boolit storage question

[quickshot]

So here is the $33 million question for yall. Do you store your boolits dressed up and ready to load or are they stored in the buff? Currently I keep mine in plastic boxes ready to be dressed, however, loading and shooting time seems to be in scarce supply these days. I am looking for a way to maximize the quality time with my presses. What say youse guys? Are there any cons to keeping boolits ready to load? BTW I dress all my silver soldiers in Lars Red. Thoughts? Comments? Tips? Ideas?

[dmftoy1]

Lars Red here as well . .

I do both. I keep enough for a loading session (or 2) all ready to go stacked vertically in plastic flat bottom boxes, and the rest are in cardboard boxes waiting for a rainy or cold day. I typically only load maybe 100-200 rounds of the bullets I'm currently casting. Once my 6 cavity .45 ACP mold shows up I will probably change a bit.

FWIW.

[Calamity Jake]

For the undressed I use 3# coffee cans with a lable taped to the side telling me what is in it.
For the dressed I have a few cigar boxes for the high quanity boolets that I shoot. And I use a lot of the small slip top metal tins that cookies and candies come in around the holidays, I try to get the square or rectangle ones(give the sweets inside to the grandkids).
I have a couple of these tins that will hold three layers of 320 each 255 45C boolets dressed and ready to load( I do the CAS thing).
I stick a lable on the tins telling the whole story about what is in the tin including what top punch I used to size and lube with.

[NVcurmudgeon]

I store my boolits as raw castings. All of my casting life has been in places that feature hot summers. Recently I have loaded boolits that were cast between one and five years ago. I learned early on that boolits stored ready-to-load are likely to have become unlubricated in storage. There is a finite amount of labor that goes into each loaded cartridge. I prefer to stockpile a larger number of castings and size, lubricate, and GC boolits just before loading. Either way, it's the same amount of labor per round, I save labor by not cleaning and relubing boolits.

[lathesmith]

I mostly store mine in margarine tubs, and sometimes for larger quantities I line a cardboard box with a plastic bag for storage. 99.5 percent of my castings are stored in the buff, my experience mirrors NV's somewhat. Also, I like to use soft lube, and after a few years in a not so sealed container you can get some oxidation. If you keep your slugs on more or less air tight containers, such as plastic, in the buff, they still look shiny and new even after 15 years. I don't worry about age softening or any of that nonsense because most of my shooting is with low velocity pistol loads. This is also why I love the Star sizer--I cast up thousands of bullets at my casting sessions, store them in the garage, and when I need some for loading I can size up a few hundred in just a few minutes with the Star sizer. I don't leave my casting gear with a lead and slag mess sitting around in the garage any more, as I have kids around and none of us need the needless extra lead exposure potential.
lathesmith

[MT Gianni]

Most of mine are stores in baggies, in a cardboard box or 5 gallon bucket, unlubed with a note stating the alloy. I do store some lubed with checks but I heat my reloading room to 60 in the winter and temps get up to 64 in the basement when summer days push 100 so they don't usually met off. I add lube type and brand of check to the hardness note when I do that. Gianni

[GSM]

Fruitcake tins for finished boolits inside the house.
Anything clean for the unfinished ones out in the garage.

[mtgrs737]

I like to store my boolits lubed and sized so I use 16mm film cans for my pistol boolits and 35mm film cans for my rifle boolits. The film cans I use and like best are the 400 foot cans that are around 7 inches in diameter, they are first cleaned and then sprayed with a clear acrylic spray paint to seal the tin plated metal. The 400 foot cans hold 200+ 45 cal. boolits so that the lube is not damaged from other boolits resting on them. I put labels on the outside to identify the contents. I have some boolits that I cast 25 years ago that look like they were cast yesterday. I like the flat bottom cans so the boolits sit level. There are some of the flat bottom cans on ebay right now, they say dupont on one side. I have also used cake baking pans but without a lid you will need to slip them inside of a ziplock bag to keep them clean.

[CNJarvis]

I've been storing my boolits (unlubed) and my brass in the clear plastic Sterilite brand index card files that I picked up at walmart. They're less than a dollar each, have hinged lids with a snap and they stack very well. I label them with blue painters tape and a sharpie. I can see at a glance which boolit is in each container and how many I have left.

[buckndee]

Store my undressed cast bullets like my 1lb alloy ingots in 30 caliber ammo cans. Must have 60-70 plus cans stacked up. 50-53lb alloy or about 45lb cast bullets per can. No problem with oxidation or spillage. Only keep 5-10k lubed up in tupper wear type containers and a few cigar boxes.

[Harry]

I have hundreds of SWC's that were cast about 45 yrs ago. Stored in plastic cheese containers taped shut with electrical tape around the circumference. If no signs of oxidation, are these OK to load. By the way, they are 38 and 357's.

[BigGun]

Quick shot:
I store my bullets(not sized or lubed) in plastic (heavy duty)containers that i get from wal mart, with cal.
and mold no. labeled with felt marker, I store my lubed and sized bullets in business card boxes
standing on their base with sheet of thin cardboard between layers.I use LBT blue soft Lub.
I don't have any drying out problem or melting out of lube groves( stored inside house).

Harry
those 38/357 bullets will be ok to use. I have stored undressed bullet for 5 years with no
sign of any problems (same for ready to load bullets).

[Nrut]

Last year I started storing cast boolits both sized/lubed and nay-kid in ZIP-LOCK plastic storage containers...they are stackable and work great!...:)

[44man]

AH, mtgrs737, nothing nicer then a drum magazine! :mrgreen:

[mooman76]

I like most people here keep enough lubed (or try to anyway) to load a few boxes when needed and keep the rest as is. I keep them in all kinds of containers. Coffee cans, old powder bottles small amounts in ziplock bags(I use those allot for brass to koop them clean) and some small plastic tubs. Those new disposable plastic tubes work nice. They are cheap and stack good and keep my bullets fresh too!

[Diamond-City-Bob]

I just put them into 3# coffee cans with a taped on label and a label inside stating which bullet it is and if it's water dropped or not. When it comes time to load ammo I'll lube what I need for my run one evening and load 'em up the next. The label inside is important since the one on the outside comes off all too often, this is important when you run off a couple hundred pounds of say .45 255gr. semi-wadcutters water dropping some and air cooling the rest. I'm still scratching my head over a run I did some years back that lost the outside label.

[Patrick L]

I do both. As another said, I use 3# coffee cans to amass bullets, and they sit for years. I also lubesize way ahead. I recently loaded up the last of the .45 ACP SWCs I lubesized in our first apartment, and we've been in this house since '94. When I lubesize, I pack the bullets in sealable containers. My Lee tumble Lube bullets go into either boxes or snap lid plastic tubs. They seem to be able to last forever. I have some stored lubricated.38 wadcutters that date from when the micro band bullets were introduced in the late 80s or so. The above mentioned .45 SWCs were packed base down in cardboard boxes, and I put a thin layer of shirtbox type cardboard between the layers. My boxes hold about 600 bullets, ready to go. Incidentally they were lubed with Tamarack lube, which was a soft lube. Like I said, 14 years later, zero problems.

My .30 caliber rifle bullets go in .22LR 100 pack boxes like this:
http://i204.photobucket.com/albums/bb157/patrickl_01/Sorting%20and%20Sizing/GunStuff031.jpg

Lyman 31141's fit perfectly, you can use the slide tops. My slightly longer bullets, like SAECO 301s or Lyman 311644s require me to tape the tops on like hinge lids. I also recently loaded up the last of my sized 31141s, and they had to be at least 10 years old.

I store all of my bullets in a fairly cool basement, which may be why this works for me.

[AllanD]

I like to do inspection as soon as they've cooled,

After that I lube and size only as many bullets as I have empty cases to load
The rest are stored in a 50cal ammo can (I tend to do big batches)

I store my ready-to-load 38/357 bullets in the Red plastic trays from 38spl/357mag
ammo boxes (federal?) which I picked up at a gun show back in the 80's
(an entire milk crate worth of them)
In the plastic trays I also stack them in 50cal ammo cans until I can load them,
which usually isn't long... mostly because I believe the best way to store them
is as loaded ammo... (less stuff sticks to the lube)

So usually after a day long casting session there is a couple hours of inspection
followed by a size/lube/wipe-down (I remove the excess bullet lube with a rag)

Then usually within a few days they all get fed to my Dillon RL550B, that is actually the quickest part of the process....



AD

[DLCTEX]

I store unlubed boolits in coffee cans, marked on the lid with magic marker for identification. Lubed boolits are stored in zip lock freezer bags. I loaded some last week that were cast and lubed 2 years ago(50/50 alox), no problems. The freezer bags have a panel for marking on the side. DALE