Casting airgun pellets

[Saint]

I just bought a Crosman 1377 .177 air pistol. This thing is mean. Pump action 600 fps is a very high powered air pistol. Anyway I always thought that air gun pellets were stamped out of lead sheets but I bought a tin the other day and found one that still had the sprue. Does anyone know if it is possible to get molds for pellets or otherwise make pellets.

[hornetguy]

It is possible.
I believe there was a group buy on a pellet mold at one time.

I'm sure someone that is involved with that will chime in here pretty soon.

The pellet mold was designed for the high-power spring-piston rifles, I believe... the ones that achieve about 1000fps or more. I thought about getting in on the buy, but didn't... now wish I would have.

[Harry O]

I have seen them on eBay a few times in the past. The few I saw were made in England. Don't remember what prices they brought.

[SwedeNelson]

Got one of the group buy Pamela Anderson Moulds
(Something to do with being to big.)

Have never used it in a air gun.

Use it in a .17 ack. hornet. (lots of fun in that.)

A little slow to cast with.
Takes some time to get a pile of boolits.

Swede Nelson

[Bent Ramrod]

If yours were regular diabolo pellets, it might have been some flashing from the die. Were they Chinese pellets?

I have one of those English .177 pellet moulds (can't find it now, of course, to check the maker's name). The blocks are cylinders of brass fitted together end to end, and there's no sprue plate. By dumping lead all over them, you can get maybe 6 out of 10 good ones, that fill the nose all the way. The pellet cavity is sideways in the mould, the nose going deep in one block and the base shallow in the other. They're mostly nose, a long spitzer with a flange at the bottom to take the rifling. You have to pull them out of the mould by the sprue with pliers and bend it off after it cools. This leaves a torn spot in the flange.

That said, they shoot surprisingly well in my Beeman P1 Magnum, and hit very hard. Perfect for Survivalist Airgunners. Pretty well made, if elementary.

[Saint]

They were actually just standard Crosman wadcutters. It was clearly cast. On a side note this Crosman American Classic 1377 is an awesome air pistol. It's weight and trigger pull are just about equal to my 1851 navy bp revolver. It cost 50 dollars and is easily worth more.

[andrew375]

The moulds had a manufacturers name of L.E.M. I've got a .177 and a .22. I've never had much luck casting with them, but it might be due to me being left handed as they have been used by several of my (right handed) friends who reported no problems. They were of a "sugar loaf" profile with a hollow base. Accuracy was superb in my Crossman 766 and the down range impact was considerably greater than with conventional pellets.

If yours were regular diabolo pellets, it might have been some flashing from the die. Were they Chinese pellets?

I have one of those English .177 pellet moulds (can't find it now, of course, to check the maker's name). The blocks are cylinders of brass fitted together end to end, and there's no sprue plate. By dumping lead all over them, you can get maybe 6 out of 10 good ones, that fill the nose all the way. The pellet cavity is sideways in the mould, the nose going deep in one block and the base shallow in the other. They're mostly nose, a long spitzer with a flange at the bottom to take the rifling. You have to pull them out of the mould by the sprue with pliers and bend it off after it cools. This leaves a torn spot in the flange.

That said, they shoot surprisingly well in my Beeman P1 Magnum, and hit very hard. Perfect for Survivalist Airgunners. Pretty well made, if elementary.

[Maxthompson]

I believe any extra pellet molds are probably now in Mexico. I Honcho'd that deal and the pellets wouldn't fit in some guns, too long. A fellow in Mexico turned them around and was getting great accuracy.

I've still got one or two I believe.

Mike

[hornetguy]

I KNEW I remembered a pellet mold group buy..

It was by Oldfeller... Like was mentioned, I think it was less than successful, which was unusual for Oldfeller's stuff.
He also did a heavy 6.5 swede boolit that was designed specifically for the Swede mausers. I have one of those molds.

[MikeP]

I have read on airgun forums that pellets are made from lead wire by some sort of punch machine. They make airgun pellets by the billions. Casting would slow things down considerably. On the airgun forums, they do talk about some Crossman pellets being produced less than perfect from time to time, and remark that dies need to be changed out when that happens.

[Dale53]

With Meisterkuglen match pellets available at the cost of $60.00 per 5000 I cannot see me trying to cast those tiny pellets. I shoot a good number of pellets and buy by the carton (5000). At the standard ten meters range, I can, from a bench with a scoped rifle put five shots through the same hole without enlarging it. That is not a brag but is common with match grade rifles (mine is an Anschutz CA 2002). The Walther's will do the same. In fact, I had a Match Grade Gamo side cocker that would do the same. You may have to use a different brand of pellet, although I have not found my rifle to be quite as "ammo sensitive" as my match grade .22's.

At any rate, since I ONLY shoot targets with my match guns (pistol and rifle) I see little need to cast pellets (in fact the thought makes me want to throw up).

Now, if a person is just of an experimental mind, that is a whole different topic. I was just talking in practical terms.

YMMV
Dale53

[StrawHat]

At any rate, since I ONLY shoot targets with my match guns (pistol and rifle) I see little need to cast pellets (in fact the thought makes me want to throw up).


Dale53

Great post, good thing I didn't have anything in my mouth!

[RU shooter]

after the past few threads concerning air guns lately I went over to my dads and dug out my old air pistol a Webley/ Beeman Tempest and started shooting it once again, I have one question though If we use lubed boolits at the same speeds in rifled barrels why arent pellets lubed ? Has anyone ever tried a very light coating of lube on a pellet? I think Im gonna try a very light coating of thinned LLA on some and see what happens accuracy wise.

[Slowpoke]

Last year I rolled some pellets in Jojoba oil just a light film, I had to lower my scope elevation two inch's to get back my 50 yrd zero, that worked so well I went a head and oiled the rest of the gun with it, what a difference, the rifle is a 1984 model Blue streak, I don't remember it ever running so smooth and quite.

good luck

[miestro_jerry]

They make cotton wads that you put some oil on it, Pellet Gun Oil, not 3 in 1. You shoot the cotton wad and the barrel is lubed for a couple hundred shots.

Jerry

[Dale53]

If you use lube in an air rifle, you run the risk of it "Dieseling" which can blow all of the seals. That can be an expensive lesson.

Bad idea, folks...

Dale53

[Morgan Astorbilt]

I shoot 10m International pistol. My gun's a Morini 162E, a Swiss PCP with electronic trigger. With target grade pellets, such as H&N or RWS, if placed in a vise, these guns will put all the pellets in the same hole at 10M, and the hole won't measure more than about 30cal. We commonly do this to test pellets for group size, before buying, which we do by the sleeve(ten tins). At 10m these pellets are so stable, that you can insert them into the gun backward, and they'll still go into the same hole. When I first started, I worried about accidentally inserting a pellet backward, and was told that it didn't matter. The last thing you want to do with these guns is insert a cleaning rod into the bore, which is not very hard steel, so I worried about having to push out a backward pellet.. We never clean or oil the bores on these guns, and when oiling the action, use a special oil, made for the purpose, which won't diesel or deteriorate the seals . They sell "cleaning pellets" which are felt pellets impregnated with oil, but they are of dubious value. I must have put over 100,000 pellets through my gun, changed seals twice, but haven't cleaned the barrel yet.
Morgan

[Saint]

With Meisterkuglen match pellets available at the cost of $60.00 per 5000 I cannot see me trying to cast those tiny pellets. I shoot a good number of pellets and buy by the carton (5000). At the standard ten meters range, I can, from a bench with a scoped rifle put five shots through the same hole without enlarging it. That is not a brag but is common with match grade rifles (mine is an Anschutz CA 2002). The Walther's will do the same. In fact, I had a Match Grade Gamo side cocker that would do the same. You may have to use a different brand of pellet, although I have not found my rifle to be quite as "ammo sensitive" as my match grade .22's.

At any rate, since I ONLY shoot targets with my match guns (pistol and rifle) I see little need to cast pellets (in fact the thought makes me want to throw up).

Now, if a person is just of an experimental mind, that is a whole different topic. I was just talking in practical terms.

YMMV
Dale53

Besides my airguns the only other thing I own is an ever increasing amount of muzzleloaders with the price for ammo and the rate of fire for these things it almost costs more to cast my own ammo but I think a good majority of the people on this site just simply because they can and they enjoy it.

[Dale53]

Just a comment for the sake of clarity;
I am a dedicated bullet caster and have cast ALL my bullets for handguns since I was a teenager (14 or 15 years old). That is well over fifty years of bullet casting. I have cast hundreds of thousands of bullets and continue to cast and shoot handguns and schuetzen rifles with cast bullets. In the interest of "complete disclosure", I have on occasion purchased in bulk, and used with excellent results, swaged HBWC's in .38 caliber for target use (also does quite well on "Bunny Wabbits" and other edible small game).

Using rifles, I cast for .225" to .458" (.22 Hornet to .45/90). Where appropriate, I use Black Powder, also (BPCR, Schuetzen Rifle, BPC revolver and muzzle loaders).

But-t-t-t, cast air gun pellets? I don't think so...

Dale53

[Bent Ramrod]

I found my mould, and, as Andrew says, it's a LEM mould and casts a hollow base modified, long nosed sugarloaf design. They are certainly more work to cast than regular boolits, about 3 x the effort from my short trial in casting them.

Benjamin air rifle pellets, for a time at least, had a sticker on the tin that said "Sized and Lubed." They had a thin layer of some kind of oil on the pellet, and, at least to the eye, were more precise in appearance than the offerings by Crosman, Milbro and others of the time. (This was before Beeman started his import business.)

At the speeds pellets travel up the bore, and the temperatures of the propelling gases, they should not need any more lube than the airgun mechanism sprays in there every shot. I would also imagine that the microscopic layer of lead oxide on the pellets lubes them in the same manner that "white lead" (a similar compound) lubes stock as it rotates on lathe centers.