Another New Source for Lead

I have been a boolit caster for just over 50 years (yup, old phart). During that time I have cast for practically every firearm I have owned and that was a lot. Kept adding more molds, now have just over 200. Some common, some rare. Recently had an auction sell-off on the firearms and may be selling off molds sometime. My lead stash has gotten low. I recently decided to look through all of the older cast boolits I will not need and decided to melt these down into useable ingots. From this I have learned to be my own source for casting lead. Anyone else do this - melt down their "no longer needed" boolits to have lead for the molds that need to be used? This is something of a "waste not - want not" mindset. Anyone else ever do this?

I keep an old coffee can on my bench that I throw blemished bullets in. I has added up over the years.

I've done it. Commercial cast .30 and .32 boolits that weren't bad, but I bought molds that shot better.

When my cousin got out of reloading, he showed up at my door with a truck full of bullets. There was probably 200-300 pounds of old lubed bullets, and many boxes of jacketed bullets, some unopened. I melted the lead bullets, and sold off most of the jacketed ones.

I have never remelted good bullets. There is a lot of time into making them so why waste them?

But I have never had 200 molds either.

When I sold guns and had cast bullets left for calibers I could not use them in, I would sell or trade them off. Lead is worth $1.25-1.50/lb. Cast bullets about $1/lb more.

Yes, I have done it. Not very often but I have.

I do as well, in fact I have 2 coffee cans of lubed boolits to melt into ingots, and another 3 coffee cans of unlubed boolits that are ready to go directly into the Lee furnace to make more boolits.

I have a variation on the theme: a stock of commercial cast bullets I got before I started casting, now a back up source of alloy.

I could use them as is in a pinch, but they’re hardball alloy, in calibers or types I don’t use anymore. I also have plenty of pure and tin I got on the cheap that I could mix it with to make my preferred 95/3/2 alloy, to cast into the bullets I prefer these days.

I do it all the time...flawed/damaged/pulled boolits, boolits designs that just didn't work out for one reason or another, boolits that I no longer have guns for, etc. Right now, have active bids on two lots of unsized/unlubed boolits (a total of 60-some lbs) from an estate on an online consignment auction that, should I get them, would be prime candidates for 'repurposing'.

If I had a bunch of already cast bullets available, I would borrow or buy a new gun to shoot them rather than destroy them!

When my first marriage was winding down, I'd cast a bunch of boolits,
then throw them back in the pot and cast them again.

The boolits were fine, I just didn't want to go back in the house.

And unlike the marriage the lead got cleaner and better with each casting. Yup, been there got the support check receipts to prove it.

I've only done this 1 time that I can recall. I had a 20 gauge shotshell box of Lee .457 500 grain bullets I had cast up years ago. They had never been sized or gas checks installed. I decided that I'm unlikely to shoot them since i only used them in the 460 Weatherby and I haven't had it out in a long time. I dropped them in the pot and turned them into some kind of handgun bullet just a few weeks ago. Other than this I don't think I've ever remelted good bullets. Too much work to make them.

I wind up getting a LOT of dud rounds and other people’s unwanted reloads. I would never shoot them so I pull them down for the components. Powder goes on the plants, the primed brass gets reloaded. Boolits that get damaged in the pull-down process, or that don’t amount to enough to load again, go into the ‘to be melted’ bucket.

This past Friday was a busy day. I had already divided my boolit stash into 2 groups - those to keep "as is', all the others to melt. I have 3 Lyman ingot molds and used them to collect my new melted alloy. Started the day with some pure lead and poured that into "cornbread stick" profile to avoid mixing them with WW alloy. Then the fun began and ran for about 6 hours. While stacking the new WW ingots I counted 190 bars with an average weight of 1 pound each. Got a bit tired and bored but got this project finished. Then I decided to cast some boolits to replace those that had been used up earlier. The mold is a Lyman 429625 2-piece arrangement. One mold casts the base from hard lead, the other makes the nose with soft alloy. Only the base mold was offered on an Ebay auction and very few people showed interest in it. I saw an opportunity, bid and won it. The front of the cast boolit is a huge cavity to accept the nose casting. My goal was to mix half and half WW lead with pure lead. When these boolits are seated in a 44 Special case they look impressive. I have named this the "yawning HP" design. Many years ago my wife and I were traveling through New England and stopped at the Charter Arms factory in Bridgeport, CT. They introduced me to their Bulldog in 44 Special. I talked about that revolver so much that the wife bought one of them for me that year at Christmas, still have it and always will. The Bulldog and this mold made friends long ago and still are. Aside from restocking my ingot stash I also have a bit more room on my work bench for the cans of already cast boolits. Now I just have to hang around long enough to run through these ingots.

I just melt the ones that end up in rejects or ones I had to pull, all gose in a tub to be melted down . Otherwise I only cast what I need . Save the alloy for when I need more for what ever it is needed for. I do not melt good bullets that I have.

If I needed lead I would certainly do as the OP did.

As it is I have about 150 lbs of COWW that needs to be alloyed, another couple hundred pounds of alloy ready to go plus Lino, and pewter to add as needed.

Between the Covid and advancing age I am not shooting near as much. My air rifles let me keep the itch satisfied and everything tuned. Cost is less that 1.5 cents a shot. And I can do it in my basement with a trap made from a garbage can and old bath towels. Works for me.

Yes, I have had bullets cast for guns that went down the trade trail.
The bullets went back in the pot to be repurposed.

I haven't but I would if my ingot supply ever got low enough, fortunately that has not been the case yet!

Yup, I have a few coffee cans of cast that were lubed/sized, ready to load.
THEN I discovered powder coat.
No gooey boolits, less smoke when shooting, can push them harder.
All those went back into the smelt; lemme tell ya, smelting raw whatever, dump a bunch of lubed in, best flux ever !!!

I have a difficult time melting down any perfectly good cast bullets. you never know what firearm and reloadable brass might make its way to you next. in fact the only cast bullets I have ever melted down were a couple big ziplock bags full of 38 wadcutters coated with alox that I found scattered in the scrap yard that had sand stuck to them

Now this only applies if you have a property you can shoot on but the one great investment i made to maintain my lead supply was to get a bullet trap. I'm planning on making a bigger one some day with a better lead recovery system.

Over some years, I filled a 5 gallon bucket, with piles of random cast boolits and round balls that I picked up at gun shows for pennies. It melted into ingots just fine.

I’ve bought reloading tools, equipment and lead in lots (usually estate sales) that almost always have projectiles I’m not going to use. Since I didn’t spend time casting them and the projectiles weren’t even the reason I made the purchase, I have no problem melting them down.

I tend not to cast a large amount of bullets I am not sure I will need. So while I have melted small quantities of bullets I no longer need, it is far from enough to keep me shooting something else.

One of the worst casting mistakes I made was to cast a pot full of pure lino into 240 gr. for .44 mag. How could they possibly not work. Well, they didn't shoot for squat, but they're all sized, lubed, and gas checked and it just hurts to melt them into something else. Maybe when I run out of lino I'll have to use them.

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Originally Posted by dondiego

If I had a bunch of already cast bullets available, I would borrow or buy a new gun to shoot them rather than destroy them!

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You my friend are getting close to needing an intervention!

My bench has a small loaf pan for culls and pull downs, that pan gets dumped into the smelting pot when I melt down drippings, dross, and dibby dabs from bottom of the pot. Have three 5 pound slabs of that mixed lead under my bench. If it gets up to 20 pounds I'll melt it all together, get it tested and use it.

The loaf pan along with a babbitt ingot weigh down the base a powder thrower is mounted on. So it works as a weight until it becomes casting alloy again.

all the time if I have a batch that has been sitting there for ever
I melt them down and cast into something I am using at the time
cause I have molds for what I need
lead is meant to be reused and recycled again and again

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Originally Posted by RogerDat

You my friend are getting close to needing an intervention!

My bench has a small loaf pan for culls and pull downs, that pan gets dumped into the smelting pot when I melt down drippings, dross, and dibby dabs from bottom of the pot. Have three 5 pound slabs of that mixed lead under my bench. If it gets up to 20 pounds I'll melt it all together, get it tested and use it.

The loaf pan along with a babbitt ingot weigh down the base a powder thrower is mounted on. So it works as a weight until it becomes casting alloy again.

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I am referring to well cast, lubed and sized, bullets. I would just shoot them out of something! I am open to an intervention if you bring the beer.

I have a commercial size can from baked beans. Maybe twice the size of coffee cans. When it’s full I melt down all into ingots and mark them with a ? . I have a few of those ingots and if I run low on lead, one day, I’ll use them. Any culls when casting go back in the pot right away.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by dondiego

I am referring to well cast, lubed and sized, bullets. I would just shoot them out of something! I am open to an intervention if you bring the beer.

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What sort of fellow does and intervention and doesn't bring "refreshements" I'll snag a pack of fig newtons to make sure we don't starve.

If you find yourself with a bunch of good looking well formed lubed bullets you want to send to the berm I do hope you'll call, hate to see you doing all that shooting all by yourself, many hands make light work and all that.

I do a fussy inspection when I size or before I powder coat or size so end up with culls at the bench. When casting I watch for obvious culls and toss in the pot as previous poster does but don't really "inspect" as I cast. It seemed to break my casting rhythm too much.

We have a "Free to Good Home" table at my club. One day there were enough BP projectiles in odd boxes to fill 1-1/2 milk jugs (once I got them home). It was my lucky day. They couldn't have been there long because we have plenty of cast-booliteers at my club.

I have a couple hundred heavy 357 boolits that I would melt down if I knew how to recycle the gas checks. I hate to waste checks at 4 cents each