I started casting many years ago. I think it was the mid to late 70s. At that time I struggled to get good results casting. Then in 1980 I got started in IHMSA silhouette shooting. I advanced to International class in Production and Unlimited in my second year of shooting silhouettes but that was with jacketed bullets. As the years went by I tried to set a goal each new shooting season to challenge myself. In the mid 80s I drifted away from casting. In about the year 2009 I started to think about getting back into casting bullets to see just how far I could take cast bullets in my silhouette shooting. This became my new "challenge". Again, at least at first, I struggled. Then I found this forum. I started fine tuning my casting technique based on information I gathered here. We all have a standard that we apply to the results we seek. I set my standard high. I wanted the best possible cast bullet I could make. Hitting a silhouette target does not require MOA accuracy in the regular course of fire. But in International class, if you get into a shoot-off to break a tie, the targets can get very small. I've been asked to engage targets as small as 2-3" at 200 yards. That's with a handgun. Obviously, you won't get very far with substandard ammo. In the year 2012, I won the IHMSA Region Two UAS Championship using cast bullets, after a three way shoot-off.
This week I had one of my best casting sessions to date. When I turned off my RCBS Pro-Melt, I had a pile of 401 bullets from an RCBS 7mm 145 Silhouette mold. I then did a visual sort for any bullets that had visible flaws (and I am VERY picky with this step). I found only 16 rejects. I then weight sorted the remaining 385 bullets. I found 16 more rejects that did not fit in my weight variation standard. So I had 369 keepers weighing 150.7 grains, plus or minus .2 grains. 178 of these weighed exactly 150.7 grains. Another 169 were off of the average by only a tenth of a grain The extreme weight variation for the lot was less than 3/10 of 1% and only 32 total rejects out of 401.
Now I will admit to being somewhat obsessive, but as I said, I'm striving for the best cast bullets I can possibly make. It has taken me about 10 years to reach this point in refining my technique. I know that many of you don't need or want this kind of consistency. But it can be done. I'm sure I'm not the only person capable of this and I'm equally sure there are some people capable of even better results. My dad instilled in me the value of always doing the best that you can, in everything that you do.