What did you do in the reloading room today?

[AnotherNew1]

15# of pewter Ingots Gone!!!! Cast in Lee .530 RB Mold (Practice and Alloy Later). Yep first actual cast(ing) session. Now for those that are curious, the mold states 224gr Lead, but with pewter it turns into 148.2 to 151.1 gr, my highest and lowest of 15#'s, which i believe is just about ONE PILL per # of lead in the pot for that 2% Tin stuff i keep reading about. I know there's some other metals in there but i'm pretty sure it will suit my needs.

Questions (FIRST TIME CASTER)
I was very happy with the results except a couple things.
-I'm hoping its just the mold and the nature of the Beast but All my Balls can pretty much sit right where the sprue plate cut was made (Flat cut).
-I didn't seem to get a variety of shiny, or frosted results just a dull chrome? (Pewter Remeber). I Cast (on purpose from 525F to about 625F, and 550F seemed best(BUT IM NEW)) Just to get experience and see differences.
-Should i have tried cooler temps? Higher Temps? As the temp dropped it seemed harder to get Balls to drop out of the mold, and the hotter it got it was harder to clear the sprue plate (Pewter would become like glue)
- I know this is a $25.00 mold but i was thinking it would be great to learn with and yet have another end game at the same time.
-Just how similar will a Lead Based casting be to Pewter almost Tin Casting, A new Temp i know but in general?

Don't want to change the OP but if you have some comments please PM me (ALL HELP IS WELCOME, I'm learning from CastBoolits.gunloads.com, Books, a PDF on Ingot to target and I hate to say it YouTube, But i know of No-One that does this personally) Sorry to all for the Long post.

[Soundguy]

Need to find another crate to fill can't stop...
Attachment 198605
1 oz Lee slugs

I love them surplus wood ammo boxes ( any type )... make great.. well.. ammo storage.

[EMC45]

I measured out all my lumber/plywood for my new bench. Been 2 years about since I pulled the press handle and I am getting sick of not loading/casting.

[Soundguy]

Most I've done in a couple weeks is pick up a .375 round ball mold.

[Reverend Al]

Been under the weather so haven't done much in the reloading room for a while, but I went down and sorted out some brass, ss pin tumbled a bunch of brass, and pulled apart some junk ammo for the components. Next I need to fire up my Annealeeze and anneal a bunch of brass in various calibres. If I can find the energy I need to load some test ammo for a couple of recent purchases and then get them up to the range and shoot a few targets. (I went up to the club on Monday and finally shot my old Colt Army Special in .32-20 WCF for the first time with good results.)

[daloper]

Loaded up a box of .44 mag. I loaded up some bullets from my MP mold with the penta HP. PC with Smokes signal blue and loaded over 7 gr. Unique. I know it is a soft load but looking for something around 900 to 1000 fps. Will try to get out and shoot this weekend over the crony to see speed.

[ole_270]

Got bored yesterday so I fired up the lead pot and between yesterday and some this morning poured 1300 452-200 swc(H&G #68) from a Lee double cavity mold. At some point, there WILL be a 5 or 6 cavity mold for this bullet in my rotation!

[EMC45]

Got my plywood glued up and it's drying now. double thickness of .75in. Nice and thick bench top.

[ichthyo]

I started preparing to load the mighty 25acp. Got dies, brass, primers, and powder. Still need to find bullets. Hard to find online. Hard to find molds to cast my own.

[prsman23]

Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

[lightman]

Changed the dies out in my Lyman 450 and sized 500 or so 38 bullets. Started getting my 44 brass together for a marathon loading session, maybe in a few weeks.

[JBinMN]

Spent a couple hours making .45 boolits. TL-452-230 TC & 2R
Maybe couple/few hundred. Did not count yet. Still need to sort & look for culls after they cool a bit.


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ETA>>> 304 TC keepers & 276 2R keepers, 36 "culls"... Heck... I thought it was around 2-300..

They pile up fast when the flow is good.

[Bookworm]

Emptied my boolit trap out back.

Rendered down ~75 pounds of range lead into 1lb ingots.

Took about 2 hours, including setting up and tearing down the cooker/pot.

[Grmps]

Finished cleaning and oiling (lanolin/alcohol spray lube) 104 molds I don’t use often.

Printed Labels (mailing labels) for all the molds

I put all the Lee molds in labeled Lee mold boxes (you can buy them from Lee if you didn’t save them) and put the boxes in a large plastic milk crate

Took the handles off the rest of the molds, wrapped them with Anox VCI corrosion inhibiting paper, labeled them and put them in 2 HF 20 Bin Medium Portable Parts Storage Cases 1 for black powder and 1 for smokeless powder.

I put all the handles in an ammo box

Now they are well protected from the elements, compactly stored and easy to find/access.

The rest get a shot of lanolin until their next use

[Bookworm]

One of my brothers is visiting next month. Need to stock up some.

Loaded 300 9mm - Berry's bullets 124g FP, 3.7g Trap 100. Still trying to finish that pound of Trap 100 from 1989.

300 38Spl - Lee 358-125RF, 4.5g HP38. This jar of HP38 is from 1993. Has a price tag - $11.20

[JBinMN]

35 pounds of COWW & 3 pounds of SOWW into ingots...

I hate dealing with them , but they are part & parcel of the doin...

[Michael J. Spangler]

457658 Just patched and waiting to dry. I'm messing with different patch lengths.

[308Jeff]

Starting moving my reloading room inside.

Normally I try to do my reloading in the winter, but I've got too much to do.

[Minerat]

Resized 100 223 LC brass to get ready to testing NOE 225-45SP both GC and PB and NOE 225-55FP GC. After removing a stuck case on the third one after being too lazy to use a lube pad. Sized 300 of above boolits to 0.225, with moly-bee. The quest begins.

[skeettx]

Propane tank cut just above half
Wash tub cut out for heat shield
Cast iron pot with bottom cut out for heat funnel.
Ingot moulds and dippers and pots for bullet jackets and crud.
Got 72 ingots on first melted pot

Mike

p.s. Total today 176 ingots