What did you cast today?

[MakeMineA10mm]

Well, it's that time of year again - CASTING SEASON!!

Temperatures are moderate, humidity low, kids are out from under-foot back in school, and I have some "alone time" with my moulds and casting pot...

So, today, partially because I'm running low on 44 boolits, and partially because I haven't made any lead boolits with a mould I got a year or so ago, I poured some 225gr RNFPs from a Group Buy mould run by CATSHOOTER. [smilie=s:

I ran a heavy Keith GB at the same time, so when the moulds came in, I casted a lot of the Keiths (to make sure everyone would be happy with the moulds in my buy), and Catshooter's mould sat on the shelf, somewhat neglected... Well, that's been rectified. Turned on the pot at 8:30, went to do some chores, came back at 9:00, and started running it. Now, once I got the hot glue and PAM residue burnt out of the cavities (from some hot glue boolits I made for some dummy rounds for our Hunter-Safety Class), that thing was spitting out 6 perfect boolits a throw! Seemed like a rare cast when they all didn't come out perfect... By 10:30 I had 500 good boolits and shut her down. I wish all my Lee moulds were so compliant. As you can see it took no time to get a good quantity cast up.

Came home and checked them. Out of the 10 sample boolits, 7 of them weighed exactly 226.1grs. That's not an average, that's 10 boolits weighed individually, and seven of them were dead-nuts on that number. Not bad! Wish I could get that kind of consistency when casting with my rifle moulds!!! :oops:

Well, now I've got some 44 Special cases to clean and prep for loading with these "new" boolits.


SO, what did you cast today (or this weekend, or this week)??

[bruce drake]

I cast a jealous eye towards you...

My gear is packed, six states away and I won't be casting until sometime in January, so just keep rubbing it in!

Bruce

P.S. Awesome work on the consistency part.

[Frozone]

It's still morning. A little later I'll pour ~ 25# of 454424s.

[lwknight]

Its just now getting shooting season for me. Its been so hot that the range sessions were short. I'd say that the next couple months are smelting weather and I save the big time casting for December

[awaveritt]

I'm with LWKnight regarding the hot Texas weather. . . so I'll just cast my fly rod until Fall hits Texas.

[bbailey7821]

Did about 400 of Lee's 310g .44 Mag GC last nite. I'm in South Texas and it was still hotter than blue blazes... Only 2 more monthes of summer left!

[qajaq59]

Nahh, I figured since it was probably 156 degrees out in the garage I'd wait a while before I do any casting. :bigsmyl2:

[dangerranger]

Ive been putting it off because of the heat but I couldnt take it any longer, I have a new 45 70 and cast up 150 20-1 bullits and 100 ww to see what it will like. up in till now Ive mostly cast pistol boolits, Ill say that this 405 gr mold eats up lead! 10lbs only netted me 150 boolits. DR

[Silent]

About 100 each of 9mm R and .357 FN a couple days ago. Planning on pumping out another load of 9mm tonight tho.

[BSkerj]

The brown truck brought my Lyman 457193 mould Monday and I casted up about 200 yesteday. I am heading out to the man room in a few to lube them up. Nice and cool here..77 degrees and the trees are starting to change.

[sourceofuncertainty]

I'd still have to get up at 6am to cast here, but only for a few more weeks. Then it'll be casting time for sure.

On the docket will be breaking in several new Lee moulds:

- 9mm 147 gr
- .40 174 gr

Both six-bangers. Can't wait!

[bigdog454]

Cast lee 300 452 sized to 450, and 50 cal R.E.A.L. for my new ML all out of lead pipe. gettin ready for ML deer season.

[dragonrider]

Not today but last evening I cast up some 44 from Miha's latest mold, the GC version. Finaly found the sweet spot for it. I gotta say it's just amazing how these Cramer style molds drop good boolits so easily, almost like you are getting something for free. [smilie=w:

[Charlie Two Tracks]

10 lbs. of 125 gr HP Monday evening. I could cast all day if I didn't have other priorities or maybe I should change my priorities.

[Catshooter]

Been awhile since I seen a thread with your name on it, thought I'd click on it, and here you are calling me names! :)

Glad that mould is working out for you.

Still too hot here to cast, dangit. Looking forward to though, got a bunch o' moulds I haven't used yet, it's a crime.


Cat

[mooman76]

I cast a few 45 cal REALs yesterday.

[uncle joe]

you must be way up north, won't be cool here for another month

[casterofboolits]

No boolits, but got my propane tank filled and am going to start smelting in the morning. Gonna be in the low 60's. :bigsmyl2: [smilie=w:[smilie=w:

[snuffy]

What did you cast today?

That makes it sound like we're supposed to cast EVERY DAY?

While that's not a bad thing, I'd hate to pay the powder bill!:holysheep

I need to fire up the smelter to render some Linotype into usable ingots. Other than that no special projects that I need to fire up the pot for. OOPS, I forgot that new 358156 mold, I need to see if another 2% tin will make them actually drop at .358 instead of barely .357.

[Bwana]

Yesterday I cast right at 1000 lee 102gr (cast wgt 104gr) and 850 Lee 38 Super (not sold any longer) 150gr (155 cast wgt) boolits. This in addition to 1300 of the 102s and 1000 of the 150s monday. On vacation this week. Smelted 300 lbs of wgts and got 248 alloy ingots. Happiness is buckets full of ingots.

[white eagle]

had to make a wood delivery so only had about a hour
I cast bout 125 Mihek 45 cal saa h.p
yesterday it was 358 boolits 240 gr (rifle accuate molds)
day before it was 310 BRP boolits 45 cal
tom 44 cal 300 gr hp
then maybe some 44 cal 250 rcbs if I have time

[Muddy Creek Sam]

Ingots to fill orders! Did go down to the back of the property and check out the lane for the new Long range range.

Sam :D

[gwilliams2]

Ahhh Come on ya'll, it's not that hot in the shade. We were only in the mid 90's today... I cast 3 - 4 hundred 40 cal SWC this evening after work... Probably try to do this every evening until I have a couple thousand and then switch to 9mm for a while. We don't stop playing at the range just because the south Texas sun is hot enough to fry an egg. Gotta feed the habit.

[Merlin43]

I'm with LWKnight regarding the hot Texas weather. . . so I'll just cast my fly rod until Fall hits Texas.

LOL! Make that three. I was loading stuff today and doing some ballistics, but when I took the chrony outside and, a bit later climbed up on the roof to clean rain gutters, the 88F mercury and 88% humidty convinced me that if I wanted to cast a new supply of anything, it would be a heavy air-conditioning bill this month in SE Texas.

Once it gets down in the high 60's, it will be .30, .38, .44, and .45 pellets by the thousands (yes, literally) until my arms fall off or I run out of mountain of lead salvaged from a torn-down hospital X-ray room. Weights will run from 95 gr. to about 250 and alloys will go from Lyman #2 to Linotype to HB + Silver. (Thanks also to Rotometals, Bill Ferguson, and a few others.)

I'm looking forward to it, but it will be at least a month yet.

[Centaur 1]

FedEx just delivered a package from Graf's yesterday. I just got a new Lee 38 105 gr swc 2 cavity mold. I cant wait to try it out, the plan is to load some light plinking round for my .38 as well as making affordable ammo for my Ruger LCP.

[Silent]

Casted 300 or so 9mm round nose rounds. I must be doing something wrong tho, I only threw a dozen or so back, including the ones to warm up the mold.

[Moonie]

Got a tactical match Saturday morning, got 45's to feed, will be casting 200gr Mihec round HP's tonight.

[Bwana]

Today it was 2100 Lee 175gr 40cal.

[MakeMineA10mm]

:mrgreen:

I LOVE some of the responses here! This is just a fun thread with the underlying instigation of getting myself (and possibly some others) motivated to do a little casting again, now that nicer weather is approaching. (Sorry 'bout you southern boys... - Yep, I'm a Yankee, so nice casting weather is already here for me!! [smilie=w: )

I also like the aspect of now that the website has so many members, it's fun to see how many people are casting on any particular day who are members of this board. Fun to see what they're casting too.

[RobS]

I cast up some of these:
http://i612.photobucket.com/albums/tt206/RobS01/45LFN.jpg
.454 297 grain double crimp groove FN

[Merlin43]

I casted up some of these:

.454 297 grain double crimp groove FN

Them's some fine lookin' projo's!
I may have to bite the bullock (well, some Chap Jae, anyway) and get the Master Caster out of the Cosmoline and run a few hours in spite of the heat!

:lovebooli

[jmsj]

RobS,
Those look great !! What mold is that?
Just got back from the shop, getting the smelting gear out.
If I can get the wife's Explorer back together and take my son out to sell popcorn for cub scouts in a timely manner, I'll start smelting this weekend. jmsj

[geargnasher]

Did about 400 of Lee's 310g .44 Mag GC last nite. I'm in South Texas and it was still hotter than blue blazes... Only 2 more monthes of summer left!

Tell me about it, I studied engineering there for two years before transferring to Denton (UNT) where the weather was a little cooler and there were fewer hurricanes! We used to say that there were two seasons in Kinsville: The HOT season and the WET season. Anybody who can survive a Summer in that pocket o'misery is a tough sonovobeech!

PS the last thing I cast was actually today, but at 1:00am, I smelted a bunch of lead and alloyed some fresh boolit metal. The only time to do it without having a heat stroke is in the middle of the night.

Gear

[RobS]

RobS,
Those look great !! What mold is that?
jmsj

It is a Lee GB mold which started here on the forum back in 2007 and finished production in 2008. I just picked it up practically brand new from a forum member and it has proven to be a very good bullet in both the lever action and in the Ruger SRH. The bullet has about a .3415 meplat on it; big enough to do substantial damage and yet fly very well at longer ranges. It is sort of like Veral Smiths LBT LFN design except with a straighter ogive (less curvature), a touch larger meplat and of course the dual crimp grooves. I have been playing around with 45 cal molds for quite a while and I think this one will be my go to bullet.

[jmsj]

RobS,
Thanks for the reply. I really like the looks of that bullet, was hoping it was a current production mold. Good luck w/ the load development.
Here is a picture of today's melt, last time I smelted was back in April. This is 310 pounds of wheel weights. http://i961.photobucket.com/albums/ae97/jmsj515/10-10smelt.jpg

[Fixxah]

Five buckets of WW into muffin molds.

[geargnasher]

Tis the season for ingots, smelted one of Sam's cores down into one-pounders. One day I might cast some more boolits!

Gear

[AzShooter]

It's been a hot summer so I put off casting for a few months. Today I decided to put the pot on after coming home from the range. I casted up 234 rounds from my LBT 180 grain .358 mould. Water quenched them. Casted from Wheel Weights.

Dried the bullets off and ran them through my Star sizer at .358. No sizing needed, just needed to put the LBT light Blue lube on the boolits.

Some time tomorrow I'll load them up with 4.0 grains of Solo 1000. This bullet will shoot 1 inch groups from my Smith 627 when I mount a scope on it. I get 1 1/2 to 2 inches on my 686 from the bench without the scope.

All I want is hand held groups of 2 - 2 1/2 inch at 15 yards for the type of shooting I do that's 1/2 the X zone.

[Three-Fifty-Seven]

Yesterday I did some MiHecs 434640 Round HP, and I had modified one of the pent pins to make a smaller diameter and shorter pin, and smoothed up the bottom to clear up a ridge on the flat points . . . so I cast some of them too!

I also cast some more of MiHec's H&G #68 . . .

Not too hot . . . actually pleasant in the morning in the shade of my carport in the low 70's, warmed up to the mid 90's in the afternoon when I went out to shoot them! But it is a dry heat!:mrgreen:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2PnriGeGnb4

[Good Cheer]

Yesterday was the Lee 30-170 flat point for case forming loads and the Lyman 452484 hard ball profile GC design. Used wheel weights with a touch of #2 babbitt and the collected pot skim from from melting down scrap lead. Somehow ended up about 4% lighter than wheel weights.[smilie=1:

[cajun shooter]

The outside temp was 95 and inside my shop with a tin roof it was 110. We have a ways to go before we reach the good weather. It was 67 at 6:00 am so I told my wife I would get upon the roof of our travel trailer to replace a few wore out vents. I did not finish the job as the humidity was at 90% and by 11:00 I could not breathe.

[Grapeshot]

Over the last couple of weeks I've had the chance of getting in three days of casting in. The first day I cast up a bunch of Lee .40 TL 175gr bullets, followed by a bucket full of Lyman 200 grain .30 caliber bullets, both of which ended up as cores for my .45 caliber jacketed bullets for my .45 Colt Anaconda. On top of that I also cast a batch of .44 Lyman 240 grain RNFP's.

Day two continued to mold the .40 TL 175 grainers and ran two Lee molds throwing .452-255 grain RNFP's. Day three I was running the Lee.40 TL, Lyman.44 RNFP and an RCBS .45-250-RN. Now I'm almost out of lead. Any more casting will put me in the market for more lead.

[ChuckS1]

I cast 250 Lyman 452400 230 grain LRN boolits for my hardball M1911A1. Shoots really good with 8.0 grains of AA#5, into the 10 ring of an NRA B-8 target at 25 yards.

[Merlin43]

So ... I got to it before it warmed up and today was mostly cloudy, so I got about 500 Lyman 311467 (about 178 gr. .30 cal) Loverin design done.
Tomorrow, since I have to get up at 0500 to make breakfast, I will prolly swap to the Magma Eng. 158 gr. RNFP and get off another 500 for the Lady Smith.
Tuesday will likely be, if it stays a tad cool in the early morning, time to reduce a two-foot-something square slab of X-Ray wall to ingots. Oy! My achin' back. I can barely turn that sucker over, no way lift it, so it will be cut it into strips to melt.

[Rock]

Range scrap ingots were produced here this afternoon.

[jmsj]

Got a couple of hours of free time today and melted down 150 pounds of range scrap from a black powder range into ingots.
Got try out my newly built smelter and big ladle. Now just 300# of X-ray shielding and about 100# of jacketed/cast range scrap and I'll be caught up

[Papa Jack]

Sunday I melted down about 20 lbs of sheet lead and roof flashings, poured em into 1 lb. ingots. Bout all I got done. I used my coleman stove and it seemed to take forever, maybe I didn't have enough surface contact in the pot to get it to melt and flow.
I gotta get out the weed burner and fill up a propane tank, get the cast iron pot and get er done..
"papa Jack"

[thx997303]

Yesterday I cast up 25 lbs of the 350 gr ranch dog boolit for my 45-70.

Course 25 pounds is only a bit over 500 boolits.

Gotta get my 9mm molds out and cast up a few of them now.

[captain-03]

97 here over the weekend -- BUT I really need some 38s cast-up in a bad way. Got about 1500 empties sized and primed sitting here waiting!!

[sleeper1428]

Melted down a couple of over half full 5 gal buckets of clip-on WWs plus another half full 5 gal bucket of stick-on WWs plus another 1/3 full 5 gal bucket of old fishing sinkers. Poured everything off into 1lb ingots and ended up with just short of 130 lbs of ingots, all separated by source and BH, labeled with permanent marker and stored in 10X10x3 heavy cardboard boxes. Only about a dozen more 5 gal buckets left to go now ... oh, my aching 72 year old back!!

sleeper1428

[Silent]

Just finished pouring out the last of 95 pounds of wheel weights into 1 lb ingots. Once they cool, I'll mark em with a sharpie and toss em in the WW ingot bucket.

Only about 150 lb more wheel weights to sort through, and a full bucket of stick-ons to melt too. Another day tho :)

[reloader28]

Oops. I didnt know that there was a casting season. I've been casting all summer in my swamp coolered man cave trying to keep up with all our shooting.

[lwknight]

I did do a little smelting. I took a 35 pound sample of washen berm ore and it yielded 26 1/2 pounds soft lead with a little antimony in it. Not bad for 10 minutes of picking up slugs off the top of the ground.
I would have gotten a lot more if I had picked up the slugs ( we had a big rain earlier that week ) before I tore up the berms with 4 of us having too much fun.
By my unscientific estimates , there should be around 10.000 pounds in the berm thus far.
The berm is about 1 1/2 years old.

[captaint]

Weather was so nice (high of 77) I had to go out & cast about 400 H&G 130's. What a beautiful day!! Mike

[MakeMineA10mm]

Melted down a couple of over half full 5 gal buckets of clip-on WWs plus another half full 5 gal bucket of stick-on WWs plus another 1/3 full 5 gal bucket of old fishing sinkers. Poured everything off into 1lb ingots and ended up with just short of 130 lbs of ingots, all separated by source and BH, labeled with permanent marker and stored in 10X10x3 heavy cardboard boxes. Only about a dozen more 5 gal buckets left to go now ... oh, my aching 72 year old back!!

sleeper1428

God bless you, sleeper!!! I hope when I'm 72, I'm pounding out boolits from my WW stockpile still!! :drinks:

[rockrat]

Lets see, cast some Lee 45-300's, some 7mm-150's, some fat 44's and some 311440's. Probably 400 boolits total, maybe 500

[mustanggt]

Last weekend cast from a new Lyman 311299 mould for my 03A3. Had a hard time getting it to release the boolits, so I'll try kroil. Smoking didn't do any good. Also use RCBS 38-150-kt for my various 358 cal handguns. Week before cast from a Mountain Mould 250gr Keith and some NOE 230gr 5 banger for my .45 named LaQiuta (went to school with a girl by that name) because she's big and black!!! and an old Lyman Thompson boolit mould for my M27 .357. Having a heckuva time with tendinitis in my left elbow so am playing through the pain. Been hotter than Hades here too but I have a portable AC unit on wheels that makes it bearable in my garage. Going to load up some of the 311299 boolits and shoot them in my new to me 03A3 this weekend.

[Dale53]

This is one summer, in spite of the heat (one of the five or six hottest summers on record, they say) I have cast bullets all summer.

This week it was a pot full of 240 gr LBT .430" RF. That amounts to a little better than 600 bullets. I then sized and lubed them with Lars' Carnauba Red, now neatly boxed, labeled and stashed...

Now, I am eagerly awaiting the new MiHec four cavity brass 45-270-SAA mould. I'll have to run several pots of those, no doubt.:drinks:

Dale53

[Leadmelter]

I had time for two 3-4 sessions. I did over 1k of 357 bootlits 150 gr, about 300 170 gr, about 300 44- 245gr and about 500+ 180gr 44 WC for 44 Special.
Back in the flow and I forgot what a pleasurable time in solitude casting boolit with nobody complaining about the smell and where is daddy/husband.
By the time the snow flies in MI, I should have a bunch of boolits to size and reload for the spring.
Thanks for this website and all I have learned here!!

Gerry
MI

[Freischütz]

About 10 lb of 452423.

[AzShooter]

Just spent an hour in the garage and casted up about 500 rounds from my LBT 180 grain mould. A friend saw my bullets last week and told me to make my pot hotter so I increased the temp 50 degrees.

I also let the mould sit in the pot for 30 minutes as it heated up. I had no rejects. Previously I'd have to throw back the first mould or two.

[Bullshop Junior]

Nuttin :mrgreen:

[a.squibload]

Me too, nuttin'.

But I did make a burner for my melt pot project:
http://i1222.photobucket.com/albums/dd487/a-squibload/burner.jpg
Think I made the holes too big (1/8") but when it warms up they make a nice blue flame,
plus a lot of yellow flame above that.
Think I need more holes, will make 'em 1/16" maybe.
Trying to decide how to regulate the air mixture, if I hold the jet about 3/8" from the end of the tube
it burns a lot better. Maybe drill holes and make a slider out of alum. can to cover 'em.

Also heat-cycled my 2 new NOE molds, 429421 and 358429.
Can't wait, also have a Hoch 335gn 44 WFN mold, got it years ago, still virgin.

And worked on the car.

[Patman]

Spent the morning casting 535 grain Postells. Ran out of lead, but I ended up with 450 boolits.

[59stude]

Casted about 1400pcs Saeco #377 boolits from my 5cav mould with 1/3 lino/stickon lead mix.
Nothing beats starting with a N.O.S. mould, just clean it, pre-heat it on top of lead pot and start pouring perfect boolits over and over again.

59stude

[home in oz]

Worked today. No casting.

[wallenba]

Running low on alloy, been casting everyday the weather permits the last two weeks. Today 400+ Lee 240 gr 44 SWC's. I need to get stocked before the snow falls as my set-up is in an unheated garage. Carpal tunnel is rearing it's ugly head too.

[splattersmith]

Today, I cast my fly rod, a 0 weight 7 foot Orvis that casts like a dream. No frost, its 94 degrees. Does cause ripples on the surface.

A few days ago 300+ 411 Steve Brooks Postells came out of the hot garage for the 40-65. A problem mould until it was polished and the sprue plate was relocated to the center of the base. Took a while but it now drops excellent boolits. I just can't shoot them ever - since the wife got ahold of the 40-65. Oh well, at least she enjoys the shooting and helps with the reloading.

[jmsj]

Finished this season's smelting. 300 more pounds of X-ray shielding. All total in the last two weeks we have smelted over 1000 pounds. Got to introduce a 25 yr. old to smelting, he thought it was really interesting. Had three young people over to shoot pistols and rifles and eat BBQ. Fired over 400 rounds, they said they had a blast.
Glad to have the smelting done, now time for more bullet castings.
jmsj

[blikseme300]

I was bored this afternoon and decided to do some casting. Temperatures are not yet below 80* here so it was hot work. I do appreciate my melting pot and PID though. I cast 43lbs of 356-120-TC using a modified Lee 6-banger. This mold drops the boolits at .358 and I lube-size them to .357 in my Star. My CZ's thrive on this boolit.

Here is a pic of the yield.

[crabo]

Nothing, I had to clear my casting bench, which is at the end of a work table, to sand and refinish wood trim for the bedroom.

I am going to build a permanent casting setup with storage below the pot, and a place for the hotplate to warm up molds. I have a bunch of wheeled carts that were used for bread deliveries. It is a base that is about 22x22 and the bread trays stack on top. It will also roll out of the way when you want to sweep the garage floor. I have just been waiting for it to cool off here to start another garage project.

I also have a gung-ho friend who I am going to teach to smelt, now that the weather has broken a little. He says he wants to learn to do it all. What better place to start than smelting WWs and lead flashing?

[a.squibload]

Wallenba: I heard of a stretch for CTS, don't know if it's legitimate.
Make a fist, squeeze and hold, release. I don't want to know if I have it, sometimes lots of typing hurts but it seems to be up a ways from my wrist.

Now I will sit back and wait for all the recommendations to stop typing so much!

My wife had me pick up a table frame (I guess) from a friend's house, trash men wouldn't take it.
Top is maybe 2½ x 4 feet, all 1½" square tubing, 8 legs, tabs with bolt holes at bottoms of legs (???).
Pretty strong, I figure to reinforce it and stick a non-flammable top on it,
leave one corner open for a grill and burner to put the pot on.

Or take it to the scrapyard, we'll see.

[Moonie]

Yesterday weather cooled off considerably, rain storm. Temps dropped from low 90's saturday to upper 60's. Had to cast, .22 bator's, 358 keepers. That small mold seems to have more rejects than the larger boolits I cast. Perhaps some .30's this evening.

[Shiloh]

Cast two weeks ago.

Lyman 314299 and Lee .452 TLSWC. About 600 pieces of each.

SHiloh

[Merlin43]

Yep - Temp today is *1/2* what it was a week ago, so the Magma machine is heating, as is the Lee bottom pour. I'll be dipping for the SAECO 265-F91 4-banger to make .45 ACP and button pushing for whatever else I'm getting a bit low on, prolly 9mm and .30 pistol. I think I have enough heavy stuff for now. Well, since it's melted, may be just a few hundred .44 for the carbine and, since Mama shot up a bunch of .357 this weekend, ...

Shucks, might as well cast till the ol' bod decides it's o-beer-thirty! :D

[Papa Jack]

I did nothing but clean and degrease moulds most of the day....Seems I'd get a good looking boolit ,then the next one had monkey faces and wrinkles..
Lee moulds that I usually don't have trouble with , but today was not a real good day for boolit production.
Alloy was a concoction of mostly junk, and the boolits came out harder than little puppies nuts, I couldn't scratch em no way. So I added some sheet lead ingots, still hard as a rock.
I just poured some .44 caliber REAL bullets and used up most of the pot full and threw in more sheet lead, the batch seems to be a little softer now and still filling out the moulds, dropping out real good . Alloy temp is a little over 700*f...
I cleaned the moulds I was using and degreased em and re=smoked the cavities, I'll try em again tomarrow..... "Papa Jack"

[x101airborne]

Been playing with my new Lee 6-pot 44 cal 240gc mold and my 7/8 oz 12 ga slug mold. Got about 200 12 ga and 750 44 bullets. The Texas heat has finally come down to bearable. Now for ducks, then deer.

[zuke]

It's been dropping to just below freezing here but it got up to 13c today so I finally got around to casting up some 180gr. out of my new LEE 2 banger.
I've been spoiled by my 6 banger.

[Ole]

12lbs of RNFP 44 200gr

Took about an hour once the lead was melted. I was cooking today. :mrgreen:

[MakeMineA10mm]

I made some of these today, testing out the new swaging die from BT Sniper:

http://www.castboolits.gunloads.com/picture.php?albumid=404&pictureid=2756

[XWrench3]

FINALLY! today i got to go play with the silver stream for a while. i cast up a couple of hundred 40 cal pistol boolits, and about 100 of each of the following" 30-30 150g flat nose, 30 cal pointed gas check, 460 ranch dogs, and about 500 45 acp 230g. rn. i dont actually count them. i guestimate. that is close enough for me. when they get low, i just go cast more. that, is a wonderfull feeling.

[captaint]

Yes I did.... Poured up 180 keepers from the Mihec 200 gr 452 HP. Took me a while to get er up to temp - should have cranked up the hotplate. Once I got everything happy at 750 things went pretty well. Beautiful boolits. .4525 to .453. Perfect. enjoy Mike

[Tazman1602]

OH MAN! I thought I was the only one! The bulk of my casting is done in Dec-March but I was tired of hauling wood so fired up the pot.

Cast a bunch of BRP's .462-420's in PB, GC, and GCHP for the 45-70's then went on to cast a bunch of NOE's .432-265's for the .444!

What a relaxing, pleasurable way to spend a few hours! WOO-HOO! 45-50 temps are finally here after a BLISTERING summer up here in Northern Michigan! Even had to fire up the shop heater and took wife out to the shop for some liquid refreshment later on!

I almost never cast for quanitity, always quality. Just like moving wood...........one piece at a time and it will get done if you work at it a bit each day. Soon I'll have piles of bullets to load for everything again!

Art

[bigjake]

I cast a big lead hammer. I use them to beat the snot outta things when i dont want to mess up a steel part.
after awhile the head gets pretty mashed up, so i just toss it in my smelting pot and pour away, right around the same pipe handle. :D
I made this mould out of a piece of pipe split in two

[blaser.306]

I cast 400 noe .44 300/330 gr solids and 190 7/8 0z lee shotgun slugs for a start !

[Silent]

Ya all are gonna make me go fire up my pot! I'm running low on 356-125-R boolits.

[justingrosche]

Yesterday was 311359 for another member "Boolit swap." Day before that, Ranch dog 432265. Tonight, uh... 280468, I think.

[Three-Fifty-Seven]

This afternoon I cast up a bunch of MiHec's 434640 both round hp & solid, also a bunch of MiHec's H&G #503 with the pent hp . . .


[smilie=s:

[Silent]

Yup, ya got me. Just casted out 10 pounds of 356-125-R for the 9mm. I can see a 6 banger mold in my future.

[Good Cheer]

Well, my better 2/3's said she wanted some practice loads for her 7 so here's what I'm doing tomorrow.
http://i791.photobucket.com/albums/yy192/SNARGLEFLERK/287308.jpg
Got it here on the forum a few days ago and got Erik Ohlen to redo the pin hole, make a new pin and top punch and true up the uneven tops of the blocks and fit of the warped sprue plate.
Boy did he do a nice job! These blocks are twice good as Lyman dreamed of.
Home made boolits and bread hot out of the oven.
Life is good.

[kbstenberg]

Today i did a few .311- 165gr for testing for expansion. Yesterday was the same bullet with a diferent alloy. Now to wait a week an see which gets the nod to kill my next deer.
Kevin

[AZ-Stew]

Just spent a couple hours with my grandson casting 311284s. I should be up to about 200 of them now. Just got the mould last Friday. Bought it for the 1917 "Enfield" I bought at the Mesa gun show a couple of weeks ago (see the Military Rifles section, under My New MILSURP for photos). He's a few weeks short of 7 years old and poured his first ten or so after watching me. I held the mould while he operated the RCBS melter valve. Great fun!

Regards,

Stew

[Three-Fifty-Seven]

This afternoon I cast up some 434640 both HP & Solids, and also some H&G 503's . . .
http://i153.photobucket.com/albums/s220/ShawnTVT/Guns/TodaysCasting.jpg

[ghh3rd]

If I had responded to this yesterday I would have said that I cast about 110 405gr 45-70 from a Lee mold. They dropped to small for me to use - I should have checked some before I went that far. I lapped out one cavitiy and made it better, but not perfect, and cast about 60 from the first batch. Shot them today over 40 gr IMR 3031 and haven't checked for leading yet, but have my fingers crossed.

[phaessler]

Was a good day today.... 200 of the 462-420GC's, 200 of the Miha 434640 ( solids and hollow point, almost 300 of the Miha 359640's(hollows and solids) , 100 or so Lyman 358311's, and a test run of a yard sale find a Lyman 429398 They look like trash cans from a public park, barrels with 1/2 balls on top, we'll see ) .... Gotta love fall....

Pete

[101VooDoo]

Small pile of these - Saeco 325. Hard to get a big pile of 95 grainers.

First cast from a brand new mold.

Jim

[59stude]

Have been playing around with a few of the group buy Lee´s this summer.
Yesterday I did about 17 kilos of .454-260 Lloyds Smalles 45 mould for my Bisley Blackhawk and have done thousands of 358-156 PB Dual-Crimp and and Light .357 (358-123) from groupbuys honcho by Warf and also thousads of .311041 both GC and PB from groupbuys honco by Garandsrus.
With a little Lee-menting, some Bull Plate Sprue Lube all my Lee moulds works good with boolits falling out easy,sometimes only need to give it a gentle wack to help them out.
So thanks to this superb site with members that have knowledge to share, casting and reloading is more and more fun.
Now I will go to my garage/casting room and cast the last of my clean ww into nice shiny boolits, then put away my casting equipment for this year and start to get ready for my back surgery so I hopefully soon can walk again without using sticks.

59stude

[Jbar4Ranch]

Buncha ~340 grain 56-50 boolits cast from a modified Lee 515-500-F mould.

The one on the left.
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v93/jbar4ranch/100_4174.jpg

That's all so far today, but it isn't even noon yet...

[toddrod]

3000 k LEE 175g TC for my 40 S&W

[qajaq59]

It finally cooled off enough down here that I managed to cast 200 .50 Cal Lee R.E.A.L. conicals and 50 RBs.

[BarryinIN]

I hadn't casted in a while, but did some the last two days. I casted:

First day:
H&G 34- From my big clumsy 8-cav mould. I don't use it often, and set everything up just for it when I do. A little effort doing that, and I get a pile of bullets so I don't have to use it for a while.
And after that, a few from the Saeco 383- That's an odd looking 9mm bullet that I never thought would work, tried on a whim, and found my guns like it.

Next day:
More from the Saeco 383
RCBS 30-115-SP- For the .30 Carbine.
Lee Soupcan- Because I can always use more soupcans.
Lyman 225415- I tried a few in the .221 Fireball rifle and they did OK, so I made some more to try in other things.

[Silent]

I just broke in my Lyman 311041 mold by running about 10 lb of 30-30 rounds :lovebooli

[fryboy]

ingots !!!! well ok i cast them last nite before bed but ... i needed to alloy up as i was runnin low 70# 50/50 ( ww/pb) , 70 lbs #2 and 30 #'s pure

today i hope to cast a shadow ;)

[casterofboolits]

300 pounds of water pipe. Got another 300 to 400 pounds and a 5 gal bucket of WW on the way. This was in addition to 380 pounds of 50/50 range lead/ww and 55 pounds of lino/tin ingots. L/T to be used to adjust the 50/50 mix to throw correct boolit weight.

[shootingbuff]

About half a pot of the LEE 158 RNFPs and about a hundred of the Lyman 45 225s.
Meant to cast more but the LEE mould was new etc and got a call from my brother talking guns.

Then went to lube the RNFP and remembered I was out of lube for the Lyman/RCBS L.Ss and I don't have a push through sizer in 358.

Guess I can not put off getting some C.R now lol

sb

[winelover]

Tried out the Mihec 45-270 SSA HP today. Ran a 20# pot full. First time with a hollow point mould. Sprayed pins with Frankford Arsenal "Drop Out". Thankfully! I used Cabine Tree locking mould handles. BTW, my RCBS handles work also. May use them next time cause that brass 2 cavity mould together with the Cabine handles is pretty heavy. I can't imagine what that 4 cavity brass monster is gonna weigh. Found it necessary to run the Lee 20 at maximum temp. Couldn't even add the sprues back to the melt cause it cooled the alloy enough that the bands were starting to round. With my custom alloy, the penta HP's averaged 271 grains (unlubed) while the solids were 288 grains. Diameter was spot on at the .454 as advertised. Didn't cast any of the cone shaped HP's. Maybe tomorrow.

Winelover:castmine:

[Three-Fifty-Seven]

Hasn't anybody been casting?

Cast some more of the MiHec 434640, both hp's and solids, plus some MiHec 359-140's
http://i153.photobucket.com/albums/s220/ShawnTVT/Guns/IMG_0001-1.jpg

[Leadmelter]

I did two pots in the RCBS, 44-260 gr SSK and some Lyman 235gr 44. Got about 20 lbs done in two hours. I have three 4 cavity molds ready for the next session.
Back in the groove and relearning the old tricks.
This fun!

Gerry

[Tom W.]

I got to cast last Monday. I made some Lee 452-228-1R for my .45 and some Lee C430-310 RF for my Super Redhawk.
I didn't need to cast, but the urge hit hard.....

[Muddy Creek Sam]

375# of ingots.

Sam :D

[Kskybroom]

I did a little over two pots of Decoy Wiegths
Worm up for 240 44s Tommorow
Then smelt more range scrap...

[shootingbuff]

Half a bucket of WW into ingots. Meant to do a second half bucket but a friend stopped over and the wife cooked lunch. I hate to re start after stopping for a while and especially after eating, so I policed up the casting wagon.

[Evil Dog]

Getting rid of my 600 pound pile of wheelweight 200 grains at a time... Lyman #452460.

[Trey45]

This morning I cast 10 pounds of Mihec 40-160 penta pin hp's, in todays mail I got the Mihec 9mm-125 hp mould, I just finished up casting 10 pounds of them, using the penta pins. It's easy to cast a bunch at a time when you have good molds that have superlative casting qualities.

[mold maker]

I was too busy to even cast a shadow today. I'm cleaning up after having a 49" oak cut. The butt cut has 143 rings.
Man where did all that sawdust come from???
Next is the splitter, and stacking.
It doesn't look like I'm gonna cast or shoot for a while.

[home in oz]

I was working out of state.

[a.squibload]

Nothing, again, BUT
I welded the rebar stand, need some braces, one leg needs heated to adjust angle.
Also welded the ring on the propane bottle melting pot after drilling holes in it.
Won't be long...

[JeffinNZ]

About 400 each 31133 HP and 225462 HP. Twas a great day!

[zomby woof]

About 500 311299
About 300 TL358-158-SWC

[vp146b4]

Had a good day, cast 325 45/70, 457191, with a single cavity Lyman, wanted to cast enough for the coming Single Shot season. Use them in my Trapdoor, indoors, with squib loads. Now just need to pan lube and load. Have a 20# bottom pour pot, but found dipping for the 45's made a much better bullet than using the bottom pour. I think the head of the 20#s causes the stream to hit the bottom of the mold too fast, this causes the grooves not to fill out, so dipping works best for me.

[home in oz]

I do HAVE good intentions to cast really soon....

[Silent]

Just cast a few 311041 rounds 50/50 WW/Lead to try out a softer boolit. I may even make a hollow point jig and HP a few of em.
http://i179.photobucket.com/albums/w318/NAA_Silent/2010-11-06-193855.jpg

[RP]

http://i244.photobucket.com/albums/gg31/Ricky1965/Genral/1111031.jpg
One of my mihec moulds love the way they cast.

[liljohnnie]

Ain't they purdy
http://i332.photobucket.com/albums/m324/liljohnnie69/Reloading%20Bench/100_0200.jpg
http://i332.photobucket.com/albums/m324/liljohnnie69/Reloading%20Bench/100_0194.jpg
On the bottom are a few (maybe 700 or so) 225gr .452dia LRN from my Lyman 452374 DC. It was one of those casting sessions that required little effort,ya know when the mold is the perfect temp and your tempo is perfect and the little silver beauties are just jumping out of the mold like they're scared of it.[smilie=w:
On the top are some (perhaps 1000 or so) 120gr .356dia (more like .358) TC boolits from my Lyman 356402 4C.
I didn't do them all today but it was a good day at the casting bench just the same.:castmine:

[Moonie]

511 Mihec 200Gr 45 HP's, was a busy morning.

[thx997303]

Cast about 300 460-350 ranch dogs the other day.

I'm running out of lead though. :sad:

[qajaq59]

l I just melted down 40# of roofing lead to try out my garage sale turkey fryer. Works great.

[LAcaster]

Just ran a pot full of WW/pb in my 358156 gettin ready to weigh them out and sort the culls. They'll have 15grs. of 2400 behind them by next weekend:mrgreen::Fire:

[Cherokee]

Cast 500 of the Lee 3561250TC and 300 of the Lyman 356402 for the 9mm & 38 Super.

[101VooDoo]

Cast up some Saeco #458 .45s. Nice boolit, great mould, just a couple cavities short....

Also some Saeco #068s.

Jim

[melloairman]

Lyman 311252 droping at .314 , 81.5 grains with 12 bhn lead . Marvin
http://i301.photobucket.com/albums/nn55/melloroadman/IMG_6671314815grains.jpg

[MakeMineA10mm]

Wasn't today, but I've not been on-line in a few days...

Cast up a few hundred of my 9mm Slippery 135s and a couple hundred 41 RBs with a mould borrowed from fellow board member dcp. They came out beautiful, but no times for pics right now either....

:killingpc

[qajaq59]

Well, another 50# of w/w turned into ingots today. Little by little the buckets are getting emptied.

[Bwana]

Got through cleaning the carpet and fired up the Lee 20lb. Cast 1100 Lee 102gr .356 and 850 Lee 125gr 2R .356. Now if they would only run themselves through the lubrisizer I'd be all set. Oh well, I am going to cast some more of them later this week and, probably Thursday, melt down the 500lbs of ww I picked up from my father-in-law on 10-30. Vacation week and doing what I like.

[Shiloh]

700+ .452 LEE TLSWC yesterday.

SHiloh

[frkelly74]

I turned some dirty old reclaimed shotgun slugs and other scrap into some nice new looking ingots. They stack a lot better that way. I sent some off to Lafaun to get another mold. It's a vicious cycle.

[Rock]

230 lbs of ingots!!

[Shooter6br]

Tried tofix my Lee dripo matic . Got a nice lead drip sculpture

[MakeMineA10mm]

Tried tofix my Lee dripo matic . Got a nice lead drip sculpture

[smilie=l:

Does it look like a tall stack of silver-grey pancakes?

[qajaq59]

I just turned a bucket of w/w into 65 lbs of ingots. Lots of steel and zinc in that bucket. But it was a cheap one so I don't mind.

[Bwana]

Today, 800 of the 102gr and 700 of the 125gr. Tomorrow the 500lb of ww into ingots.

[mold maker]

I was so sore this morning from splitting wood, that I couldn't even cast a shadow.

[JJC]

500lb of ww into ingots. I thought I had a good day today when I poured 61 lbs

[468]

I smelted 2 buckets of wheel weights into "cupcakes" 2 weekends ago. Then cast about 300 225 gr .45's and 500 155 gr .40's. Weather is perfect for this stuff!

I had a FULL bucket of steel, zinc, and valve stems when I was done smelting.

[Bwana]

Ok. I was a little optimistic on my total bucket weight. It was a total of 455 lb. Four hours later I have 342 lb ww ingots, 36 lb stick on, and there was 77 lb of zinc,steel, and dross. I had paid $90.00 for the lot. That's 378 lb total of lead at 26 cents a pound. brings the total ww ingot on hand up to 1900 to 2000 lbs. Pure on hand around 700 lb. I might just slide by.

[qajaq59]

500lb of ww into ingots. I thought I had a good day today when I poured 61 lbs I'm like you JJC. If I get a 150 lbs done over a couple of days I'm happy,

[Ole]

I smelted 14# of (mostly acid core) 50/50 solder into 47 1900 grain ingots today (perfect weight for sweetening 14# of lead with 1% tin).

I thought for sure someone was going to call the fire dept. :lol:

[Dale53]

I am a "Certified Old Fart" and physical prowess is NOT my middle name. However, with a thirty dollar Bass Pro Fish Fryer and a Harbor Freight $25.00 six quart dutch oven, I can easily do 250 lbs of WW's in an hour and a half. My brother and I, last year, smelted 650 lbs of large ingots (62-92 lbs each) into smaller, usable ingots in an afternoon.

It doesn't take expensive equipment to do good and efficient work. Smelting is one part of the casting/reloading cycle I dislike (it's just flat SCUT work)! So, I want and NEED to be as efficient as possible, cause I pretty much HATE it:mrgreen:.

YMMV
Dale53

[No_1]

I cast about 2k of the Magma 35-158 RNFP and sized ~2800 of the same that I cast 2 weeks ago. 2 more K of this one and I will be set for 2011![smilie=w:

Next on the list is the Magma 45-250 RNFP to feed my 45 colt desires. Got to get the casting done while the cool weather cooperates.

[lawboy]

110bls of ingots.

[Bambeno]

Cleaned up about 60 pounds of pure lead into ingots. Need to cast some bullets this weekend. lol

[MakeMineA10mm]

From 9:30 to 11:30 this morning, I made these:

86 Lyman 358430 (133gr SWC):
http://www.castboolits.gunloads.com/picture.php?albumid=179&pictureid=2901

123 Saeco #315s (175gr):
http://www.castboolits.gunloads.com/picture.php?albumid=179&pictureid=2899

151 Lee 356-102 RN:
http://www.castboolits.gunloads.com/picture.php?albumid=179&pictureid=2900

322 Lee 401-175 TC:
http://www.castboolits.gunloads.com/picture.php?albumid=179&pictureid=2902

Made all these off of one pot of alloy without returning sprues. Had some issues with screws and handles on several of the moulds loosening up and needing tightened, but nearly 700 bullets in two hours after culls isn't bad. Also got rid of some old odds and ends of alloy and melted down my first 40 lbs or so of old lead shot. Thought I was going to have to add some tin to the pot, but after stirring with the wooden stick, scraping, and a light flux, the pot was shiney silver on top, so I just got to casting. Boolits were just falling out of the moulds, for the most part... If it wasn't for stopping to tighten screws and dealing with some two-cavity moulds (the 380 bullet and the Lyman 430 moulds are both two-cavs), I would have really pounded out the volume. The 300+ 10mm boolits were cast at a fairly leisurely pace in the last 40 minutes of casting, while all the others were cast together (rotating moulds) in the first 80 minutes. Shows why the 6-cav. moulds are so much better than the smaller ones...

[Ben]

I been doing some real nice shooting with the 311290 Cup Points in my Ruger # 1, 308 Win., stainless. Thought that with winter on the way, I better get out on a 73 degree day and " put a few back ". I'm hoping to kill a white tail with this load.

Ben

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v494/haysb/PICT0005-20.jpg

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v494/haysb/311290%20Hollow%20Pointed/PICT0009b.jpg

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v494/haysb/028.jpg

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v494/haysb/027.jpg

[desteve811]

Ben can you post a pic of your 308 and a loaded round? Very impressive groups.

[Dale53]

Ben;
It appears to me that both YOU and your RIFLE are really "doing the job"!

A whitetail should not present a problem to you or your rifle.

Nice bullets!

Give us a follow up when you connect.

Good Show!

Dale53

[9.3X62AL]

HIJO LA, Ben! I'd say you found The Load, all right. Best of luck afield with that.

No recent casting, but I do have some nice Lyman #2 ingots I'd like to try out. I've never poured that alloy previously, and want to give a melt-and-pour sequence in a couple of my more balky moulds--#311252 first. Its dinky drive bands don't fill out well with WW metal or 92/6/2 alloy, I get about 15% reject rate due to rounded/unfilled bands. I'm hoping the 5% tin will resolve that issue.

[HATCH]

Today was my 3rd time casting.
I used a Lyman 4c 358 mold (sorry don't have the mold # handy)
In 3 hrs time (includes putting everything out on the picnic table, heating up 9lbs of lead and putting all back up) I cast 340 perfect boolits and 8 rejects.

I am extremely pleased with that mold. It really makes you want to cast more when you can put out 4 perfect boolits in 40 seconds. Well that was what I was doing right before I quit.
5 seconds for sprue to cool, 5 second wait - dump the boolits, wait 15 more seconds and start again. That was roughly the plan. I did stop every once and a while to put the sprue cuttings back in the pot and the puddle I made under the melter (I cast at a slit tilt to the right and a slit tilt down)
I start on the farthest away from me and worked back towards me.

I had to quit because my son came home and didn't want to take a chance with him.

[keeber]

Last Sunday I smelted 40#s of we ingots from my dwindling ore and tomorrow I plan on testing a Lee 430-240swc with about 500 boolits. Just got my first 44 magnum and it can't wait to feed.

I still smelt on a Coleman stove and Dutch oven set up and ladle cast from the top of a hot plate... Maybe the wife will talk Santa into the lee production pot I wrote him about.

[MakeMineA10mm]

Today was my 3rd time casting.
I used a Lyman 4c 358 mold (sorry don't have the mold # handy)
In 3 hrs time (includes putting everything out on the picnic table, heating up 9lbs of lead and putting all back up) I cast 340 perfect boolits and 8 rejects.

I am extremely pleased with that mold. It really makes you want to cast more when you can put out 4 perfect boolits in 40 seconds. Well that was what I was doing right before I quit.
5 seconds for sprue to cool, 5 second wait - dump the boolits, wait 15 more seconds and start again. That was roughly the plan. I did stop every once and a while to put the sprue cuttings back in the pot and the puddle I made under the melter (I cast at a slit tilt to the right and a slit tilt down)
I start on the farthest away from me and worked back towards me.

I had to quit because my son came home and didn't want to take a chance with him.

Hatch,
Sounds like you're on your way! I was having one of those days yesterday too. A good lesson is to not give up on a mould til you experiment with it. That Seaco rifle bullet mould I was using was my first rifle mould (that I've owned), and I was having fits getting good boolits from it when I used it before. Yesterday, though, it seemed hard to get a bad boolit out of it. I rejected quite a few for rounded/incomlete corners at the base, but usually it was just one bullet every few casts... Play with alloy and temperature before giving up on a mould. Sounds like you got that 358 mould figured out already though!

[zdogk9]

I ran a 240 15 amp circuit to my shop for my new Lee twenty pounder, then cast 15# of RCBS 150 gr. SWC and 100 or so 160 grain boolets for my 32 special and paper patched 30 of them.

[Fixxah]

After spending months finding a little time here and there framing my room and getting organized I was able to cast my first boolits in over a year.

2.400 Lee TC 230g .452 from a 6 cavity mould. It took a while to get into a rythym but went well after that. The same boolits as in the album photo. This was a guestimate based on over 80lbs. of WW ingots.

Can't wait to get my 459122 from the group buy to load for my Contender.

My math might be a little skewed. Is it 7k grains/lb or 4k/lb?

[AzShooter]

It was real nice today. Rained. So instead of going to the range I turned on the pot, heated up my 180 grain LBT mould and sat down for an hour and produced just over 1000 bullets.

I'll take my time and lube them later in the week. I now have 2000 that need to be lubed.

[adrians]

used 323470 ,cast only 50,just to try it out, (I LIKE IT ).
then finished off the session with 457124 ,,,good day was had by me .:twisted::?::twisted:

[That'll Do]

Recently bought a 2 cavity Lyman 452374 from eBay. I had my fingers crossed that it would cast decent boolits (after hearing a good number of stories about undersized boolits), and it was my lucky day! The mold drops .453" boolits at 230gr with my alloy of wheel weights plus 2%ish tin for fill-out.

Cast about 300 boolits, and I plan on doing more tomorrow. I might also break out the Mihec H&G 68 tomorrow too. You can never have enough 200gr SWC's for 45 ACP.

[rockrat]

Cast some 850gr boolits for a guy to try in his 50-70. The 5 pounds of alloy he sent for me to re-form into something usable, didn't go far. 40 boolits from 5 pounds.!!

[That'll Do]

Cast some 850gr boolits for a guy to try in his 50-70. The 5 pounds of alloy he sent for me to re-form into something usable, didn't go far. 40 boolits from 5 pounds.!!

Wow! Now those are some BOOLITS!

[DABL]

Well we casted and lubed about 2000 45 cal 200grain RNFP today. We are new to Cast Boolits and this is our first post. So hello Cast Boolits.

[oneokie]

Cast some 850gr boolits for a guy to try in his 50-70. The 5 pounds of alloy he sent for me to re-form into something usable, didn't go far. 40 boolits from 5 pounds.!!

Wow! Now those are some BOOLITS!

Those aren't boolits, those are ingots.

[MakeMineA10mm]

Well we casted and lubed about 2000 45 cal 200grain RNFP today. We are new to Cast Boolits and this is our first post. So hello Cast Boolits.

Hello DABL. Welcome to Cast Boolits! This is a great place to watch, learn, and lend advice to others.

[badbob454]

using my lee 2 cavity molds i cast 200 makarov bullets 148 308 170 gr fp bullets for my 308 and my bator 22 cal cast @ 3-400 .225 55gr bullets and my arm is tired from striking the sprue plate to cut the sprues water quenched and tested at 20 bhn from ww and added tin cast these on sunday and tested them today worked nice now to load some subsonic , and normal .223 ammo for plinking , by the way the bator .22 pours real good exellent fill out hardly any poor casts .. got it from mids0uth shooters hope i can post that , im kinda new here in this forum

[MakeMineA10mm]

Hi Bob, and welcome, in case nobody did already.

You can certainly share where you get special-order moulds. It's not a commercial - It's giving a tip to fellow casters!! ;-)

[kbstenberg]

Now that Deer hunting is over I can get back to a normal schedule
Today i cast 200+ .311041 an about 500 432423's that will go with the other 3years supplie. Its just too fun casting.
Kevin

[Shooter6br]

100 Lee 230g 45ACp TL. Pan lubed 100 41mag HP 210 grainers. (Emments lube) :holysheep And played on the internet..................

[Down South]

About 400 358429's last night and sized/lubed them.

[357shooter]

Well we casted and lubed about 2000 45 cal 200grain RNFP today. We are new to Cast Boolits and this is our first post. So hello Cast Boolits.Welcome and hello, this is a great place to share and to learn.

Last night I cast 350 358429's (NOE group buy mould) and another 350 this am. Hope to do more tonight.

Does it mean anything when the best Friday & Saturday nights include casting, lubing or handloading?

[2wheelDuke]

I haven't cast anything today, but I did some casting last night.

I converted some angle iron ingots that I bought here with my Lee ingot mold. The big angle iron ingots are about 2.5 pounds and don't really fit in my pot, so I kinda lower them in with a channel locks until some melts off. That's not convenient when the alloy gets low during casting, where the small ingots slip right in. So now I'm melting down some of the big ingots in advance so there's less screwing around with ingots when I cast.

I had to test out some molds, one new to me and one that's kinda been on the back burner while I lee-mented some others.

My 358-158SWC-TL never ran that great. I think part of the problem was my own inexperience when I got it. After studying up here after my problems, I have a small fleet of Lee 2cav molds now. I took over a Lee 452-230TC mold my dad bought and never liked. I cleaned it up and lapped it, and it's one of my favorites now.

I've been water dropping the boolits from it, but I wanted to try some air-cooled so I made up about 100. I also made 50 air cooled 401-175TC's and water dropped about a hundred of them. I've got a .401 Lyman 450 die on the way, so I figured I better pour up some boolits to have cured and ready for it.

Finally I got a Lee 365-95-1R mold a little while ago. It looks pretty rough inside, like there was some tool chatter. I decided to cast some up and leave some to lap the mold with. Considering the visual appearance of the cavities, it does much better than I'd expect it to. I cast up a couple dozen boolits from it to test as I try to hone out a sizing die for the .365's.

Lots going on, and not a bad session of casting by my standards.

[MakeMineA10mm]

Does it mean anything when the best Friday & Saturday nights include casting, lubing or handloading?

Yep, means you're normal for around here!! :lol:

[Mal Paso]

1250+ 429421s Lymans sorted in the tubs, NOEs on the bench. Looked too much like Pirate Booty not to take a snapshot.

[a.squibload]

Looks good!

Don't forget to wash up after you run your fingers through 'em chanting
"Mine, all mine! HAHAHAHAHAAA!" .:)

[x101airborne]

Finally got off my como si yama and broke in my new to me redding - saeco 44 cal plain base 260 gr. rnfp today that i won off ebay. all 4 cavs throw .432+ and weight variation is around +/- 1.2 gr. Acceptable for me. Now if I can just make that plate screw stay......

[Trey45]

I finally broke in my new Lee 6 cavity 125gr 9mm 2R mold. I cast about 22-23 pounds worth this morning. A random sampling of 12 boolits gave me measurements of .3585 to .359, with weights of 130.5 to 130.7 grains. I've had the mold for a few months and finally got around to using it today.

[Merlin43]

OK - today was 1200 158gr. .357 Mag. jobbers for my sweetie, sized .358, lubed with local mix (approx SAECO Gold) from an alloy of 85.77/3.86/9.57/0.8

[LAH]

I cast up some of these:
http://i612.photobucket.com/albums/tt206/RobS01/45LFN.jpg
.454 297 grain double crimp groove FN

That's one nice picture..............Creeker

[LAH]

Cast these today.

20 pounds of MP 45-270-SSA.
http://i66.photobucket.com/albums/h244/Creekerpics/Loading%20Room%20101/Bullets/Picture013-1.jpg

40 pounds of Lyman 429421
http://i66.photobucket.com/albums/h244/Creekerpics/Loading%20Room%20101/Bullets/Picture012.jpg

On the scales.
http://i66.photobucket.com/albums/h244/Creekerpics/Loading%20Room%20101/Bullets/Picture032.jpg

[RobS]

That's one nice picture..............Creeker

OK Creeker how are these? I just cast up a few hundred of these two designs this evening.

.455 300 grain LFN style boolit
http://i612.photobucket.com/albums/tt206/RobS01/455-300-LFN.jpg

and .455 340grain LFN style boolit
http://i612.photobucket.com/albums/tt206/RobS01/455-340-LFN.jpg

[LAH]

OK Creeker how are these? I just cast up a few hundred of these two designs this evening.

.455 300 grain LFN style boolit
http://i612.photobucket.com/albums/tt206/RobS01/455-300-LFN.jpg

and .455 340grain LFN style boolit
http://i612.photobucket.com/albums/tt206/RobS01/455-340-LFN.jpg

Great, which alloy.................Creeker

[RobS]

Straight WW

[qajaq59]

I cast 1,000 Lyman #311041 for my 30-30 this week. Just sat in the shop for 5 days, taking it easy, and cast 200 each day. This is a great hobby for retirees!!!

[Leadmelter]

I did about 23 lbs of 124gr 9mm and 160gr 357. Outside it was 25 but in the garage it was a bout 45. I got into the flow and everthing was working fine and tunes on the radio were good.
Done for a few months, time to ramp up the reloading gear and put out some rounds after Santa.
HO HO HO

Gerry

[RobS]

time to ramp up the reloading gear and put out some rounds after Santa.
HO HO HO

Gerry

So is the jolly ole man in red and white going to be dodging lead when he arrives at your home :lol:[smilie=l::bigsmyl2:

[casterofboolits]

30 kilos of H&G 68's.

[maximus]

i cast 9mm 125 grains Lee 2-Cavity Bullet Mold TL356-124-TC, i made 120 , from wich 85 good, the rest going back to the pot.

[Hardcast416taylor]

I fired up my large homemade dipper pot with straight wheel weights and cast up a nice pile of my new/customised RCBS .416 cal. 350 gr. hollow pointed mold. I cast about 7 or 8 lbs. Since it was below freezing and I am still ill with the flu I quit early. After culling, I wound up with 75 good 344.6 gr. bullets.Robert

[357shooter]

Just cast 500 LBT 140 grain FN for my 357. This is a group buy mould from LBT, wow. What an awesome mould.

Now to the range.

[reloader28]

300 RCBS 160gr 30 cal, 300 RCBS 185gr 30 cal, 100 Lee 445gr 500 S&W. Those 500's are a pain to keep the mold cool. They also put a nasty dent in the ingot bucket.:cry:

[watkibe]

I broke in a new mold today, a Lee TL358-1582R. It's the first round nose bullet I have ever cast for a handgun round: the 357 Maximum. After smoking the mold blocks, the first bullet was wrinkled, so I tossed #2 on general principles. Boolit 3 was perfect, and away I went. Sure is nice to use a new mold !
I haven't shot any yet. I will be shooting it in a rifle with a 22" barrel, and sparking it off with CCI small rifle primers. I don't use GCs in handguns, and this boolit won't take one anyway.
I need to find a mid-range load to prevent leading and am having trouble tracking any data down. All the data is for 296, H110, AA1680, H4227, and 2400, and are all high velocity loads. I emailed Alliant for data for Unique, which is the powder I use in all my magnum handguns for nice midrange loads. Hope they respond.
So, that's what I cast today !

[Bwana]

Thirty and three quarters pound of Lee 102 9mm boolits today. Should be about 2050 as they end up at 104gr. Three hours with two cavity mold. Will do another three hours tomorrow with the Lee 175 40cal. Give me something to do (lubrisize) during the cold spell next week.

[stubshaft]

Ideal 225450. Trying to work up loads for Bullshop's 22 match.

[GLL]

Just 50 of these for a friend ( non-HP versions)!

Jerry

http://www.fototime.com/F2B9D5B8B8FEF9C/standard.jpg

[dodgyrog]

1000 .303 Brit 151gr

[Bwana]

Cast 44&1/2 lbs of Lee 175 TC. A little over 1700. With what I did yesterday that should keep me occupied for a while. Also received my Montana Gold order of 1000 95gr .380 FMJ.

[deltaenterprizes]

Some 00 buckshot, about 10 lbs.

[Hastings]

I cast just shy of 1,000 .45 ACP with a Lee 2 cavity today in freezing Canadian temperatures. Keeps the mold cool so you can keep a fast, steady pace. I've already tumble lubed and laid them out to dry on wax paper for sizing tomorrow.

Since I've been reading this forum for so long (and casting from info I got from it) I figured I may as well finally join and say hi.

[45nut]

Welcome aboard Hastings!

[223Pitbull]

Today was my 1st casting session……….(100) 9’s, (100) 40’s and (30) 480’s. I packed it up early because it looked like rain. No need for the tinsel fairy to show up on the 1st session.
One word………..ADDICTED:-D

[Hastings]

Thanks 45nut! I like your nick :D


Today was my 1st casting session……….(100) 9’s, (100) 40’s and (30) 480’s. I packed it up early because it looked like rain. No need for the tinsel fairy to show up on the 1st session.
One word………..ADDICTED:-D

Rain was the least of my worries today. I have my setup in the garage just nearly under the door opening with a fan, and I watched snowflakes gently fall the entire time I was casting. They weren't going into the casting pot, partly because of way the air blows from the fan. But from previous experience I've found out that a few snowflakes here and there falling into your pot don't cause lead explosions or do anything particularly interesting at all.

[jbelder]

100 or so Lyman #358345 115gr SWC!

[shoot-n-lead]

120lbs of ww's into 92lbs of ingots. Have more ww's to do, but I was lazy today.

[Dale53]

Jerry;
Again, those are BEAUTIFUL bullets and well photographed.:drinks:

Dale53

[fryboy]

i lost count :P it was nice here today so i went thru 4 twenty pound pots and 3 ten pound pots , mostly 452-374's and some lee 120 grain tc's in 9mm/.358 , a few various .401's and about 70-ish 358095's , i have a feeling tomorrow i'll be sizing ;)

[Jal5]

Had a short window of opportunity this afternoon and cast a bunch of boolits for my CZ82 using the Lee mold 95 gr. 365-95-1R .

[*Paladin*]

Ingots today. About 100# of WW's and 20# of range lead. Still have 150# more lbs of stick-on WW's to smelt, but like shoot-n-lead, I got lazy...

[LAH]

Welcome Hastings!

[shootingbuff]

Poured a few 245KTs for a friend to try out. He used to be somewhat leery of cast, but over a yr he might be starting to come to the silver side of things. Plus he is a cheap bastage and I have told him what I can cast and load for. I already got a buddy that works with us scouring the country for WW for me. This second buddy I have taught to reload and he is loving reloading and the savings which of course he shoots up ;-)

Hide sight I should have took the time to empty the pot, but I thought I was in a hurry to get all the vehicles fueled up and the gas cans filled. yada yada yada

[reloader28]

Last night it was about 600 Lee 158gr FN 358.

The night before it was about 300 RCBS 257 120gr SP and about 300 RCBS 243 100gr SP.

Today will probly be more of the Lee 358's as it is too cold to go outside. Tempature is holding right at -20* right now. Hopfully the wind dont blow today like it did yesterday.

At least I've been getting some casting and sizing done. Unfortunatly, its too cold to work on gun loads. I keep busy feeding the woodstove.

[Ole]

About 5lbs of slingshot ammo. :mrgreen:

http://i258.photobucket.com/albums/hh280/Ole1830/IMG_5427.jpg

No lube or sizing necessary.

[Shooternz]

Just received a new mold from Accurate molds a .32 wadcutter cast about 700
cute little boolits.

[stubshaft]

A couple of hundred of these. I just got the muld back from Lee this morning and wanted to try it out.

[Ole]

16lbs of RCBS .40 200 grain SWCs.

:mrgreen:

They came out a little smaller than I wanted .3995-.400", but at least I won't have to size them.

[Ole]

9.5 lbs of Lee 125RNFP's

http://i258.photobucket.com/albums/hh280/Ole1830/Bullet%20making/IMG_5432.jpg

[Floydster]

Ole, what dia. do these bullets drop at.
I want to get a bullet for my 38 Super and sizing down to .357 and was thinking of getting this mold. Nice pile of bullets by the way, really look nice.
Thanks for input.
Floydster

[Ole]

Ole, what dia. do these bullets drop at.
I want to get a bullet for my 38 Super and sizing down to .357 and was thinking of getting this mold. Nice pile of bullets by the way, really look nice.
Thanks for input.
Floydster

My mold drops .360" boolits for the most part. Alloy is water dropped 1/2 WW 1/2 PB.

I shoot them as cast in my GP100 or size to .357" for my SW model 59.

I've made a LOT of boolits with this mold and it is one of my favorites.

[Floydster]

Ole, thanks, sounds like a winner.
Much appreciated.
Floydster

[Silent]

I shoot them as cast in my GP100 or size to .357" for my SW model 59.


You just made my day! I shoot this same round in my 9mm and was planning on shooting it in my GP101 .357 when I get it :mrgreen:

[waksupi]

Ole, what dia. do these bullets drop at.
I want to get a bullet for my 38 Super and sizing down to .357 and was thinking of getting this mold. Nice pile of bullets by the way, really look nice.
Thanks for input.
Floydster


Floyd, if you size down to .357, they will most likely be too small.

[BOOM BOOM]

HI,
2pots of 180 gr. 357 boolits. OH YEAH.:p:p:Fire::Fire:

[desteve811]

Couple hundred 230grain 45's for my 1911

http://i1218.photobucket.com/albums/dd410/desteve1981/4feee285.jpg

[Ole]

I did 12.5lbs of Lee 158 TL SWC's for my GP100 today.

I had everything all set up for my Lyman 358091 (just got it the other day), but gave up on this mold after about an hour. The boolits were sticking in the mold something fierce.

So now it's soaking overnight in MEK. I hope that gets whatever crud was making the bullets stick in there out.

[357shooter]

Today called for 10lbs of 360-200-SWC, the first pic. yesterday was 10lbs of 357-446 from and old Lyman mould bought on eBay. That's the second pic.

http://i878.photobucket.com/albums/ab341/prgallo/100_1989.jpg

http://i878.photobucket.com/albums/ab341/prgallo/100_1983.jpg

[Moonie]

Yesterday I cast about 10 lbs of 8mm Karibiner and 170gr Lee 30 cal.

[MakeMineA10mm]

A couple of hundred of these. I just got the muld back from Lee this morning and wanted to try it out.

Stubs,
How did the re-worked mould turn out? (I know there's another thread for these new Bator's needing fixed, but just curious.)


To the rest of ya: WOW! Great pics! The weather is breaking here, and I'm hoping to get back over to the casting shed soon. Snow's about half-gone now, but the ground is so wet, our grass is nearly swamp-like! I'm sure by sometime in March, I'll be good to go!

[stubshaft]

Not too well unfortunately. I posted a thread in the mold section. Apparently they (lee) changed the design of the nose and increased the diameter. This made it mandatory to seat the boolit base below the shoulder. The very worst part is that it was so danged easy to cast with!

I'll try the boolits in my 222 as that has a longer neck to accomodate the deeper seating.

For the time being I sent it to Felix to play with for a while.

[thx997303]

Just this last saturday, I cast up 750 of the 350 gr ranch dog for my 45-70.

I now have 1000 for storage and a few for loading.

[Jech]

Poured about 150 boolits from a new Lee 175gr TC mould for a buddy's XDm40. It was being very stubborn and refused to drop properly filled out specimens til we switched to a pressure-pouring method...then we got some of the prettiest boolits I've ever produced =D

[Moonie]

Not too well unfortunately. I posted a thread in the mold section. Apparently they (lee) changed the design of the nose and increased the diameter. This made it mandatory to seat the boolit base below the shoulder. The very worst part is that it was so danged easy to cast with!

I'll try the boolits in my 222 as that has a longer neck to accomodate the deeper seating.

For the time being I sent it to Felix to play with for a while.

I've sent them an e-mail and have been trying to get through to them for a couple of days to see if I can get this taken care of with mine. Shooting the AR-15 with this new design is impossible and since this is my only 22 cal rifle it makes the mold useless.

a .225 nose is not what I ordered or paid for, the drawing clearly shows .220 which would work very well.

[a.squibload]

Nothing, again, BUT
finished my stand and burner, fired it up and heated the pot with a few WWs in it,
they melted!
The label on the outside of the pot (ex-propane bottle) burned and stank, but it was windy today.
Made a few modifications, could do some more, but heck it works.
Now need a long-handled ladle, & might make some ingot molds.
Oh yeah, and a hanger for the thermometer, shoulda got a longer stem, this pot is deep...A.

[stubshaft]

432 of the 225462's. Still trying to get either my K-Hornet or 219 Wasp to print decent groups for Bullshops match. Time is running out...

[Ole]

Ingotized the last of my roof flashing this morning:

http://i258.photobucket.com/albums/hh280/Ole1830/Bullet%20making/IMG_5434.jpg

Great to get it into ingots, but it sucks that I have no more to smelt.

[a.squibload]

Couple hundred 230grain 45's for my 1911


Friend of mine just started reloading for 45, paid $30 for 100 J-word bullets.
Sent him a link, he looked at your pic.
Might have a new lead addict!

(He doesn't have a reloading bench yet, so he sized and primed 300 45acp cases
by holding the press down on a table with his other hand.
I think he's hooked!)

[skeet1]

I cast about 100 each of Lyman 452460 and Lee 358-105, two very good bullets.

Ken

[NuJudge]

We had a warm spell in SE Michigan yesterday, and I cast about 1500 .40 Lee tumble lube bullets. It'll probably be another 2 months before I have warm enough weather again.

[zardoz]

Everything was clicking just right today. Beautiful weather outside, and did some chrono work on 357 Magnum snub nose, and also GP-100 with 6" barrel. Finally got my gamma chrony printer up and running, and figured that out after sitting a bit with the instructions.

Anyway, back on topic. Cast 196 beautiful 358-158 grain Lee RF boolits today. Water quenched them, and for some reason, it was all clicking just right. Had a few ingots of some excellent clean WW I smelted a while back. Added a bit of 60/40 solder. Pot temperature just right. Rhythm on the perfect.

First time I've used bullplate on the sprues and locators, and that stuff is just great. Boolits were just falling out the mould, right into the bucket. Just cut the sprue with gloved hand, and tilt the mould open over the bucket, and they fell smoothly out.

Took a look later at my castings, and all were right at the point between shiny and light frosting, and all were sharp edges and excellent fill.

This is the best I've ever done to tell you the truth. Stars were in alignment.

[Three-Fifty-Seven]

http://i153.photobucket.com/albums/s220/ShawnVT/Guns/IMG_0006-1.jpg

[curiousgeorge]

Saturday was a beautiful day here in central Kentucky. Temperature in the upper 60's.

I cast 358156, 358477, 429421, and 452454, all Lyman 2 or 4 cavity moulds. My lead ingots are old, old wheel weights with just enough 50-50 solder mixed to approximate the Lyman #2 alloy. My 358156 weighed 158, the 358477 weighed 155, the 429421 weighed 248 and the 452454 weighed 255. At the very end of the runs I broke in a new Lee 2 cavity .45-70 405 grain mould and cast about 50 of these. They weighed 408 grains. Of course, all the bullets did not weigh the same, but these were the averages.

I was running 2 pots - an old Saeco 20 lb and a Lee 10 lb, both bottom pourers. To the left side of the 2 pots is a large wooden box that the sprues and rejects go in. To the right side is another larger wooden box with old towels in the bottom for padding that I drop all of the good boolits in. I start with the big pot and 2 heated molds. The Lee has 2 molds sitting on top also heating with the lead ready to pour. About half way through the Saeco I start casting with all 4 moulds. When the Saeco is almost empty I put the sprues and reject back in it and finish filling with ingots. Then start with the Lee pot and all 4 molds which are used in a rotation. When the Lee is almost empty, sprues and ingots go back in and the Saeco is ready to start pouring again. Back and forth, back and forth until I have cast all I want. None of the 4 moulds ever get either too hot or too cold. After 6 pots of lead ( 3 each ), I have a box of boolits that I can barely pack. It almost filled 4 large plastic peanut butter jars, plus the .45-70 boolits.

Steve

[Blackhawk45hunter]

A little over 300, C309-170-RF for my 30-06 and 100 452-200-RF for my blackhawk

[Silent]

Casted a couple hundred .358-125-RF 50/50 to test out "as dropped" in the .357. The last batch was all sized and those worked awesome in the 9mm but leaded pretty bad in the .357.

[HammerMTB]

Just ran a small batch of .432-300GC Lees. They cast up real purty, and I'll heat treat them tomorrow.
It was all going so well it was tempting to grab another mold and make some more, but it's a spring day and there's a lot of chores to do...

[BarryinIN]

Not today, but yesterday and the day before I did some casting for the first time in months. I have back trouble, and it got worse for a while. I had another surgery, and I am just now getting back to mediocre again. Hurting pretty good today, though.

Here's what I cast the last two days:

Lyman
356472, a couple hundred
358480, maybe a hundred
358156, 100-125
358429, maybe 30
429105, 100 or so
429421, 100

RCBS
410-210-SWC, around 70. First time using this mould.

Saeco
388, about 120
383, about 150
115, around 300-325

Lee
429-113-WC about 60. First time using this one.
429-208 WC, about 75
432-265 RF Ranch Dog, about 50

H&G
275, about 110

Rapine
408190, about 75. First time using this one too.

[Jech]

Fired up the pot last night to break in my new 3xGC/3xnon-GC Ranch Dog TLC311-165-RF. Cranked out a good 300 boolits total with very few culls, gonna get 'em lubed and sized tonight!

[truckboss]

Yesterday,Pulled out my 6 cavity H/G #68.Cast about 1500 boolits,the mold was firing on all 6 cylinders.I had to stop only because my back was hurting a little.I can't believe this is the mold i wanted to sell:confused:anyways will some one please kick me in the a-- for even having that thought.