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You forgot the lead…

Actually, I’d start with a certified bullet casting alloy, despite the much higher cost vs scrounged lead, tin and hardeners: it eliminates a set of variables as you go...

So you mentioned a casting time availability issue.

I’d go for more cavities: you’ll get 50% more bullets per pour with a slightly longer cycle time (more hot lead in the mold and sprue means the...

Then maybe some other factor I don’t recognize accounts for my results.

I shoot gen 3 9mm Glocks with cast sized to 0.357”. The same rounds, loaded on a SDB, worked in all of them, with the single exception of the replacement “Marksman” barrels, that require a slightly...

From personal experience, a half 20# propane tank pot will hold 250# of lead, if level, and leave enough space above the melt for careful fluxing, skimming and ladling without spillage from sloshing....

Opened the door, turned on the light, stared at the mess on my bench, then turned right around, turned out the light and shut the door.

Naw, I sorted brass.

Wow, my stock is mostly VV powder, some of which is more than ten years old, but I’ve never had any powder go bad on me (stored costly in moderate temperatures and humidity).

I agree with BMI on...

Not the same problem but I had very stubborn galling on a brass sizing carbide ring. It took diamond paste on an oversized bore pellet spun VERY BRIEFLY on an electric drill to remove, and a second...

I can confirm that my HiTek coated 147 gr 9mm bullets get more velocity from a given powder charge if they have a lube groove vs similar designs of same weight but slab sided. I also assume that’s...

I have noticed that brass that’s been sitting with caked on mud or in puddles on our range (gravel base, sand berms) will often get purple areas in a pattern matching the mud covering or partial...

Gold painted lead strikes me as more convincing (so long as some wise guy doesn’t test the density).

At the moment I use just one alloy, so no need to empty the pots (one feeds the other).

That’s because at the moment I cast just one bullet.

I cast ingots at my club. If I had a dollar for every time somebody said, “Too bad that’s not really gold”, I could buy the real thing!

ETA: It occurs to me that if I did have real Redneck Gold...

I went through the same learning curve.

Appalachian, kudos for researching manufacturers and production dates to maximize Sn and minimize Pb per dollar spent, but I think most hobbyist casters...

I got advice here to shoot for a mold temp around 400° (I actually use 420°). A K type thermocouple inside a cavity lets me know the blocks on my coil hot plate have done the job. The hot plate...

No other markings on the ingot? Maybe a home mix rather than a commercial product?

XRF analysis would turn it from a hope into a certainty.

I shot irons most of the time in action pistol, and my basic prescription contact lenses correct my dominant/aiming eye to front sight distance and the non dominant eye to distance (infinity). I can...

Same here. Years ago I brought in some scrap cartridge brass, asked if they had any lead and was taken back to where that had old lead pipe and sheet. On the way I tripped over a pile of high tin...

Bearing metal (a version of Babbitt?) seems a good bet, but what percentage of tin and lead i don’t know (some are 90+% tin and others around the same percentage of lead).

If you can’t find a...

I’ve read those instructions, three times I think. That’s what I started out following, and it’s all good advice.

I’ve also read the massive HiTek thread three times. That’s where Joe Ban, the...

Action pistol shooters can easily go through 30,000 rounds a year. That’s around 600# of alloy to make my 147 grainers, and I like them to all be made from the same alloy, preferably the same lot....

Runs directly contrary to the advice given by the inventor and producer of the HiTek coating, but then, what does he know…

Cartridge respirator works for me when I have really dirty lead. Impressive how the air goes from stinky and smoky to almost fresh smelling.

K type is what I use. It’s a pair of insulated wires ending in a small metal bead which is the business end of things.

I drill a small hole in the base of the bullet, insert the bead and wedge it...

Today at a grand opening (good luck to them!) a Turner’s Outdoorsman here in Northern California has Winchester and Federal pistol primers by the hundred running $86 to $90 (or Fiocchi’s by the 1500...