Just how many boolits in a "***tload"???

[Salmon-boy]

Just curious.
I spent the better part of the morning re-arranging the physical structure of about 25lbs of muffins into Lee 125gr TL water dropped boolits. :-D

What's your average runoff at a sitting?

[dubber123]

About 15-18 lbs. I don't like to run my pot dry. Where in Mass. are you?, my brother works in Williamstown.

[Blammer]

about a 100 boolits a setting for me....

[richbug]

Lets just say you can put better than 15,000 of that bullet in a 5 gallon bucket. Don't expect to pick it up when you are done.

[JohnSmiles]

I usually cast about 300-600 at a time.
After that, it starts becoming a task, not a pleasure.
Just like reloading.
About 50 rifle or 200 pistol at a time is all I care for.
:drinks:

[Salmon-boy]

Ha! John, When I get in the zone, I just keep going.. Also, I figure when I get things heated up, I might as well keep going.

RichBug, Yeah, 5 Gal of boolits would be a chore to pick up! If you can pick it up, don't meet me in a dark alley. After dropping that many boolits, does your left arm look like Popeye's?

Dubber, I be in the Marlborough area. Williamstown is in North West nowhere MA. Although I have been out there a time or two when I was working for NE Electric..

[Blackhawk Convertable]

Depends on the mold. It's number of casts I make, not number of bullets. About an hour, or two on a good day, is it for me. With a single cavity that would be a couple soup cans full. With a 2 cavity that would be about 1/6 to 1/4 of a coffee can. And with a 6 cavity I can usually fill a coffee can full. For my 40 caliber and 44 caliber bullets, that coffee can is about 1500 bullets and 35# in weight.

You get stiffer from the smaller cavity molds. The larger ones mean more bullets which also means that you have to move the bullets on the towel to the coffee can more often and have to wait on the mold or ingots at times allowing your body to rest or assume different positions. Those little molds make a pile so slowly that you end up doing exactly the same thing many more times in the same position. This is what really tires a person out.

In the last couple of months, I've cast up around 10,000 bullets. Just about all of them have also gone through my sizer as well. If not for watching videos while I size, that would REALLY be a monotonous job!

[Forester]

With a 6 cavity mold making 200gr LSWCs I am pretty comfortable up to about 1500-2000 boolits and have forced the issue to as much as 3500-4000 in a session. Thats using my modified version of the "BruceB method". When it gets to be that many it is more like work but I just think about the fact that I need 20,000 for a years shooting and if I don't cast them I would have to buy them, so thats a pretty large savings there.

For rifle boolits where I am inspecting closely as I cast, about 200 or 250 is all I usually cast.

[Springfield]

About 3000 in a sitting is normal for me. I get too tired doing any more. Plus it's usually bedtime by then!

[TCLouis]

20-25 pounds per session with 4-6 Banger mold. All sprues are dropped back into the pot as I cast and obviously bad boolits too.

1 evening to cast, one evening to sort and size/lube.

Looks like a lot in 120-200 grain boolits but the 300s and above are kinda meager even with 20 pounds of them in the pile.

[trickyasafox]

usually a 10 lb pot full or 2. 20lbs of bullets for me is a long session.

[303carbine]

Well,not all **** are the same size...................somebody hadda say it.:drinks:

[georgeld]

Generally 2-4 hours at a session is about all I can stand.
Three sessions will fill a two gallon bucket that will last about 3-6 months depending on how well I'm getting along during that time.

Since this back surgery two yrs ago, I haven't been doing a whole lot of shooting. Am spending more time casting and loading. am getting to have one hell of a bunch of ammo on hand. Am sure it would hit the nationwide papers if/when they raid the place. Far as I know it's all legal though.

Cant' have too many guns, and for sure not too much ammo, right?

[boommer]

well for me if I am casting single cav mold boolits witch are large 405-535 grn 150-175 takes me 3 hours? then pistol boolits just pound it out, spent as much as first thing to supper 10 hrs? I just get all casting and reloading done in jan-feb unless new bore and don't have it in stock. I'm a heavy equipment operator and I need to get-err done in the winter so I can play! on those nice days I have off!

[Newtire]

It really depends on how well the mould is working and what it looks like outside as to how much I can stand. I usually go about 2 hours max though.

I'm like georgeld these days only I am pre-operation stages. Able to walk down to the 100 yd. targets now. Fortunately, sitting down is easy. I am sure getting alot of boolits cast up!

[EMC45]

Until the old lady calls me in for supper!

[imashooter2]

I mostly use 6 bangers and my sessions are typically about 2 hours which generally runs between 25 and 35 pounds of alloy depending what I'm casting.

[grumpy one]

I use a Lee 10 pound bottom-pour, which realistically holds 8 pounds. Since I alloy as I go, this calls for some organizing. I initially fill the pot by adding six one-pound ingots of WW, one similar ingot of typemetal, and a last similar ingot of 3% tin, 5% antimony alloy, to give me about 1.3% tin, 5% antimony. I start casting, and continue until the lead stream weakens. At that point I put back all the sprues plus 3 to 4 pounds of 1.3/5 alloy left over from the previous session. That just about refills the pot, and I cast until the stream weakens again. Then I put back the last batch of sprues, and cast them into ingots, which gives me the 3-4 pounds I'll use for the second-stage refill in my next casting session, and shut down operations for the day. At that point I have about 13-14 pounds of bullets, before culling.

My process is driven by the circumstances, not my preferences for length of casting session. This is the only way to do it that has occurred to me so far, other than pre-alloying instead of alloying in real-time. I don't want to do that, in case I make another change in the alloy I prefer to use.

[HORNET]

Most of what I use are .22's and most of my molds are single cavity. I usually run about 6-7 pounds at a stretch. That makes for a lot of those little 37 grainers. Bigger stuff, I might run a double batch if I've got nothing else to do.

[hammerhead357]

If I am using 2 cavity moulds usually 250 to 500 of each if I am using two moulds. If I am using 8 or 10 cavity moulds I will usually cast about 1m or 2m of each if I am using 2 moulds, it just depends on what I need.

When I used to cast commercially I would cast at least 10m per day and sometimes more. I would generally cast 4 days per week. We would sell about 40m per week, it would darn sure keep one busy especially when it was as a second job....Wes

[quickshot]

if I am short on time....a couple pots worth. If I clear my schedule....I don't know a bunch... I have 5 2 cavity molds and I usually rotate 1 pot per mold. a long casting session is around 6--8+ hours. On those marathon casting sessions....quality comes first and no guys I don't have a pre-melt pot. Each refill is from sprues and cold ingots.

[Adam10mm]

I usually run 50-75# at a time. Then again, I'm a commercial caster. An order of 1K .45 boolits is 32 pounds. I got an order for 6K boolits. Adds up quick.

[jonk]

Depends on bullet weight.

For a 585 gr minie, my largest, 100 is a 'load.' For little .32 acp bullets, I've not cast enough in 1 session yet to be wowed at the pile of lead before me.

In terms of casting volume- I cast for about half an hour at a time until it starts to irritate me. That's about 100 from a single cavity but could easily be close to 800 from a 6 cavity.