Casters' ages with a more uniform scale

[nh7792]

Lots of seasoned casters on here. With the centuries of combined experience, shouldn't be any unanswerable questions in regards to casting and alloys

[Walter Laich]

Since I posted this thread the 'Bell shaped curve' has stayed pretty much as you see it.

Just the 35-45 dip from being a classic one

[sw282]

Started shooting IHMSA sillywets in the late 70s.Casting shortly thereafter. Even after forty years of casting and shooting, still Nothing like hearing the sound of Your OWN handmade boolit hitting a steel Ram @ 200meters... First with a 44 cal swc 240gr Lee mould. Now, almost exclusively, l cast with a true work of ART.. A Hensley&Gibbs #503.. A KEITH SWC with square grease groove.. It drops beautiful 255 grainers from wheel weights

[Flailguy]

This makes me feel young! I'm 26 I started casting .451round balls for a black powder revolver when i was about 15. Come to find out those round balls work very well in a gun or a slingshot.

Now I'm casting for a 45-70, .357 and a 45acp.

[NMLRA Guy]

Oh my! Gotta do some remembering here. I was born in 1935. Was given my first real gun in 1939. It was a Model 1865 trapdoor 50/70 with bayonet. I could not lift it! We played with it by putting roll caps on the firing pin (if I could get someone to cock it...I couldn't). Made a toy cannon on an Atlas lathe in shop class in junior high (different world then). The cannon shot BBs with black powder. Bought an 1855 musket when 15 and made a round ball mould from plaster of Paris that I cast with my home foundry kit that made lead soldiers. It did not last long but did enough to shoot it. When 16 I bought a Manhattan .36 cal cap n ball pistol. Ellis Crawford was curator of a local museum and he took a two cavity Colt mould from his collection and loaned it to a snot-nosed kid and I soon learned the delights of casting with and all-iron mould with short handles! I had no loading mentor and learned the powder charge was 30 grains. Cautious me, I cut the powder charge of DuPont 3f powder in half and then half again. Bullet bounced off the tree I had the target on and hit me in the chest but did not break the skin! Elmer Keith, Townie Whelen, Julian Hatcher, Ned Roberts and Phil Sharpe were my heroes. About 1959 I discovered E. H. Harrison. In MY opinion, he was the absolute father of what we are doing today...a real renaissance in the reloading of RIFLE bullets with lead. Elmer never let the pistol end die! I corresponded with Elmer a few times and treasure his reply letters. I mailed one query on Saturday and had a reply by the middle of the very next week! I have loaded for many calibers and have over 150 moulds in round-ball and elongated boolits. I have made bullet moulds (not many), chambering reamers (not many), cartridge cases (not many) and loaded cast for .22-15-60, 25-21. 25-25, 28-30, 300 rook, up to .45-100-550 and MANY in between. I regard successful loading for double rifles that regulate in both barrels to be a post graduate course in reloading. I have competed from fifty feet with .22 LR to a thousand yards with muzzle loaders and many distances in between. I am a real fan of pure lead in many low pressure loads. Those bullets "learn" to fit the throat quickly when you pull the trigger. Elmer said a good load for a Sharps was pure lead paper-patched up to BORE size (not groove size), that could be pushed thru the barrel with a "stout ramrod" and as usual, he was right. Put a groove size bullet in the case and it would NOT go in the chamber! But, those pure lead bullets would smear and often not break a big bone in and elk. Such bullet fit was the thing for muzzle loaders with paper patch or grooved lubricated. I am in absolute awe of you is being done on this forum and wish I had had it when growing up. But, as I think about it, some of the stumbling around we did a sixty years ago was fun.

[Walter Laich]

guess we're done with this thread

[glockfan]

i'm 55 and i'm reloading since 1990. i'm also an avid target shooter and i participate in the uspsa and ipsc games when i can.

with the always increasing prices of commercial boolits, and the fact wifey got his black badge, the boolit bills started to look insane at one point,so the perspective of shooting more for less kind of boiled for awhile before making the move of buying equipement for my new endeavor.

when i discovered this site, my motivation skyrocketed quite some because i can now learn my way without having to walk through the fail-success process. all the infos i'm collecting here is priceless,and i'm so confident that i'm sure i can apply anything i'm learning here without any doubts.

[Eddie Southgate]

Started in the early 60's casting for muzzle loaders and cartridge pistols . Still using the same molds (Ideal/Lyman,H&G,B&M ), furnace (SEACO) and sizer (Ideal#1)I was using then . They are not the actual ones as they were all stole out of my paps shop by a local dope head . I have over the years found and bought all the same equipment I started with . Bought all the Tru Line and 310 stuff as well as an All American bought brand new in the box in about 1995 . When my dad died in August of last year I got all of his stuff which included the only modern stuff I own .

Eddie

[Walter Laich]

this has been an almost perfect bell shaped curve since it started

[glockfan]

if this poll is a mirror of a larger scale , it is a proof that we must keep teaching the old art of boolit casting to the latest generations. i'm struck to learn that the core is between 40-85 lol.

[Whiterabbit]

35 here. Keep in mind that:

the youth need to learn to shoot (and like it) before really figuring out the reloading thing
the youth need to learn reloading (and like it) before really figuring out the casting thing
the youth need to learn that non-plated/jacketed bullets are not the health hazard they have been raised to believe

You need all three of those pieces, and it just takes time. Especially when you can't tell a 21 year old anything because they are already an expert, and cell phones have turned everyone's attention spans into that of a gnat. The curve makes sense, and not all of us are going to "get it" at a young age.

We just have to be enablers for the interested. And hope that the hateful motives of those who are actively being disablers become transparent to those they wish to indoctrinate.

[Outback32]

37 here been reloading for shotgun and pistol for several years. Just started reloading for rifle and decided to start casting. I don't know of anyone around me that casts boolits.

[Springfield]

I don't know how it is everywhere, but in my area here in Silicon Valley, if you are between the ages of 8 to about 30, if they can't do it with their i-phone, they just aren't interested. I see this all the time, in the schools and in my son's Boy Scout troop. If it weren't for things like Scouts I swear these kids would never leave their Video game or i-phone. They have no hobbies or interests, it's pathetic.

[Knightflyer]

I've been casting my own bullets since '68. I think a better poll would be how many years have you been casting instead of how old are you now. Or the year you started casting.....

he has a point. I'm 53, but only just started reloading, and now am considering dipping my toes in the water of casting my own boolits. Right now, I just buy um, but I got on this forum because of the wealth of knowledge about using the cast boolits, regardless of who poured them.

[dsayer]

33y. Just started casting round balls and REALs for my 54cal muzzleloader a few weeks ago. Will likely start for my 44 magnum Super Blackhawk Hunter in the near future.

[Arkansas Paul]

I'm nearly finished with my 38th trip around the sun.
I started casting in 2010, IIRC. That's when I joined this forum, and I read on here for a little while before starting.

So about 8 years casting for me.
About 12 reloading in general.

[AndFereira]

31 years old casting for 2 years now

[Walter Laich]

still amazed how the (almost) bell shaped curve has been there from the initial posting.

course now it takes more entries to cause a major change in the shape of it