Should I start rolling my own?

[kamikaze1a]

Just joined castboolits and hoping to find some advice. I have been shooting for over 30 years and reloading for most of those years. Have been buying/loading cast and swaged bullets but due to the skyrocketing cost for store bought, I am looking into rolling my own. I have a plumber's burner and a 30# pot that I have been using for casting fishing weights but never casted a bullet...

My stash consists of a small pile of 30# "pigs" of what I believe to be pure lead. They were originally used to ship some radioactive stuff to the local hospital. Good enough for fishing sinkers but I would guess not the best for 9mm or 45acp. I want to load the 9 to 1100fps and the 45 to 850. The hardcast that I have been buying feeds perfictly, shoots straight enough for the USPSA matches but cost has gone up with every order.

My question is, could I cast satisfactory bullets if I added a couple of lbs of 95/5 solder to the 30lbs of lead? Will I get OK results using my plumber's burner? Are bullets from "tumble lube" bullet molds comparable to sized/lubed bullets? I want to avoid purchasing much more equipment and trying to make do with what I have. A mold or two would be ok but if I have to buy a new furnace, sizers, lube heaters etc, I might be better off continueing to buy store bought. As it is, it's hard enough finding time to reload without having to cast bullets. Any thoughts?

[selmerfan]

If those pigs are pure lead, you might consider trading them for ingots of wheelweights. Many of the BP/muzzleloader shooters would love to have the lead in pure form, it's getting harder to find.
Selmerfan

[Dale53]

Casting bullets requires an investment in both time and money. However, after the equipment is purchased it is a practical lifetime investment. I am still using bullet moulds that I have had for thirty years and they haven't been hurt at all.

If you get good at locating bullet metal at a good price your savings is near magical. I actually enjoy casting bullets but I may be in the minority.

I wouldn't begin to try to guess at how many bullets I have cast (it is certainly over several hundred thousand). You WILL do a better job than commercial bullets, at least that has been my experience.

There is a great deal of satisfaction in winning a match or harvesting your winter meat with a good bullet you have cast yourself. It is hard to put a price in either money or time on THAT!

Dale53

[AllanD]

Isn't asking that question here kinda like entering a ***** house and
asking if you should?..well...?

As stated above bullet casting tooling is a one time investment.

The one STRONG recommendation is buy the biggest electric furnace you can afford.
A bigger one may cost more money but it's a hell of a lot easier to sell and for a greater percentage of it's initial purchase price than a small cheap furnace.

as for moulds? I had a couple that I bought new, used heavily, but took good care of
and sold them for more than I originally paid for them... 20 years worth of price increases:)

[JIMinPHX]

A plumber’s furnace is great for smelting, & OK for casting if you get your heat set right. A thermometer is helpful here.

Straight lead is a little soft for 9s & 45s. As was already said, trading that for wheel weights is probably your best bet. As a second choice to get you by until you set up a swap, you could probably get by taking 1 pound of store bought cast boolits & mixing them with 4 pounds of pure lead. Most of the store bought stuff is too hard & a 20% mixture should give you just enough in the mix to get you on the low end of where you want to be. Adding a little solder on top of that may help to round things out & give you an alloy that pours into the corners of the mold better. You’re probably better off with wheel weights, but this could give you a quick start.

If you want to start on the cheap side, you can get a Lee 2 cavity mold for around $20 with handles. That should be enough to get you started. If you are lucky, you might be able to get away without sizing if your mold happens to throw boolits of the proper diameter for your barrel. That’s kind of a hit or miss, hope you get lucky kind of thing. You do still need to lube though. A bottle of liquid alox is about $4 & requires no special equipment to apply.

[kamikaze1a]

Thanks for all the input. I wholeheartedly agree that it would be a good investment and could be rewarding too. I do not live in the lower 48 and shipping cost always a factor so swapping long distance probably out. Lot of fishermen here that cast their own sinkers so lead in any form at a premium but have never actually looked into swapping my pure lead for ww locally.

Question about alloying my own...rather than adding ww's, would adding the lead-free solder instead of ww's to the pure lead be a bad choice? I can buy 95/5 (95% tin/5% antimony) and add 1-2lbs to the 30lbs of lead.

Thanks for the tips!

[Cherokee]

Tin is more benefical to casting quality, only a little hardness, so only 1# is max. Antimony adds the hardness and that is in wheel weights, also premium magnum lead shot.

and Welcome to the Forum

[JIMinPHX]

As Cherokee sort of just said, the tin mostly helps your alloy pour better. The antimony is what adds the real hardness. Normally you want to add 1-2% tin to get good fill out. You don’t want to use more than you need because the tin is expensive & too much takes weight away from your finished boolits. The 5% antimony in the 2% of the solder that you might add is going to end up being .02 x 5 = 0.1% added antimony. That’s not much. You need to add a few percentage points to make a real difference. You could buy some Linotype, which has a high antimony content & add some of that, or you could cut in some of your store bought boolits as I suggested before. You really do want to start scrounging around local junk yards, tire shops, scrap dealers & the like looking for wheel weights though. They already have the antimony content that you want & a little arsenic to boot. The arsenic aids in heat treating.

[DLCTEX]

For 45 acp I find a 50/50 mix if pure/ww to be good forboolits, also works for 38 sp. As for value of used pots, the Lee's I see selling on Ebay are bringing close to new price and is more than they cost new. I have solved most of the drip problems on my Lee and it drips less than my old Lyman. Purely for economics, cast your own. For enjoyment of a worthwhile hobby, cast your own. For quality boolits, cast your own. For custom blends, weights, shapes, cast your own. Just my dos centavos, DALE

[Brownie]

wheelweights have a lot of antimony that makes them hard but you need tin to stop leading in the barrel. get some lead free solder amnd some wheelweights and make youself some Lyman #2 alloy. it works perfect in rifle or handgun bullets, with or without gas checks.

[runfiverun]

you could try a 20-1 mix since you got the lead i have shot this mix in my colt
and it worked for me just fine.

[kamikaze1a]

After digesting all of this great suggestions, I think I am going to go with 1/2 lino, 1/2 lead with a touch of 95/5 if the mold does not fill sharp.

More questions...I've had good success with the tummble lubed bullets that I have been buying and if I can get away with no sizing, great! In your experience, does this mix (50-50 lino/lead) mic out ok when aircooled? I would assume that different mixes shrink various amounts. I've not mic'd these store bought one's yet but they are advertised as .452.

[454PB]

I have some of the radioactive isotope containers, and they surprised me when I did some testing. I found them to be nearly identical to wheelweight alloy.

50/50 linotype/lead alloy will cast about the same diameter as WW alloy.

[JIMinPHX]

In your experience, does this mix (50-50 lino/lead) mic out ok when aircooled?


...depends on the mold

...each one is a little different.