45 minutes of free time

[repawn]

Like many here - my time for working in the hobby is limited. Work, wife, 2 children etc. yesterday I found myself with about 45 minutes before I needed to pick up my daughter. So, I could have read through this forum - but I decided that I really needed to break in a couple of new molds - so dragged my pot and molds up - got setup in the back yard - and did a little casting. 73565
I am happy with the results - used 4 molds - 2 which I haven't used before - in this case the lee 1oz 12 gauge and the lee ctl312-160-2r - went pretty well - the rifle mold needs to be a lot hotter than my pistol molds.
I just wanted to share what can be done in a few spare minutes. No need to wait until you can designate a few hours.

[Scharfschuetze]

Lookin' good! It's always nice to get some positive reinforcement from your efforts. Now, can you find the time to load 'em and go shoot 'em?:)

[repawn]

Too true - I tend to do reloading in small time increments - have 10 minutes / deprime and resize - 15 minute some other time I will flare and prime. I always block out time for charging and seating though.

[Wayne Smith]

I tend to have no sense of elapsed time when I am doing something I like. This is a problem because I can't utilize those short amounts of time between things I have to do in a timely manner.

[dverna]

I would never do anything loading/casting related in 45 minutes. I would feel too rushed and then bad things can happen. Some people can I guess - just not me.

Heck, it takes 20+ minutes just to get my pot to temperature and alloy fluxed.

[repawn]

I would never do anything loading/casting related in 45 minutes. I would feel too rushed and then bad things can happen. Some people can I guess - just not me.

Heck, it takes 20+ minutes just to get my pot to temperature and alloy fluxed.

Generally I don't cast unless I have a few hours - 45 minutes = 25 minutes of pot / mold warming - 15 minutes of actual casting and a few minutes to turn everything off - to be fair I let everything cook in the backyard while I picked up my daughter. I pretty much always go slowly and I am careful - but I understand and appreciate the advice.

[Randy C]

I don't seem to be able to do any thing in 45 minutes any more I don't get to reload like I want to, so I have to relearn what I'm doing every time but I enjoy it if given enough time. I could if I did it more.

[blikseme300]

Repawn, well done with your time management. I myself never rush but I have the luxury of no more kids in the house and life being settled into a routine. If my hand heals from the surgery I might even get to use the new molds I received in the past week...:happy dance:

[mroliver77]

Being I have never slept well I would go to the shop after putting wife and kids to bed. Never was much on watching tv or sports so my "leisure" time was spent in the barn. When I was in the barn my pot and preheater was on. If I needed a break or was between things I would cast for a while. Casting really calms me.

One winter I decided I was going to improve my handgun shooting. I read the NRA handgun book, Bill Jordan's book, Ed McGiverns book etc. All said practice is the most important part of becoming a "Pistolero". I set up a backstop at 30 ft. Made a boolit catcher. I had an Astra rip off of a S&W N frame in 38spcl and 1000 cases. A lyman 4 cav DEWC mold and a bunch of Clays. I spent hours each night casting, loading and shooting in between working. Sometimes it was only dry firing. The Astra was not too accurate but I figured it would teach me the basics. By the time spring was here I had shot two bricks of 5000 primers through the gun. It must have smoothed up the gun because a lot of the time there was one raged hole in the target.
I was taking a walk one day in the spring and a ground hog looked out of his hole at me. Front sight, squeeze and a DEWC tween his eyes. My first handgun kill!
I was really amazed that all them primers were gone as I only shot in spurts.
J

[Jack Stanley]

Way to Go mroliver77 !!!! Snuff out another bean muncher ! They used to say practice makes perfect .

Jack