recall your first successful casting session

[T-KING]

what was your first casting session you consider a success & what you had to do or learned to be successful??!! what changed to turn it into a success?

[lightman]

Its been too long ago to remember the first. The turning point from failure to success was when I learned about mold temperature. My old Lyman pot had a cast iron liner and a pretty large lip and it made a fair surface for preheating the mold. It didn't take long but I had a couple of sessions with poor bullet fillout before I had success.

[nagantguy]

My very first session was a wash with about a 60% failure rate; making 230 round nose .452, from a brand new lee 2 cavity mold. I to learned about proper mold and melt temp and discovered what I was doing to hinder myself was putting the sprue cutting right back into the pot and not letting my mold get hot enough; I was taking some free advice and setting my mold on a damp towel every third or fourth cast. When I learned to preheat; Keep the pot at proper temp and get a good rhythm it all started to come together. This was over a long weekend when I’d cleared my schedule and decided to learn to use all this casting equipment I’d been hoarding for a few years!

[sharps4590]

Criminy...I remember when it was, sometime in 1974 or '75 and I was casting .440 and .375 round balls with all Lee, bargain basement equipment. Don't remember having any difficulties. The habit just grew from RB's to handgun bullets to rifle bullets. Guess I learned as I went because there was certainly no mentor round back then.

[bedbugbilly]

My first successful casting session was in 1963. I had saved up money mowing lawns to buy a really nice used Remington Zouave Rifle (rifled musket) and I had sent away for a Lyman 577-213 hollow based minie ball mold - IIRC - the mold with handles was around $30 - $35. I also orderd a Lyman bottom pour label - that was $3.00. I still have the rifle, mold and ladle and use all three. I remember it because my Dad had helped me to try casting with a propane heating source that didn't work. He had an old gasoline "plumbers pot" that he had somehow ended up with when he loaned a guy some money with the guy's tools as collateral - the guy never came back to pay back the money.

When he was at work, I went out to the barn and figured out how the plumbers pot worked and actually got it filled with gas and was able to get it fired up. I put my Lyman cast iron 10# on it, threw in some lead and it worked great. I remember that the first few pours had issues with the skirt filling out, but after the mold heated up, they dropped like butter. When my Dad came home at night, he came out to see what I was doing - he was pretty upset as he considered the plumbers pot "dangerous" - but when he saw the pile of minie balls I had cast up, his anger changed to amazement when he saw the in balls. The next day, we got things around and he and I took the Zouave out to shoot it. He wanted me to take the first shot, I wanted him to take the first shot - IIRC he shot first and had a smile on his face afterwards. He really wasn't in to BP guns but he supported my enthusiasm for them the remainder of his life.

Everytime I cast with the mold or shoot that Zouave - and I have put tens of thousands of rounds through it, I think of Dad. A lot of good memories and even though it's been about 25 years since he passed, I miss him.

[sigep1764]

It was after I discovered my Lee six banger TV mold was dropping small 356 boolits and I leemented it and it was severely out of round. I ordered an Accurate 358 120B mold. 3rd pour I was in heaven. Made 2000 boolits that day and lubed them all the next day on my 4500. It was 2012.

[unique]

It was 50 plus years ago when my Father showed me how to cast Toy Soldiers. Always wondered where that mould ended up.

[mdi]

I didn't start casting until '88 (I purchased cast bullets because I didn't have a casting area that I could use). I had a Lee 240 44 cal SWC TL mold. My first sessions were with a Coleman stove so temp control was way hard and learning temps and how they affected finished bullets was quite a chore. IIRC, I got 50% on good day...

[Reddirt62]

Sheesh....I can't remember that far back, heck I can hardly remember my own name some days....8)

Sent from my SM-N950U using Tapatalk

[L Erie Caster]

Circa 1990 or there about. I had no mentor or computer or even a book. So it was a trial and error type thing. Got frustrated several times and quit casting, I’m that way at times, but kept going back to it. I think the biggest hurdle was understanding mold temps as well as the melt temp.

[country gent]

It was many years ago I bought a TC renegade in 50 caliber. Then a couple weeks later a 2 cavity lee 490 2 cavity round ball mould. A old propane burner and steel pot was unused in the barn. Dad and an a uncle helped me get started ( neither had ever cast a bullet but had worked in dies cast industry for years Dad was tool and die maker Uncle die cast die maker). Got upand running made enough good balls Ididnt need to cast again for several years.

[T-KING]

great stories guys that's why I asked I was hoping people would share there memories, for me it was a hurdle I had 50/50 my first session maybe even more bad then good , then took what good I had & seriously screwed up powder coating apparently I needed to learn the hard way the sun is hot it makes boolits hot & dumping a mountain of them hot into the PC container it turned into a big sticky clumpy stranding mess so I had nothing to physically show for my first entire day devoted to casting aside from my brand new molds getting slightly gouged from using crummy oil that burned up fast & a 30pd glob of .452 & 356 tc lee tumble lube boolits.
my next couple attempts would be so so my thermometer was off & I was trusting it scared to go hotter n burn up my tin & I had wayyyyy to much oil on my rag I wipe my sprue plate with & thought for sure it was anything but oil in my molds.
I had hoarded the supplies to cast for a long time & read everything i could felt like i knew enough to be a boss at it ,n was so effing po'ed almost gave up but im that guy who cant put it down until hes good at w/e it may be obsessive some say.
I talked to some kind folks on here & went back to my readings & decided to get methodical took a note book wrote out each step i was going to do & went back to it.
I was so frustrated
1) I took engine degreaser & brake clean & scrubbed the molds down with both in different steps then as hot of water as I could stand with so much dawn the water was blue scrubbed my molds in that ,rinse repeat a couple times then back to one last blast of brake clean .
2) I snagged my mom's electric burner (she wasn't happy) preheated my molds & checked them with my digital thermometer making sure they didn't get too hot
3) I ignored my thermometer & told myself "Tin isn't that exspensive I can always add more" & got that temp up until I got frosty boolits and wrote that temp down for a reference point, my thermometer was off by a bit.
4) I used a new rag with just a smidge of 2 cycle to wipe my molds with making sure I only did it with full molds & kept the molds hot with my propane torch.
finally almost a purely successful session of casting spent the whole day at it & finally had that full satisfaction I was looking for it was defiantly oil & my pot temp. I casted thousands of .452 lee & some big 350grain .452 with a N.O E. mold and thousands of .356 lee tc just because I could.
Now I have no excuse if I screw something up or can't get good ones I have my steps on my front Page of my casting log.
Now I just need to buy more guns in calibers cheap to cast for (boolits I don't need that hard) & to hit the range to do more load development & use up my colorful boolits so I get to cast some more.

[cwlongshot]

My own "first" was casting sinkers with my grandfather for fluke fishing... probably mid 1970's... Using a cast iron pot, stove and dipper to fill home made molds with a nail to make the hole to tie the line. (Sure wish I had some of those left as a memento. I'm sure gramps made that one sided mold in a hickory board.

First boolits was with my dad, when we bought a Lee 10# pot, three molds and handles. All Lymans a 9mm 115, a 45 200 and a 357 148 DEWC. I still have and use all of them. That was probably just out of high school for me. We shot the 45's so much more as (We BOTH bought new 1911's when I got my permit to carry in 1986.) We quickly bought a 4 cavity 200g SWC 452 mold and RCBS handles. So early 1980's for real boolits casting.

CW

[T-KING]

bedbugbilly I really enjoyed & appreaciate your sharing that story!
lots of awesome experiences with people's elders (grandpa or dad) shared here I myself learned on my own but hope to give my children those memories

[gwpercle]

1967 Lyman #358156 single cavity, melted wheel weights in Lyman iron casting pot (mom let me use our kitchen stove) poured with Lyman dipper and just followed the Lyman instructions.
Heated the mould with repeated castings , threw those back and started casting keepers.
For some reason I just had a knack for casting....it came easily and I've never had any problems doing it.
I learned from the Lyman Manual...no computers or internet....I didn't know I was supposed to need all kinds of other equipment or have all kinds of problems ...just melted the lead and poured boolits.
Lee moulds came along and were a "challenge" but I figured them out .
My biggest problem was applying too much lube to the top plate and hinge....contaminating the cavities , but I learned.
Gary

[Shopdog]

Lyman 429421,Coleman stove,W/W's.Tryed shooting some factory lead out of a cpl Smith 29's..... took about five minutes to completely lead up the bore,haha.Somebody told me about casting and that generally store bought lead was a joke.Prolly mid 1970's.Still got that mould and it still casts razor sharp bases and meplats.Started buying and scoffing up casting equipment on the cheap from all the gunstores I used to frequent.Casting was at a lull of sorts because magnumitus had gained traction in both handguns and rifles.These gunstores were about giving away used casting stuff. Wasn't a whole lot of info other than articles in American Rifleman and periodicals by Lyman and a few powder co's.Used to order moulds directly from Lyman too,COD,haha. Wheel weights were free for the asking.Good times.

Still don't have a casting thermometer..... been on the "should get one list" for ever?Casted in that stoopid stove for so long I can tell how hot the lead is by just casting with it. Probably should get one?

[WRideout]

Back in the mid 80's my stepfather showed me how to cast. He had a full setup in his garage, including a gas one-burner that he fueled with a rubber hose, that ran to a QD coupling on the gas line (the coupler was the kind you use for air tools; probably not too safe.) He was a good instructor, and we cast rifle and pistol boolits with very few failures. His reloading equipment was in the garage also, so after the boolits were sized and gas checked on his Lyman lubrisizer, we loaded them up. We only went shooting a few times before he and my mom moved to Texas. He passed away over ten years ago. I miss the old guy. WWII vet from the Army Air Force.

Wayne

[Bent Ramrod]

I think it was 1973 or thereabouts. My pal and I had both purchased Navy Arms cap and ball .44s, and quickly emptied the town’s gun stores of pre-cast round balls. (If you found any at the time, they were cast by somebody in the gun store with free time on his hands; if there were commercial offerings back then, we didn’t know about it. None of the stores carried such things.)

So, obviously, a mould was in order, and I decided that a Ideal 450229 hollow-base boolit would be way cooler than a round ball, and mailed an order to Lyman. IIRC, the mould and handles was $25, and, being on the “special” list, took a while to get to me, but eventually, it arrived. Next day, I took it in to the Organic Chemistry lab where we toiled as graduate students to show my friend.

He pronounced it perfect and proposed that we cast up a bunch of bullets with it immediately. I pointed out that we had no lead, melting pot, heating apparatus, or ladle. He pooh-poohed these objections, told me to get a ring stand, a stainless steel beaker, and a couple of Fisher burners, and disappeared for a while.

When he returned, he had a 25-lb lead brick he’d swiped from the Physical Chemistry lab. There were a lot of them down there, he said, used to shield the P-Chem students from the radioactive materials they used in their researches. If a few of them were sterilized because one brick in the wall around the material’s was missing, where was the harm? I could see no great objection to this argument, so we fired the burners up, put the brick in the beaker, and rummaged through drawers until we found a large spoon.

In due course, the lead melted and we started casting bullets (they were spelled “bullets” back then), spelling each other when we got tired. There must have been some kind of selection process, but as I recall, we got the technique with the hollow base plug pretty quickly and most of them came out very well. Using tweezers, we set them in rows on an empty lab bench, and by the time the pot was empty, we had pretty well covered it up.

The remainder of the lead was still solidifying in the beaker when our Professor decided to make one of his infrequent visits to the lab to see how our researches were coming along. He gawped at the ranks and files of bullets along the bench top, picked one up for inspection (fortunately, they had cooled off), shook his head in frustration, and left.

If he had visited more often, he would have seen us boiling, filtering and washing chemicals, preparing samples for analysis, and doing chemical research in general. But he always seemed to show up when we were target practicing with darts made from nails and corks, blown through glass tubing, squirting chloroform at the ceiling with syringes to knock off the wasps and roaches, and doing other such stuff. It’s like he had a Radar for goofing off.

We got several weekends of shooting out of that first session, and I bought my Lee 10-lb pot with heat dial and an Ideal ladle soon after and did my casting at home after that. My second mould was the Ideal 225415, for my Savage 219 .22 Hornet. And after that, a veritable avalanche of moulds.

[Kraschenbirn]

Early '70s. Don't exactly recall a 'first' session but first molds were Lee - a .58 Minie and a .44 Conical - using a Lyman Ladle, 5# cast iron pot, a yard-sale Coleman Stove; no longer have the molds but, today, that same ladle and pot are in my 'general equipment' bin (gloves, goggles, sprue plate knocker, flux materials, etc.). Was involved with Civil War reenactment back then and had the idea that casting my own would be more 'authentic', not to mention less expensive than ordering from Dixie Arms. Worked out pretty good but the downside was that, before long, it seemed like I was casting and mixing boolit lube for everyone in the battery (Battery B, 2nd IL Light Artillery)...in those days, acquiring lead was no problem; one of our gunners was a journeyman plumber and could haul away all the scrap he wanted from renovation/upgrade jobs. By the time I drifted out of reenactment and back into paper punching, I'd moved up to a Saeco 24 pot and added molds for .38 and .45 ACP and rest, as they say, is history.

Bill

[Outpost75]

My first successful casting session was in high school in 1963. The Civil War Centennial was in full swing and we had a joint after school lab which gave history, chemistry and industrial arts credit. We cast .58 cal Mine Balls for an original 1861 Springfield rifle-musket and round balls for an original 1851 Navy Colt.

We made the black powder in chemistry class. We cast the bullets in shop class, built a ballistic pendulum to measure velocity for extra physics credit, and fired the guns, recorded our results and gave a presentation based on Hardy's Tactics, explaining how deadly rifled muzzleloaders were compared to previpus smoothbores.

We toured the Manassas Battlefield Memorial Park and also the Armed Forces Institute of Pathology to see the Civil War exhibits there. We spent the entire school year on the project.


Most relevant was that we learned pure lead was difficult to cast perfect hollowbased bullets, but that 1:50 tin-lead worked wonderfully and shot accurately with BP.

[Walks]

1962, dipper casting .375 RB using a single cavity LYMAN mold. Pure lead from a small iron pot on a Coleman stove. Dropped them on to a old folded towel. I was 8yrs old. 119 balls, rejected only 14. Still remember
how hard that old 3 legged stool was on my skinny little butt.
My DAD & Family shot them all up the next day in my DAD'S ancient 1851 COLT Navy.
Me too, first time I ever got to shoot that piece of History.
I'd say that was a SUCCESSFUL Casting Session.

[Wayne Dobbs]

My first successful casting session was in high school in 1963. The Civil War Centennial was in full swing and we had a joint after school lab which gave history, chemistry and industrial arts credit. We cast .58 cal Mine Balls for an original 1861 Springfield rifle-musket and round balls for an original 1851 Navy Colt.

We made the black powder in chemistry class. We cast the bullets in shop class, built a ballistic pendulum to measure velocity for extra physics credit, and fired the guns, recorded our results and gave a presentation based on Hardy's Tactics, explaining how deadly rifled muzzleloaders were compared to previpus smoothbores.

We toured the Manassas Battlefield Memorial Park and also the Armed Forces Institute of Pathology to see the Civil War exhibits there. We spent the entire school year on the project.


Most relevant was that we learned pure lead was difficult to cast perfect hollowbased bullets, but that 1:50 tin-lead worked wonderfully and shot accurately with BP.

The Left's heads would explode at such a class today.

[DirtyOz]

My first successful session was my first one. Did I cast perfectly and shoot 1 MOA? Nope. But this is the day I started learning from doing, not just reading. I’ve been hooked ever since.
I recently worked up a load for my 1894/44 achieving 2.5 moa with peep sight, which is as good or better than what I was seeing with certain factory jacketed rounds in the past. I have many more variables to tweak and try. I might be a better shooter too, since I can shoot on the cheap and the range is 1 minute away. As long as I keep learning, every session contributes to success.

[beagle]

About 1962, I dived in. Had an old (new then)Lyman Ammunition Maker set with a 311291 SC mould, dipper and an aluminum bowl. Outside over two bricks with wood for a fire. Lead was a few WWs, a couple of lead soldiers, a couple of battery clamps and several puddles of mystery metal dumped from a plumbers pot. I recall getting about forty shiny bullets after culling. Said to myself, there must be something illegal about turning funky lead into nice, shiny projectiles for the old 03. Little did I realize that the hard part was just beginning. But, I made it and still enjoy the thrill out of seeing a shiny bullet drop from the mould./beagle

[Texas by God]

I learned from my brother in the late 1970's when we both had Ruger .41 magnums and .45 autos. My very first cast was a Lee 410 220 swc, then a Lee 452/228rn. I learned to alternate moulds to keep a cadence going. I bought a Lee 358150swc soon after for my Smith M&P. I don't know where the .41 mould went, but I still have the other two. I didn't get into casting for rifle till a few years ago - no turning back now!

Sent from my SAMSUNG-SM-G930A using Tapatalk

[Wag]

Here's my first casting experience:

http://castboolits.gunloads.com/showthread.php?220868-I-ve-learned-one-thing-I-really-kinda-suck-at-this-)

Learned a lot from this forum but circumstances for the last few years have kept me out of it. Just now thinking about firing up the furnaces again..........

--Wag--

[JeffG]

It was 91, I’d started shooting black powder. I friend gave me a 150 lb block from of lead and the 490 round balls were not big enough. Bought a Lee 495 mold then a Lyman 500 RB mold to use with a Green Mountain RB barrel. That thing shots good. Used a Lee 10lb bottom drop pot from the start and still using that pot. Getting mold clean and getting pot to right temp were some things learned, and smooth consistent casting rhythm.

[JonB_in_Glencoe]

I started casting the same year I joined the forum...yeah, not that long ago (2010).

My first boolits were cast while I was smelting my first "scrap lead score" into ingots. I used the lee dipper and a Lee 2 cav. 41 cal. TL mold...None of the boolits were satisfactory, but they did look boolit shaped, LOL.

A few weeks later my Lee bottom pour pot arrived, I tried casting again. What a huge difference that made, but it seemed to take for ever to get some boolits without wrinkles, once they were wrinkle free, I got a few nice ones, but as I continued casting, the boolits started getting very frosty, and some would 'slump' as they were dropped from the mold and hit the bench...some even fractured.

A couple months later, after several sessions of that frustration, I learned about casting rhythm and mold temperature. I was able to get pretty good boolits once the mold got up to temp (takes maybe 20 to 30 pours). But my casting sessions still produced a lot of rejects as I learned rhythm.

The next revelation was when I added using a modified Hot plate as a mold oven. I'd get nice boolits within the first few pours...this made casting much more enjoyable for me.

Another stumbling block was the Lee pot and it's poor temperature regulation. Just about the time I figured it was getting hotter and hotter as the level of alloy got lower and lower...and me needing to watch a thermometer and constantly adjusting the temp control knob to maintain a desired temperature, I learned of the PID and how it can control a Lee pot much better, and alloy level doesn't effect the temperature with a PID.

[Don Purcell]

Around 1964 casting round balls for dad's muzzleloaders when I was 10 years old using pot and ladle on kitchen stove. Moved up to Lyman 429421 not long after.

[whisler]

.490 round balls for my TC Renegade. Took a while to figure out how to get rid of the wrinkles but I got there.

[Alan in Vermont]

1973. I started with a 10# cast iron pot on a Coleman stove, dipper, an ingot mold & a 429244 mold, everything Lyman. Had just enough scrounged lead for one pot of metal, exact composition unknown. Only ready reference was a Lyman reloading manual of 1968 vintage. LGS owner knew enough about casting to steer me along the path. It took a couple of fairly frustrating sessions before I got good boolits as I had no clue about getting the new mold clean enough to actually make good boolits. I finally got a run of good specimens. I think I had to wait for my lubesizer, dies & gas checks, again, all Lyman, to arrive at the LGS. When I finally got to load and shoot my own boolits it was right up there with shooting my first handloads, just shy of an orgasmic experience(maybe not, but you get the drift).