equipment.& stuff.

[runfiverun]

neighbor stopped in with his boy tonight, and we were in the garage yakking.
his boy went over to one of my star lubers, and as boys do, he wanted to play with the handle.
his dad says you best leave that alone ,i don't know what it's for,but it looks expensive.
i kinda chuckled,and loaned him the tool he needed.
after they left ,i thought..... looks expensive,you should price the sizers.
and got to thinking about what the three of them with air,heaters ,feeders...etc cost and then looked at the rest of my casting equipment.
and the price really started to add up.
casters, molds, handles, gas checks.pots, cookers. drip-o-matics...
holy,.......... i thought we did this to save money.
now i can't go in the reloading/gun room for a few days. i probably coulda paid cash for my house.

[Bret4207]

STOP THINKING LIKE THAT!!!!! This is the first sign of your pending nervous breakdown! You must immediately confront the issues by casting and shooting as much as possible!:mrgreen:

(I don't like to think about how much I'm "saving" either!)

[Leadforbrains]

Yep you should feel plum awfull, but you can remedy your guilt by boxing up all your casting equipment up and sending it to me.

I promise you will feel so much better about yourself.

[xr650]

I started this to save money.
One year later and I have equipment, but no money.

I don't know if you folks are a bad influence or investment counselors. :mrgreen:

[tonyb]

7 presses......why do I have 7 presses? I was told 2 would be enough.
And all these dies, some 2 of the same each. 8000 primers. I..I..I can't stop. "rehab?"
And I thought gambling was bad.

:Fire:

To the other "sick" reloaders :drinks:

[Sprue]

Here's a scarry thought. What if you had only a gun or two and no means to reload for them..... had no means to cast, fiddle or experiment with all the tools 'n toys.....

Yep its an investment, an investment to sanity. :-D

[Sprue]

Tony,

Pack'r tight and Stack'r high


7 presses......why do I have 7 presses? I was told 2 would be enough.
And all these dies, some 2 of the same each. 8000 primers. I..I..I can't stop. "rehab?"
And I thought gambling was bad.

:Fire:

To the other "sick" reloaders :drinks:

[jhrosier]

I started this to save money.
One year later and I have equipment, but no money.

I don't know if you folks are a bad influence or investment counselors. :mrgreen:

Keeps you out of pool halls and taverns.;-)

Jack

[missionary5155]

Good morning These are all logical and well founded investments for Independence! All are resellable and increase in value. None are made of paper. All are tangable in hand items that produce a custom product not available for sale in the neighborhood corner store.
AND beyond all that... It Is Just Plain Fun !
God Bless you All !

[MakeMineA10mm]

You must remember that this is also your hobby. Recreation has a serious value.

Then, remember your independence. You do not need ammo companies (except maybe for primers and powder! :mrgreen: ) anymore.

Third, keep in mind that the worst case scenario is that your wife will sell it all after your dead. You won't care then. Just make sure you explain to her not to give it away cheap when your gone. This makes it an investment!

Recreation, independence, investment. What were you so worried about???

:drinks:

[RP]

Lots of good thoughts here I just take pride in knowing I have more boolits then anyone else I know. The one with the most at the end wins right.

[357maximum]

Lots of good thoughts here I just take pride in knowing I have more boolits then anyone else I know. The one with the most at the end wins right.

Your kinda right, but I would state it differently.


He who runs out of boolits first is generally the loser :twisted:

[Gunslinger]

Hmmm.... lets say you shoot 1000 rounds a month through different guns, which I think is pretty average. Now, lets take time we spend collecting lead, smelting and casting out of the equation. If you were to buy 1000 jacketed bullets a month, divided by 200 for rifle and 800 for pistols, that would be pretty expensive, no??

Can't imagine someone could have so much expensive equipment that it would exceed the price of 1000 jacketed each and every month!

Just a thought. Personally I think reloading equipment is much more expensive than casting equipment. I like to say (to myself at least), that the money I save by casting is what's gonna pay for my Dillon xl650 when I get around to buying it...

[jameslovesjammie]

If we were in it to save money, we'd be using kitchen spoons to ladle free wheel weight lead into one cavity moulds that we melted on our thrift store hotplate in an old kitchen sauce pan.

If I had to cast boolits like that...I'd shoot myself. Well, after it took me an hour to make and lube a boolit I would.

Seriously though, I don't golf. I don't drink or smoke. I like shooting, fishing, and working on my '72 chevy. Shooting, casting, and reloading are all pretty cheap hobbies compared to some. My buddy and his family build drag race cars. THAT is an expensive hobby.

[jhrosier]

Lots of good thoughts here I just take pride in knowing I have more boolits then anyone else I know. ...

I like to think that I have more potential boolits than most folks.

I could not begin to afford to stock the variety of jacketed bullets that I can easily replicate at a moments notice with my moulds. Since I can cast for more than a dozen calibers and weights, my half ton of boolit metal effectively replaces many, many thousands of dollars of jacketed bullets.

Smattern fact, now that I think of how much money I'm saving, I just might go out and buy a couple more guns so's I can save even more.:twisted:

Jack

[kodiak1]

Anyone that starts to think like runfiverun, We should take up a collection and get them a labotimy so that the info doesn't leak out to our better halves.

Ken.

[Just Call Me...G]

Howdy Gents,

Just thought I'd chime in...I've been unemployed for the last few months.
Oddly enough I have been casting for 3 months now, yes I'm one of the **** here.

Due to my new found love for casting not only have I been shooting more (therapy) but also casting more and more (even more therapy).

I'd rather spend what pittance I am able to scrounge through odd jobs that I have been doing on casting and shooting than sitting in some therapist office talking about my mother!

LOL :-)

Plus a lot of the other guys covered it...I have WAY more ammo than my shooting buddies do, enjoy casting boolits as my hobby and on my current budget it is definitely the way to go.

Have a great evening fellas.

G

[HeavyMetal]

When I hear the guy at the gun shop ( aka Turners or Bass Pro's ) tell a newbie reloader that he'll save money I bust out laughing!

I then explain he won't save a dime but he will be able to shoot a lot more with the same budget! Most have gotten sticker shock from ammo prices so realize what I say is true.

Sure would be nice if some of these gun shop guys actually knew what they were talking about when they "pitched" a customer about a product they carried!

[Boerrancher]

He who runs out of boolits first is generally the loser :twisted:

I went to my scrap dealer today and traded 20 lbs of aluminum cans for 40 lbs of WWs. I had my oldest son with me who is 12. He ask why I didn't take the money and traded for lead. I told him that aluminum would always be around but one day possibly WWs could be worth more than gold to us. He looked at me kinda funny and said, "the only thing you can do with them is make bullets." I told him yes that is true, but there would be a time when there was no more lead WW's to make boolits out of, and that it would sure be nice to be able to have boolits when no one else did. I saw the gears start to turn in his mind and then the light bulb came on, and he replied, "yes it would."

Best wishes from the Boer Ranch,

Joe

[RU shooter]

If we were in it to save money, we'd be using kitchen spoons to ladle free wheel weight lead into one cavity moulds that we melted on our thrift store hotplate in an old kitchen sauce pan.
. Hey! Thats still ME except I ditched the spoon and use one of those fancy new fangaled Lyman laddles!!!!! I guess I'm not a "high tech" or high output caster but I started this hobby to save some money but mostly to make my shooting time more enjoyable and casting is now part of that time, Yeah a 2 cav. mould would speed things up same with a Loobersizer,But pan lubing is basicly free and I'm in no big hurry either 80 lubed boolits a half hr. is fast enough for me:-D The biggest thing is I have 3 growing kids that are always eating everything they see and out growing their cloths at alarming rates.Someday when they are all grown and are doctors ,lawyers, or rocket scientist's Maybe they wil buy dear old DAD some new casting gear.Till that day hopefully comes and they are successful I'll make do with what I got

Tim

[Owens]

Yep. Sure amazing what we'll spend to save money.
Gas Burner - 29
LP Bottle (filled) 40
Cast iron pot 20
Free range scrap
Turning out your own - priceless!

[bbs70]

Its funny that runfiverun brought up this subject.
Just this morning I was talking to my wife about how much I have tied up in my new gun and casting equiptment for it.

I already had reloading equiptment, but had given away all my casting stuff to a friend 15 years ago,
So of course I had to get a new furnace, mold, sizer, etc. (Darn the luck [smilie=1:).

Considering I usually shoot between 300 and 500 rounds everytime I go to the range, I'm saving money by casting.
But then I find myself going to the range more often that I use to.

I cringe when I think of all the money I have spent on dies, molds, powder, primers, furnace,etc.
But then as my wife says "If thats what you enjoy and makes you happy, then do it".
Think I'll keep the wife for a while longer.

[Catshooter]

I did this to save money? Really?

What the hell was I thinking? :)


Cat

[Papa Foxtrot]

If we were in it to save money, we'd be using kitchen spoons to ladle free wheel weight lead into one cavity moulds that we melted on our thrift store hotplate in an old kitchen sauce pan.

For some strange reason, that brings to mind Mel Gibson's character in "The Patriot" melting his murdered son's toy soldiers to make bullets to kill Redcoats with. That was probably the most inspiring scene in the movie - yeh, I know that part was fiction....

Papa

[Hang Fire]

LOL. As a primitive type with a penchant for rocklocks, it don't take much to keep me going pretty frugal afield. Here are pics of my shooting bag gear, a folding ladle/melter for over the campfire and a single cavity round ball bag mould.

http://i3.photobucket.com/albums/y92/TANSTAAFL-2/P1010001-12.jpg

http://i3.photobucket.com/albums/y92/TANSTAAFL-2/Folded.jpg


http://hstrial-rchambers.homestead.com/

[NSP64]

I started this to save money.
One year later and I have equipment, but no money.

I don't know if you folks are a bad influence or investment counselors. :mrgreen:

I used to work at Enron[smilie=1:

[Goatlips]

"For some strange reason, that brings to mind Mel Gibson's character in "The Patriot" melting his murdered son's toy soldiers to make bullets to kill Redcoats with. That was probably the most inspiring scene in the movie - yeh, I know that part was fiction...."

PapaFoxtrot, the John Adams HBO series showed something similar, in reverse - the REDCOATS were melting down 'confiscated' pewter tableware to make musket balls to kill Patriots; I guess nearly pure tin would make a fair musket load.

Us casters have a sharp eye for stuff like that in movies, sometimes they get it right even! :cbpour:

Goatlips

[NSP64]

If we were in it to save money, we'd be using kitchen spoons to ladle free wheel weight lead into one cavity moulds that we melted on our thrift store hotplate in an old kitchen sauce pan.

Everyone doesn't cast like this???

[Linstrum]

I have casting and reloading equipment in two states since I have been traveling [smilie=2: back and forth between New Mexico and California a lot lately. It is easier to have two loading benches than trying to haul all that stuff back and forth. At first I did haul all that stuff back and forth but I always forgot :groner: something important so I would buy a replacement and before long I had equipped two loading benches by :cbpour: :cbpour: default! The one thing that is not redundant, though, is my .50 BMG reloading stuff since I can't have that in Kalifornistan.

Back forty-something years ago I used a big soup spoon for a dipper, a cocktail peanut tin can for a melting pot, and a WW2-surplus Coleman pocket gasoline stove for my heat. Haven't changed all that much, really. I also still pick up old wheel weights in the parking lot, that part hasn't changed one bit.

On my 2000-mile round trips back and forth along Interstates 10 and 40 I have a lot of time to myself to think up stuff, and one of the things I thought about is I wish I had some way to get all the wheel weights lying on the shoulders of the highways between here and there. Along I-40 in California between Barstow and the Colorado River is a little semi-ghost town called Ludlow. Back when that part of I-40 used to be called Route-66, there was a big repair garage at Ludlow and recently I found where they dumped their trash out in the desert. A bonanza of old rusty used spark plugs and wheel weights! :bigsmyl2:

The spark plugs are still there. :twisted:


rl508