Lefty bullseye shooter
01-30-2015, 11:35 PM
Hello All,
My name is Scott, I'm from Illinois and just joined the forum. I shoot a LOT of bullseye pistol and about mid way through last year started casting. Not sure if this was the right place to post this but since I'm gonna melt this down I thought this forum would be appropriate.
I never thought I would get into casting but last year I cleaned out the pit at our indoor range and came home with 430#'s of nice clean lead, no jackets. Our indoor range (at least one of them)is lead only so mainly what I get is 22's and either cast or swaged 45 and 38 bullets. A friend loaned me his cast iron dutch oven and tools and I smelted that batch down. With 2 5gal buckets of ingots in the shed I got my casting stuff ordered.
I got 2 molds from NOE. A 2 cavity 200gr .45 swc with hollow point pins and on a whim a 155gr .45swc 5 cavity. A Lee 20# pot (not bottom pour) and a ladle. I started with the hollow point without a whole lot of succes. Apparently for someone just starting casting a HP mold wasn't the best choice. I then switched to 155gr. With my lead the HP casts at 200 and with the solid 212. The 155 casts at 169 with my lead and that is what I have used the most. To date I've cast about 4500 of the 169gr swc bullets. I have been adding about 2% tin to my mix and after a little practice have been getting lots of good lookin bullets.
So far I've just shot my bullets at the short line and have used commercially made bullets for the long line (Star, Zero, and Penn). The last few matches of the summer I shot my bullets and broke 2600 twice with them and fell short once with a 2599. I have shot my bullets exclusively so far this indoor season.
I'm gonna order a mold from accurate and have him modify his H&G 68 slightly to make them come out closer to 200gr with my lead. A friend loaned me his Star sizer with a .4515 die and that is what I have been using with White Labels BAC lube. I get way less leading with my bullets than I was getting with the 185 Zero swaged.
I have Pm'd D Crocket about getting his melting pot and tools and look forward to smelting the buckets in the photo. The back five buckets have 420#'s of the good clean no jacket lead. The front four have 320#'s of lead from another range I belong to that contains jackets. Not bad for a free load of lead to add to the ingots I already have. I also do some sub-contracting for a local plumbing company and often come home with a pile of lead pipe at the end of the day.
Pretty sure I have enough to keep me busy for a while!
Thanks to everyone here for all the info. Although I just joined I have read and LEARNED lots from the forum.
Hopefully I can be a productive member of the forum,
Scott
129090
My name is Scott, I'm from Illinois and just joined the forum. I shoot a LOT of bullseye pistol and about mid way through last year started casting. Not sure if this was the right place to post this but since I'm gonna melt this down I thought this forum would be appropriate.
I never thought I would get into casting but last year I cleaned out the pit at our indoor range and came home with 430#'s of nice clean lead, no jackets. Our indoor range (at least one of them)is lead only so mainly what I get is 22's and either cast or swaged 45 and 38 bullets. A friend loaned me his cast iron dutch oven and tools and I smelted that batch down. With 2 5gal buckets of ingots in the shed I got my casting stuff ordered.
I got 2 molds from NOE. A 2 cavity 200gr .45 swc with hollow point pins and on a whim a 155gr .45swc 5 cavity. A Lee 20# pot (not bottom pour) and a ladle. I started with the hollow point without a whole lot of succes. Apparently for someone just starting casting a HP mold wasn't the best choice. I then switched to 155gr. With my lead the HP casts at 200 and with the solid 212. The 155 casts at 169 with my lead and that is what I have used the most. To date I've cast about 4500 of the 169gr swc bullets. I have been adding about 2% tin to my mix and after a little practice have been getting lots of good lookin bullets.
So far I've just shot my bullets at the short line and have used commercially made bullets for the long line (Star, Zero, and Penn). The last few matches of the summer I shot my bullets and broke 2600 twice with them and fell short once with a 2599. I have shot my bullets exclusively so far this indoor season.
I'm gonna order a mold from accurate and have him modify his H&G 68 slightly to make them come out closer to 200gr with my lead. A friend loaned me his Star sizer with a .4515 die and that is what I have been using with White Labels BAC lube. I get way less leading with my bullets than I was getting with the 185 Zero swaged.
I have Pm'd D Crocket about getting his melting pot and tools and look forward to smelting the buckets in the photo. The back five buckets have 420#'s of the good clean no jacket lead. The front four have 320#'s of lead from another range I belong to that contains jackets. Not bad for a free load of lead to add to the ingots I already have. I also do some sub-contracting for a local plumbing company and often come home with a pile of lead pipe at the end of the day.
Pretty sure I have enough to keep me busy for a while!
Thanks to everyone here for all the info. Although I just joined I have read and LEARNED lots from the forum.
Hopefully I can be a productive member of the forum,
Scott
129090