New guy here: Pricing out casting vs. swaging

[Russel Nash]

Hi everyone,

I am a new guy thinking about getting into casting. I haven't bought anything yet.

The prices for bullets and ammo makes my jaw drop to the floor every time I see them.

I shoot USPSA, IDPA, Steel Challenge, and 3 gun matches.

I reload on a Dillon 550. Early on in 2007, I got hooked on the Berry's plated pro-jo's from Cabelas. Up til Septemember, I was able to get them for 72 bucks a thousand. In November, I went back and about fainted. They are running over 130 dollars a thousand. :confused:

Just recently I did some price surfing on the internet. It seems like everyone loves their Star Lube Sizers. I see Magma Engineering has the basic one for $250. I also looked at the RCBS "furnace". At Midway they had it going for like $337. Wow! I thought just last year they were going for $250. WOW!

Another shooting buddy and I had thought about going 50/50 on a used Corbin Hydro Press, which is a huge financial investment at the start.

I have rambled on here long enough.

What do you guys think about comparing casting versus swaging pricewise?

The downside to shooting lead is the smoke. Sometimes in our competitions we have to shoot through barrels or ports and the smoke would get too thick to even see the targets. If I had a Corbin Hydro Press and could get the lead wire and copper sheet cheap enough, theoretically, there could be lots of my fellow competitors I could sell bullets to.

Thanks!

PS: If there happens to be a thread that covers this already please point provide a link. I tried doing a search first.

[454PB]

I'm with Phineas. Swaging is a huge investment in equipment, unless you have the talent and tools to make your own. You are concerned with cost, so casting would be far more econonomical.

[Buckshot]

.............Russel, a hearty welcome to the board! Swaging stuff is expensive and what you're paying for is NOT mystery metal and hammer and chisel machining. It's expensive machines, machine tools (consumables), spec'd materials, heat treating, and experitise.

While boolit moulds require accurate machining to be 'right' and do their job, I'll also suggest that thier level of precision machining is a bit less, and there is less of it to do. Setting up to cast would be a pittance compared to doing the same for swaging. The tradeoff is of course, you won't be producing any jacketed ammunition.

"If I had a Corbin Hydro Press and could get the lead wire and copper sheet cheap enough, theoretically, there could be lots of my fellow competitors I could sell bullets to."

Your materials will be part of the issue. You won't be buying 'Copper sheet' but rather you'll be buying jackets. With jackets, included in the price will be the producers raw materials expense, and overhead. You'll also be unable to use scrap lead, but will want something a bit more repeatable.

While materials cost has gone up, a good part of that is the trickling in of fuel expenses. This is transportation and it begins at the mine and ends at your front door. For quite some time several levels of distribution have been trying to maintain a competitive edge, but there comes a time when costs finally get passed along. Grocery stores have had to give in in the past year or so to noticeable price jumps. Their profit margins were only 2-4% to begin with.

Additionally, in a small swaging operation you will not be buying jackets by the hundred thousand, and lead wire by the ton. Or who knows, possibly you will? And if you do, is it only going to be you producing those bullets for your friends? The point I was trying to make is materials expense. The more you buy, usually the cheaper it becomes.

If you plan to amortize the expense of your swaging operation, your own time becomes a factor also. Casting or swaging for yourself is one thing, but doing it for others is entirely different.

So far as smoke goes, this can be alleviated to a great degree by the lube you use. If you use the NRA 50/50 formula you will get lots of smoke. If you go to one of the more modern heat type lubes the amount of smoke generated will be noticeably diminished.

..................Buckshot

[floodgate]

Russell:

Go to both Dave Corbin's site <www.corbins.com> and his brother Richard's <www.rceco.com> and download their e-books, catalogs and price lists (if you have not done so already).

You could (I have, recently) scrounge older C-H Swag-O-Matic and Herters Super Bullet Maker outfits and materials for $125 - 150 or so, or for their basic die sets for heavy-duty reloading presses, BUT, you will be limited to half-or three-quarter-jacketed pistol size bullets. These will give you a feel for swaging at about the same cost as a good starting casting outfit. But, if you want to go beyond those parameters - e.g, quality rifle bullets, etc. - the advaced swaging tooling - even used - will be many times more expensive than casting. Also, lead wire and pre-drawn jackets are MUCH more expensive than wheel-weights or other scroungeable alloys, and gas checks, respectively.

floodgate

[kawalekm]

When I bought 357 jackets I compared the price for 500 at 42.00 dollars, with Remingtion's 158 gr. hollowpoint for 45.00$ for 500 (yes, that was a while ago). Nobody swages to save money! I do it for the joy of being able to do it myself, but if I just need bullets, I'll buy jacketed. With free wheelweights, and scrounged tin, the bullet lube to make 1000 bullets costs more than the alloy itself. Casting surely is the real way to save money.

[Dale53]

I have done bullet casting for myself and also commercially cast bullets for others. Bullet casting offers a REAL path to saving serious money without creating an impossible time situation.

While earning a living as an Insurance Claims Rep, I cast, lubed, loaded and shot 75,000 .45 ACP's in five years. In addtion, I also shot quantities of other calibers, from .44 magnums to .22 Hornet to .375 H&H Magnum. Since then I have shot thousands of BPCR bullets, all cast myself.

You can get into bullet casting for pistol use at under $200.00. A Star sizer will cost you that much, and more, again, but is ABSOLUTELY worth it in time saved (and make no mistake, if you are a serious Bullseye or IPSC shooter, time will be of the essence.

Dale53

[Russel Nash]

Thank you all very much for the welcomes and the advice.

I think I found a source to get the RCBS Pro Melt Furnace at much closer to the 250 dollar price I saw a year or two ago.

My buddy and I were serious thinking about the Corbin Hydro Press. I swear I thought I saw on another forum (now defunct?) that you feed a roll of copper sheet metal into the Hydro Press and it punched out circular blanks or coins. Then these flat coins, I thought, were pressed around the soft lead wire core to make a copper jacketed bullet.

At one point my buddy had emailed the owner of a moly coated bullet company since he was going out of business. The owner was willing to part with one of his Magma Engineering automated casting machines, an automated lube sizer, and then the recipe for the moly.

I can't remember what the total cost was, but I do remember the secret moly coating recipe was $2,000, I think.

I have some other newbie-ish questions that I'd like to ask, but I think I'll do a search first and see what I can come up with.

Again, thanks! :drinks: