Is Casting an "Old Mans" GIG?

[frankenfab]

I am 74 years of age and started casting and reloading cartridges when I was 14 years old. I had a father who encouraged it and a mother that NEVER objected even when I was casting on her kitchen range. They both considered it a positive thing.

I taught both my sons to shoot, cast and load ammunition. I taught my daughter to shoot (she is now married to a gentleman who casts bullets, reloads, shoots and hunts).

It's just the right thing to do...

Dale53

It is a pleasure to be a member of a community such as this. Wouldn't it be neat if we could just all start our own "Cast Boolits" town?

[runfiverun]

i first learned casting from a neighbor when i was 9.
skipped out on it for a while,as i was into shooting itty bitty groups with the target rifles.
then went to trap shooting.
then out of the blue my dad asked about casting because he had read about cowboy shooting and wanted to try it.
so i dug out the stuff i'd picked up here and there over the years.
cleaned out the lee 20 lb pot i'd been smelting ww's in, for making shot with.
and taught him how to do it.
been stuck on shooting pretty much cast only for umm 20+ years now.
i finally took out the old varmint rifle the other day [at kids request] and realized it had been over 17 years since it had been shot.
time to get some cast boolits going through it.

[XWrench3]

well, i am 53, so i guess that qualifies me as an "o;d man". i have to believe that more "old men" cast for a couple of different reasons. one is patience, not to many 20 year olds have enough patience to sit and smelt, cast, size & lube, then load them up. most younger folks would be more likely to work a few hours of overtime and just buy bullets. two, as you age, you have a little more time to yourself. kids get grown and move out, or at least have freinds and would rather hang with them than boring old dad. three, us "old men" dont worry about the lead "ruining" our reproductive parts. we have already had our kids. so if the lead lowers our "production", who cares.

[mnzrxer]

I'm 33 and have been casting for about 3 years now. Picked up a Sig P220 that I had to feed and pretty much started reloading and casting within a couple of months of that pistol purchase. Lately I've found that I have only been looking at guns that will work well with cast boolits. Dies and boolit molds are on their way as soon as I pick up something new to shoot. If it doesn't shoot cast it doesn't get shot much (except the .22LR).

[Wayne R. Scott]

I can't remember how old I am, but I started casting round balls over an open fire with George Washington at Valley Forge a while back. It served several functions, kept me busy during the winter, helped keep me warm by the fire and provided these pretty little pellets for our enemies.

Actually, I started casting when I was about 24 years old, I needed to feed my .357 mag. Model 28 S&W, my .45 Colt and my .50 cal muzzle loader. I bought 1100 pounds of telephone cable sheathing from a local junk dealer and spent the 4th of July 1976 smelting the sheets of lead into ingots over an open wood fire using metal 5 gallon buckets as the smelting pots. I learned that what seemed like a good idea at the time needed some improvement.

What some of the guys have already mentioned is true. After having a couple of kids a young man's interests and priorities change until they are raised. However, my daughter still tells me some of the best times she had as a child were at the rifle range digging up all of the different types of lead bullets from the back stop so we could re-melt them and use them again.

Now that the kids are out on their own I have more time and more money to spend on my hobbies.

Wayne

[AZ-Stew]

Wayne makes me look like a piker. I started casting for a muzzle loader when I was 22 (38 years ago), using a pipe tobacco can as a casting pot heated by the wife's gas range in the apartment kitchen. Used a Lyman dipper and scrap lead to make muzzle loader balls with a 2-cav Lyman mould.

I graduated to a Lee 10 pounder drip-o-matic, then a couple of years ago when I finished building my shop, I bought a Lee 20 pounder. Big mistake. I have other posts on that , so I won't go into it. I now own an RCBS 20 pounder and am very happy with it.

Yeah, I'm old (kinda) and have been at it for a long time, but that doesn't mean it's an "old man's gig", it just means I have experience to hand down to you and others on this board, and to my son, who is learning to cast at the age of 34. It's not that I couldn't have taught him earlier, its just that I now have a good setup (my new shop and the RCBS pot) to teach him with and he's now interested in learning the craft. He's been shooting since 1980, but is just getting into having his own handloading and casting setup. Life's good, casting's fun at any age, and passing the torch gives one a good feeling.

Regards,

Stew

[ghh3rd]

56 and casting/reloading for a year, and wishin I had started 30 years ago!

[fredj338]

Yeah, like many things, most youngins today can't do the vast array of things their elders can. Casting is a self sufficient, dying artform.

[Recluse]

You younger guys are absolutely warming my heart. God Bless you!

I started reloading by my daddy's side at age ten, and was pulling the handle solo at age 18, which is also when I enlisted in the Air Force.

Two years later, me and a fellow Air Force buddy smelted down our first wheel weights into ingots.

Also the first time we water-dropped the ingots, thinking it would make the lead harder.

It was also the first time we threw the still wet ingots back into the huge cast-iron pot on the open fire butane burner at the base auto hobby shop.

Coincidentally, it was also the first time we met the Tinsel Fairy, who was only slightly less frightening than the Chief Master Sergeant who ran the hobby shop garage and who had us picking and scraping lead up for two days.

Our armorer, another Chief, gently explained, while laughing his own E-9 butt off that once melted/re-melted, the lead returns to its original structure.

So, it was also the first time we saw what almost solid leading looked like in a Ruger Super Blackhawk since we'd loaded up .44 Magnums to the top of the spectrum. Gas checks? What the hell are gas checks? Lube? Nobody said we needed to lubricate the bullets.

It was MY Ruger and it took me almost a week of scrubbing every spare minute to get all that lead out of the barrel.

So, that was it for my casting adventures until a few decades later. So yeah, in some regards, it might be an older shooter's deal.

That Chief (the armorer, not the auto shop NCO) taught me more about reloading than I can ever appreciate. He'd shot at Perry a zillion times, had formulated hand-loads for Air Force snipers (yep, we had snipers back in the 70's and 80's--hell, we had commandos and ground combat controllers and all that stuff as well), and loved pistol combat shooting. I learned a LOT from Chief Russell.

And now, the older I get, the more I enjoy reloading and casting and mixing up lube formulas and tinkering more than I enjoy shooting. They say that's a sure sign of either impending old age or a drop in your testosterone levels. I can probably plead guilty to both.

When I was younger, I reloaded so I could shoot more faster and cheaper. Now that I'm (considerably) older, I reload so I can shoot better, more accurately--and still shoot more for cheaper.

[BarryinIN]

I was 43 when I started casting. I started reloading at age 15 (had to feed the S&W 19 I had just bought).
I had planned to start casting soon after I started reloading, but it kept getting put off, usually for other gun purchases.

But yeah, casters do seem to be among the elder group of shooters.

[sniper7369]

I'm 36 and just started casting about three or four years ago. I find that there's just something cool about actually making your own ammo, rather than just assembling the pieces, ya know?
I really started casting just because I like to shoot a lot, and casting was cheaper than buying condom bullets, but the more I did it, the more I got into it. Now the only bullets I still buy are Sierra Match Kings for my .308 to shoot F-class matches.

[tommygirlMT]

1 ~ Casting is not just a mans GiG.

2 ~ The only thing old has to do with it is that unfortionatly there is a deliberate effort to stamp out our rights --- second amendment included --- that is purputrated upon young people through the socialist "free" school system --- thus more "old" people know about what is important then the misguided youth. (words in quotes indicate term may mean something very different and/or the exact opposite of its general meaning)







I am currently 27 years old and first cast my own boolits when I was in elementary school --- Dad taught me and mom blew a gasket when she found out exactly how I had been helping daddy in the shop (600+ degree molten metal and all of course --- nothing against guns).

[JesseCJC]

26 here and while I am new to casting, I have been shooting since 22 but only more frequently once I hit 25 and could afford my own weapons/ammo.

[Jon]

I'm 32 and have been casting for 3-4 years now. I have just been casting pistol ammo, but am working my way towards rifle next.

[Elkins45]

I'm 46 now and I started casting when I was in my mid-20's.

[mdi]

Geeeze! I didn't get sober 'till I was 40! I agree with the statement about taking patience to cast and reload. On another forum a progressive press that spits out thousands of rounds is touted as a "perfect press"; quantity over quality, the faster the better, no patience, "I want it NOW" thinking. I see hints of this in casting too when casters speak of using 2 or 3 six hole molds for casting, 'cause a double cavity is too slow. Well, good for them, I like casting and reloading (I consider my self a Handloader) and don't have a quota or a deadline to meet, so I spread out the enjoyment and leave the speed for the younguns...

[bbailey7821]

I'm 45 now, but started casting for my old 44 SBH in 1988. I've shot about 40,000 rounds of my homegrown bullets and handloads since then. It's a noble hobby and have passed on the trade to 2 of my children and loads of like minded people.

[1Shirt]

71 years young, and been at casting and reloading for in excess of 50 years. I am a firm believer that age is a state of mind. I don't mind the fact that I am an old f**t, am just real glad that I made it this far in lieu of the alternative. Am still learning (about a whole lot of things). Believe everyone should have a goal. Mine is to be shot by the jealous husband of a 19 year old bride as I am going out the window. Now that is about as likely as Obummer turning conservative, but ya never know unless you have a goal.
1Shirt!

[Gunslinger]

... (she is now married to a gentleman who casts bullets, reloads, shoots and hunts).

It's just the right thing to do...

Dale53

I like that... Pointing out that a true gentleman casts bullets, reloads, shoots and hunts! I bet you if he were not interested in either you would have written man instead of gentleman. Right ?

Anyways, I'm 27 and started casting and reloading when I was 24. My best mate at the range reloaded and cast boolits. He was 72 at the time, and the first friend I ever had that was so much older. When we were shooting and casting it was like there was no age difference between us! That man taught me everything I know.... until I discovered this place of course . I've loaded thousands of rounds on his Hornady L'n'L and have cast my first 1000 boolits in his backyard. Oh yeah the bug got me good... still have an itch on my left buttock

In regard to passing on the torch... I guess that's true! A new guy at the range wants to start casting and reloading. So I'm going to spend some hours with him teaching him the basics. It feels good to be able to help out a new guy... give something back to the community!

It's a funny feeling that comes along with casting. It's almost like a brotherhood no one knows about! When I'm at a gun meet with new people, I always end up talking to the fellow caster - if there is one. Very few people in this country bothers with it. Either they don't shoot enough, or spend too much money shooting... whichever it is they got it all wrong! But what do I care... more lead for me

[mpmarty]

I was sixteen when I bought my first rifle, a model of 1889 Schmidt-Rubin with twelve round detachable magazine. It came with some surplus ammo that was non-reloadable (berdan primers). At that time, 1955 a Japanese firm was selling reloadable boxer primed brass under the name "Toyo" and I bought a bunch of it. I lived not too far from the Sierra bullet factory in So. Cal and went there and bought a whole bunch of "seconds" by the pound. Shot that rifle for several years on that stuff and it was great with 34gr of HiVel #2. After the service I bought a 1911a1 and started reloading and casting for it. By then it was 1963 and I was twenty-four years old. Now I'm seventy one and cast for 45/70, 7.5X55 K31, 10mm, 308, 45acp and 50cal muzzle loader. Life is good, life is great! I hope to hang around casting and shooting for a good long time yet.