhile, I don't size the ones I do for my 44, just lube them with jpw and load as cast. Just don't try to buy molds off Ebay, they go way to high for used most of the time. Craigslist.com is a good place to look for a Coleman stove of turkey fryer. Haven't seen too much reloading stuff though.

[kellyj00]

good advice gents. i appreciate.