Can you top this?

[Crash_Corrigan]

Way back when I first started casting boolits I knew less than nothing. I first got a hold of Lymans casting manuel and read it cover to cover a couple of times and then went out and got a Lee 4-20 pot and a Lee 148 GR WC 6 Banger mold.

I had a 586 Smith and Taurus 85 to feed then. I set up the pot and after scrounging some wheel weights went to town. I got a small cast iron pot and put it on a coleman stove and smelted down the weights and fluxed with candle wax.

It was all going good until I started to mold boolits. I had a pair of leather gloves but that Lee 6 banger was really hot. I got another pair of bigger leather welding gloves and wore them. I now had two gloves on the left hand that held the mold and one glove on the right hand, safety glasses, boots etc. I was covered.

It was a nasty job making boolits but I kept it up. They turned out pretty good and I was a happy shooter and boolit caster. This went on for two years.

I guess I made about 6,000 .38 Wadcutter rounds during that time and one day a friend of mine invited me to go to a gun show at Cashman Field here in Vegas.

I was enjoying looking around and my buddy found my Lee mold with some others on a table. Only this one looked different than mine. It was the same mold but it had a pair of handles on it! :drinks: Wow! I never knew they came with handles. :mrgreen: All this time I was holding the mold in my left hand when I opened it to dump out the boolits and then I put it under the spout on a brick to hold it while I poured alloy into the empty mold and shook my left hand to cool off. :confused:

Needless to say I bought another Lee six banger with a pair of handles that day for $20 and used the handles from the new/used mold on my old mold. They fit just perfect. :-D

A little knowledge can be dangerous but that had to be the most stupid thing I did for two years was to mold boolits without using the handles that the silly mold was designed for because of lack of complete knowledge.

If that did not turn me away from this addiction then I guess I am hopeless?

[No_1]

Crash,

You are one TOUGH dude! Has the feeling come back in that hand yet?

Robert

[Cherokee]

Crash - Man I don't see how you did that even with two gloves on !! But I understand for sure. I had no instructor and had to learn on my own (way before this internet stuff) to cast. Same for shooting. It was 20 years of shooting Ruger's before I learned that the SAA & Ruger's should only be loaded with 5.

[TaylorTN]

THAT IS HARD-CORE!!!!

I got started because I wanted to pour up strap weights for my duck decoys. I bought a 405 RF for my 45/70 just to play with. I had so mych fun ladling those big slugs that I bought a 6 cav SWc mold for my 38s. Now I am up to 6 2 cav molds and 3 6-cav. I haven't even shot any of teh first 45/70s because I had a load of ammo loaded already but I am now hunting with my cast 30-30s this year.

GREAT STORY!!

[docone31]

You Da Man!!!
What is amazing, you did so many, so well.
I am impressed.
Handles do make a difference though.
Me? I would have quit after the first few like I did when I was casting cap and ball, balls, with a cold mold years ago.

[dromia]

So Crash, after giving both techniques a thorough test which would you reccommend?


Was there any difference in the quality of the boolits from each method?

[Buckshot]

..................Gee Crash, casting like that must have been about like driving a truck with a 318 Detroit Diesel. For it to work like it's supposed to you need to drive it completely pissed off. So if you see a truck driver slam his fingers in the cab door, then open it and get in screaming and yelling, you know he has a 318 under the hood :-)

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

[kir_kenix]

Man, not sure I could have made very many boolits like that! I'm very impressed. That is dedication right there!

[Tom W.]

Is there some blonde in your background?

[SCIBUL]

I didn't know that captain hoock learned you to cast boolits :mrgreen:
Very impressing [smilie=1:

[missionary5155]

This is BARE BONES CASTING ! Talk about Minimum Investment Casting ! This is the feller I want in a tank turret beside me !
On our M60A1 (ol" portable sewer) we had a pair of asbestos HIGH temp gloves the loader was suppossed to use to flip the hot casings out his hatch... Never used them because they would get dirty and the Bn Co wanted WHITE loader gloves in the rack ??? But I wonder how those would fare ?? Real Hazmat contaminated boolits !!!

[DLCTEX]

Missionary: that's why you were supposed to use two pair if gloves, one for display, one to actually use. It amazes me that we were able to cast lead soldiers when I was a Kid. I don't recall the lead having any tin, but maybe it did. I do remember warming the mold on the kitchen stove and pouring from the little one pound electric pot. DALE

[missionary5155]

Good morning Dale... We had a pair of GI Issue one each leather gloves we kept stuck up above the main gun on the recoil replenisher...

[2muchstuf]

Great story Crash . Thanks for sharing it with us. We've all blundered in some way or another.
Don't confuse unimfermed with stupid. If you're casting your own there's nothing stupid about it.
2

[725]

A true believer. Love the mission first outlook... I would suggest, however, to stay out of china shops.

[Bill*]

Yeah well,....... I got half a ton of 50/50 solder for free but had to throw it all away as I didn't know which percentage was tin and which was the lead:roll: [smilie=1: hehehe .....Bill

[crabo]

"It was all going good until I started to mold boolits. I had a pair of leather gloves but that Lee 6 banger was really hot. I got another pair of bigger leather welding gloves and wore them. I now had two gloves on the left hand that held the mold and one glove on the right hand, safety glasses, boots etc. I was covered."

Sounds like there was a little alcohol involved?

[jhrosier]

Laughing with you, Crash.
None of my misadventures have left a visible scar, yet, so I won't admit them in public.:D

Jack

[jnovotny]

WOW!!! I don't think I can top that but I once got a buch of WW from a local tire shop, and was smelting them down to ingots. I would grab a handful and slide them into the pot,and then there was a big BANG. Somehow a lone 30-06 round had ended up in the mix of WW. I have a few scars from the experiance but no worse for wear. I damn sure pay attention to what I put into my lead pot now!!!!

[Crash_Corrigan]

:drinks:
Should I be flattered to have had so many replies to my thread? I think not...

Dromia---yes the early ones we molded with a lot of radiator shop droppings from the floor. My buddy used to have to pay someone to dispose of these toxic metals. When he learned that I was molding boolits he begged me to take some of his solder. I ended up with over 25 5 gallon buckets of this wonderful stuff. They molded great but when smacked against a steel target became instant dust.

You could say that I was one with the lead alloy after molding without handles for two years. I had very few rejections as I waited long enough for the lead to cool before attempting to dump the boolits. Something to do with pain and heat.

Tom W--- yes there was a Blonde involved. My wife she had a great rack and could write her name in the snow if you know what I mean.

Crabo---yes usually. I can recall one smelting session when it was kinda hot. I went through a lot of beer that day and when I woke up the next day I had a very large pile of metal clips and dross on the ground. But I also had over 250 ingots piled up haphazardly in the area. That was 13 years ago and I still have yet to use some of that lead.

JNOVOTNY---yes I can identify with that 30-06 story. Back in '57 I was only 14 and was put in charge of a fire in which we were burning some trash cleaned out of a an old barn. There was an old shooting jacket thrown into the fire which had belonged to my Grandpa "Uncle Joe". He had been a bootlegger and a bookmaker all his life and unbeknownst to any of us had usually carried a gun for self protection and such. He also had a habit of carrying extra rounds in various pockets in his outerware. Soon after the latest donation to the conflagration we were surprised from the sound of gunshots in the region of the fire.

I retreated to a safe distance and the noises continued for about a half hour. When all was said and done we found a pile of .22 and .38 casings buried almongst the ashes and burnt stuff.

No 1---remember that I am left handed. It kinda crimped my sex life for a time.

I guess that the lure of this addiction has to do with converting those ugly, greasy, dirty and unwanted wheel weights to shiny, new and custom sized boolits which we can shoot from our guns. The best part of it is that we think it is saving us money!

[runfiverun]

thought you read the book, it has pictures too.
wow.....

[rufracer]

I did that exact same thing except I only had one glove on, and it only took me about 200 boolits before I figured something was amiss.

[Southern Son]

Crash, that has to be one of the funniest things I have read, so I read it to my missus and she said it sounded like something I would have done, except I would not have had enough sense to by the mould with the handles on.

[Char-Gar]

About the time you think you have read and heard everything, along comes a post like this!

[Shotgun Luckey]

Doing it for 2 years like that, and you are still doing it....I think you have the fever....and bad

[Big Tom]

LOL - that was a great post!! Actually, it was the second post I read on the site and it makes me really feel comfortable here - no not that way, my molds came with handles and I was using them ;-) But the set up sounds very similar to what I started with today.

Tom

[Charlie Sometimes]

This reminded me of that ol' bluegrass song where the fella looking for a job got one driving a truck, but had never done it..... found reverse and backed that truck all the way to his destination! Told everyone that he just got tired of going forward!!
LOL- you are a VERY dedicated boolit caster! The lead is defintiely in your veins.

I LOVE this site! There is so much KNOWLEDGE and FUN floating around here that I'll never be able to skim all the clips off the melt!

[Edubya]

Crash, many compliments on your story. I don't care if one word of it is true, it is very funny and you do have a skill in the story telling. I enjoyed your replies as well as the original.
Thanks,
EW

[Brick85]

Wow, this makes me feel very lucky that I've started into this while the Internet is around. I actually thought moulds always came with handles (I'd looked into Lee moulds, mainly) until I saw some Saeco stuff.

I guess the stories about walking uphill both ways with no shoes and no feet really do have some truth to them, us kids have it so easy nowadays. . .

Reminds me of my friend's father's setup. He had a 6-cavity .357 mould mounted on two boards that he would screw together, or so it appeared. This was with a stash of several thousand bullets, so obviously he used it plenty well.

[labdwakin]

Thank you thank you thank you thank you!!! I belly laughed for 20 mins when I read this. Very very well-written sir!

[Ron.D]

That's a great story. Probably a few more around, if only you guys would fess up, lol. When I started shooting and handloading, it was back in the 70's. When there's no gun club, and you don't know anyone that reloads, it's a long shallow learning curve. It took me 2 yrs. to find out what dacron was. I had to finally call Dupont, where it was made, and only after getting in touch with a chemist old enough to remember the stuff, was it finally confirmed as polyester fiberfill. I wish Lyman had changed the name when the rest of the world did.
I don't post much. Mostly keep my eyes and ears open. This site is extremely valuable to those of us that don't have access to a bunch of guys who learned from a bunch of guys etc. Great story, great site. Ron.D

[Hammer]

I absolutely love this website. I have been using computers and the internet since they first appeared on desk tops.... (We got some of the first "secure" desktop computes distributed in the Air Force). I have NEVER enjoyed any facet of this amazing tool as much as I have with this forum. It is stories and experiences like this that have returned laughter and enjoyment to this experience. Thanks for sharing and we all learn form each other... God Bless and be careful.

[johnlaw484]

[QUOTE=Buckshot;436587]..................Gee Crash, casting like that must have been about like driving a truck with a 318 Detroit Diesel. For it to work like it's supposed to you need to drive it completely pissed off. So if you see a truck driver slam his fingers in the cab door, then open it and get in screaming and yelling, you know he has a 318 under the hood :-)

..............Buckshot[/QUOT

318, man that's high tech. I ran a 671/238 for years. I have to admit that was the only truck I ever made any money with. It had a RTO 9510 with 9th and 10th reversed. I was capable of 9 miles a gallon but top end was about 60 mph (down hill)

[wiersy111]

When I first started casting a couple months ago all I could afford was the molds and not the handles right away. I had read this post giggling the whole time. Since I am not a patient person when I have a new toy I figured if Crash could do it for 2 years I could handle it until I could afford handles. My first couple of sessions didn't last to long, so I figures I would move up in the world and buy some welding gloves that helped a lot but production just wasn't up to full potential. Pouring big 535gr .458 boolits with a spoon and welding gloves was quite an experience. It didn't take long to squirrel away a few bucks to buy some handles no matter what mama said. Needless to say production has increased greatly since the addition of handles.

[Greenhorn44]

I Did the same darn thing. The box should say. Handles not Included

[Crash_Corrigan]

I was guilty of similiar sins regarding single actions until I started to do some serious reading on the care and feeding of single action revolvers.

I presently have three Ruger Bh's. Two Old Models and one New Model. I much prefer the old model. Better trigger and smaller frame than the New Model.

I load all of them with only five rounds. It is a habit. Now if I only could develop some better loading habits it might save me some grief.

[Southron Sanders]

In 1961 I was in High School and ordered one of those new fangled, replica Zouave Rifles from some company out in California. I went to order a mould, percussion caps and black powder from the local hardware store in Metter, GA.

As luck would have it, the local hardware store stocked a goodly supply of DuPont FFFg black powder because FARMERS USED BLACK POWDER TO WORM THEIR HAWGS!

So all they had to do was order me a mould and some musket caps.

Well, I also purchased a 25 pound bar of "Plumbers Lead" from the hardware store and also a cast iron plumbers lead pot/ When my mould came in, I was ready to cast.

What the man at the hardware store told me to do was:

(1) Heat the mould
(2) Melt the lead and pour it into the mould.
(3) Wait until the mould cooled before removing the cast minie ball!

I tried that method and found it was a very slow way to cast bullets, so next I tried to drop the bullet out about ten seconds after the sprue cooled. That method worked much better.

The post above about the BC requiring white gloves for inspection for M-60 crew members; that reminded me:

IN 1963 I was shipped off to a BRUTAL Southern military school. Spent three years at that school and then when I saw the movie "Full Metal Jacket" I kept wondering WHY the Platoon Sergeant took it so easy on the privates. Compared to what I experienced my first year at GMC, those trainees were pampered by R. Lee Ermy.

[John Ross]

This reminds me of the fellow who told me he wanted to buy a saw to cut some cordwood for sale. I sold him an old Stihl at a good price. It was in good shape and surplus to my needs.

I saw him a few months later and he allowed that he was hardly making any money at all, the saw didn't cut wood nearly as fast as he had hoped. I said maybe it needed sharpening. He went to his truck and got it.

I looked at the teeth and they looked fine. So I walked over to my firewood stack and pushed one of the unsplit pieces off the top--an oak section about 15" in diameter. Then I primed the carb and gave the recoil starter a yank. As I blipped the throttle and was adjusting the mixture for best power, I noticed the guy's eyes were big as saucers. He opened his mouth and screamed at me over the din:

"WHAT'S THAT NOISE?!" :kidding:

JR

PS: Look at the bright side--It was an aluminum Lee 6-cavity. What if it had been an H&G iron 10-cavity?

[Sonnypie]

... but Crash is probably the reason Lee 6 cavities come with only the sprue cutter handle and no mold handles.
Gives you choices....

No handles.

Or to add handles. :bigsmyl2:

Ida probably melted the handles offen my Channel Locks... :sad:

[JDFuchs]

Oh wow. I might have ended my casting career right there after seeing how it was to hot to handle.

But I've had my fair share of lacking of common knowledge moments. Most were with reloading in general since i found castboolits a few months before I ever got a lead pot.

My biggest one was when I was buying reloading supplies for the very first time. No one was there to teach me a thing about it I read the lyman manual cover to cover and had little else to go off of. I was in the store looking at the jacketed bullets to buy and was freaking out that I could not find the exact thing that was in the manual. So after a few moments a gentleman picking up supplies enlightened me to the fact that sticking to the same weight is the key to reloading data and I was safe with starting loads for bullets of the same general stile. I've thankfully come a long way since then but wow..


I would love to try and hunt. But no one that im close to ever has. I have my hunters ed down but beyond that I know I would only wind up walking around in circles all day having no clue what to do. let alone if i managed to take an animal.

[Topper]

At least you didn't get hurt.
Never will forget when my son squirted me with the hose, while I was casting :shock:

[Crash_Corrigan]

Many many moons ago my Grandpa Joseph Murtha decided that it was high time that I went hunting for a deer.

My previous conquests included numerous Racoons, Skunks, Rabbits, Squirrels and Woodchucks. The Rabbits and Squirrels were good eating....the others not so much.

My shooting skills had begun with a Daisy BB gun and graduated to a Savage Model 23 .22 Lr bolt rifle and a Baker 12 Gauge side by side shotgun. Added to the mix was a .22 LR Colt Woodsman Pistol, a .32 ACP Mauser war prize and a P-38 9MM war prize.

None of these was good enuf to hunt deer with. At that time Grandpa Joe had two gun cabinets full of nice old guns. He had 32-20's, 25-20's and a wild assortment of single shot guns in wierd calibres with very fancy stocks and such for which he had no ammo. However he did have a ancient Model 94 Winchester in 30-30 with the saddle ring. For this he had a dozen boxes of ancient 180 grain Remington ammo.

He set me down in a field with a few boxes of ammo and he placed a few targets out there at 25,50,75 and 100 yards. Nothing fancy just a couple of cardboard cartons with a piece of paper on each to shoot at.

I set to it with this gun and ran through a few boxes of ammo and was abused and beat up by the recoil of these heavy hunting loads. My accuracy was decent but not great and I complained about the recoil and such. Grandpa went to Montgomery Wards in Kingston NY and bought me a few boxes of 150 grain Reminington Core Lockted rounds.

With these the accuracy improved and the pain was a lot less. Soon enuf the hunting season arrived and he proudly went down to the General Store in Allergiville NY to buy me my first hunting license. In those days there was not a requirement for a hunter safety course and I walked out of the store with a pink deer hunting tag in a neato plastic envolope with a large safety pin for pinning it to the center of my back. I was ready to go.

Outfitted with this ancient Winchester and a thermos of coffee and a few bisquits I was ready to kill Bambi.

On the first day of hunting season I was out there at dawn in a light snow in the woods which were very familiar to me from hunting squirrels and such over the last few years.

The snow started to fall more heavily and it was totally quiet in the woods. I waited and waited. Finally through a snow curtain appeared a nice Buck with a decent rack of 8 points. He started to feed on some brush nearby and presented a perfect target for me to shoot. I raised the rifle and cocked the hammer and placed him in my sights. I had not a clue where to shoot him. I had not a glimmering of how to drag him out of the woods. I had not a knife to dress him out with nor any knowledge of how to perform such an operation. I had no rope. No canvas. No nothing. I did however have a thermos of coffee. I poured a cup and commenced to watch this deer. He was not an enemy. I had never tasted venison. I was not mad at him. He did not piss me off. I really had no reason to shoot him nor did I have a way to cart him out the these snowy woods as he was a big fella and I weighed about 120 lbs soaking wet.

I decided that this was foolishness. I did not want to kill this deer. I did not want to dress out this deer. I did not want to drag his dead carcass out of the woods and I had no idea of how to cook a deer for a meal.

I was not starving. I did not have a have a family to feed. I would not take this deer as I was not fond of killing for the sake of killing and I then began to enjoy watching this deer.

I sat there for about 15 minutes and he just kept on gnawing on the brush and tree bark. Finally I got bored and whistled and he vanished in a cloud of snow.

I have not returned. It was a wonderful day.

[goofyoldfart]

:bigsmyl2:Crash: You just gotta know how to cook Raccoon and Woodchuck. they are GREAT eating. If the Missus doesn't know what you are cooking-- then just call it roast beef stew! Did that for 3 years with her loving it-- until she caught me cleaning a woodchuck, then I almost had to bribe her to eat it. My daughter loves it. When I belonged to the IVFA (Indiana Volunteer Firefighter Assoc.) when we would have our feather parties to raise money for equipment, we always got two or three hunters together about a week before and shot a lot of woodchucks on some of the firefighters farms. Then we would cook it up the night before the party and serve it for free to any who wanted it. It would be all gone within an Hour. people always asked that we have more of it at the next party. the trick is to parboil it 2or3 times then marinade it in the refrigerator over night and then pressure cook it for an Hour. open the pressure cooker, add your veggies, onions and mushrooms. add a little (or a lot ) of red wine of your choice (MD 20-20 doesn't really do well though) and let the alcohol decant with the steam. it sure does taste good. Use enough wine and/or the right mushrooms and no one cares what it tastes like:veryconfu:bigsmyl2: Thought you might like to know.:drinks: [smilie=s:

[Dymoke]

You made good boolets--I'd say it was a wash, eh!

[kliff]

Great stories Crash, thanks for sharing.

[XWrench3]

the "School of Hard Knox" has no instructor! glad you made it thru with no long term damage! i guess i read one more book than you did. but boolit casting certainly does have a learning curve to it.

[meshugunner]

I bought my gf a mountain bike and proceeded to take her out on gentle rides to teach her how to ride. (Most people know how to balance and push the pedals but don't really know how to ride). The bike came set up with overlong control cables which I intended to shorten but never got around to it. It went great until one day she showed up with road rash on her arm and shoulder? She had gone for a solo ride and found the bike impossible to control. She crashed and burned and only when she picked up the bike did she realize she had been riding with the front wheel and handlebars facing backwards!

Lest you say that this could happen to anyone - this is the same woman who, after losing a significant amount of weight, walked around for a whole morning with her old jeans on backwards and only realized her mistake when she sat down on the john and wondered why she was looking at her back pockets.

[Catshooter]

And she's your GF? She blond, too? :)


Cat

[MBTcustom]

My first deer hunting trip was interesting. I went to deer camp with my buddy and his family. I had a Tikka T3 hunter in 30-06 and was deadly accurate with it. I shot targets and practiced shooting off hand a lot. shooting off-hand, I could cover a copenhagen can at 150 yards without breaking a sweat, and if I took a rest, I could shoot dimes at that same distance. Awesome rifle, and I had a lot of trigger time. Because of this fact, my buddy put me in a spot where I could cover a whole field. I had about a 300 yard shot in front of me, 200 yards behind, 100 to the right, and about 150 to the left. I was a dangerous mo-fo. I felt very confident that I could pick off a ground hog in any direction, so a deer was a no-brainer.
Well, like I said, this was my very first hunting trip. I remember that it was about 20 degrees when I picked my way to my stand in the dark. I climbed into the steel ladder stand and got comfortable for a long wait. Several hours went by, and I had busted out the Vienna sausages. I finished my snack and put the empty can back in my backpack. Just then movment caught my peripheral vision, and I turned to the left to see four does making their way across the hill to my left. I thought to myself, and remembered where my buddy said to shoot the deer, "behind the front shoulder" OK got it. I leveled my rifle on the lead doe, took aim and squeezed off a shot. She buckled but didn't go down and started running even faster. I jacked in another round, gave her 6" of lead and slammed her again. She kept running. I hit her one more time before she made it into deeper cover with her companions. Ha! I was cool as a cucumber. I reloaded my rifle and put on the safety, and tried to ignor the ringing in my ears. About 30 minutes later, my buddy came walking up the trail and asked if that was me shooting? I answered in the affirmative, and showed him where the deer was when I unleashed my deadly barrage. He told me to get down and he would help me find her. He said that if I slammed her three times, then she wouldn't be far. So we walked across the field and up the hill to look for blood. We found blood and hair a-plenty! We followed the trail about thirty yards and I saw something strange in amongst the blood. I asked my buddy what all that green stuff was. There was big gobs of it in clumps with the blood. He said, that I was looking at stomach matter, and that one of my shots must have gone in the gut. We looked and looked for that deer and never found it. Later back at camp, he asked me where I had shot the deer. I told him that I put all three behind the shoulder like he had instructed me to do. He told me to draw a picture of a deer and show him exactly where I had shot the deer. I did so, and pointed my pencil to the very dead center of the deer. He informed me that while I did indeed shoot it behind the shoulder, that I was about 12" south of where he had meant me to aim.
So, my first deer was not recovered, and I am the only person I know that successfully shot a deer three times in the gut!

[Molly]

I've posted this before, but I can see it really belongs in this thread. My initial interest in cast bullets was a desire to keep my guns going bang – a lot! - without bankrupting myself. I suspect that there are few casters who started out more ignorant than I was. I was a hillbilly kid whose only knowledge of reloading and casting came from the Lyman magazine ads that touted “Bang – Boom – Pow. I knew that reloading and casting were possible, but not much more. My initial reloading experience was prompted by some crows that had my number, and I wanted a bit more oomph from my .22 LR to surprise them with.

I grew up in a different world than you see today. A surprise high school locker inspection once turned up a 16 gauge double, a 30-40 Krag (or maybe it was a 45-70 Rolling Block) and a .38 breaktop in my locker. I explained to the principal that they belonged to the antique store down the street, and I had taken them home to check them for proper and safe operation for the owner. He just sighed and told me to get them out of the school and not to bring any more back in.

I used to trade guns with my school bus driver. I was once apprehended walking through the rotunda of the state capital building with a 45-70 Rolling Block over my shoulder. I explained that I was taking it to the state museum curator for discussion. The cop said "Oh. OK, go ahead." I used to make some pretty significant cannon too, until the time when I almost blew a patrol cruiser away.

And I didn't have any trouble purchasing ammo or gunpowder at that age either. As I recall, 22 shorts were 25 or 30 cents a box at a country store a couple of miles from home. One of my most memorable experiences is the reaction of a grade school teacher who was overseeing the class play. We 3rd grade boys were instructed to wear a cowboy outfit, because we were scheduled to sit around a red-cellophane-and-flashlight campfire and sing "Home on the range." The teacher went beserk when I showed up wearing my very own .41 Colt Lightning on my hip. Hey! It wasn't loaded, and she TOLD me to dress like a real cowboy ... Somehow, I survived those innocent days without injuring anyone, with all my fingers and toes, and without a criminal record. They were different days indeed.

So when I was about 8 or ten years old, I pulled the bullet from a .22 LR round, and seated it in the bore with a bit of welding rod and a hammer. I then charged my rifle to 'four fingers' with powder from several other disassembled rounds, inserted an empty primed case, and closed the bolt.

I’d learned everything there was to know about reloading by reading the exploits of one Dan’l Boon (a distant relative BTW) who was reported in a kids book as having dealt effectively with one of the more distant besiegers of Boonsboro by loading up ‘Ol Betsy’ with “four fingers” of powder. The author explained that this indicated that the powder charge filled the bore for a distance equal to the width of the four fingers of Dan’s hand. Well, if it were good enough for Dan, it was good enough for me.

Unfortunately, it wasn’t too good for my rifle: The first shot did a pretty good job of disassembling it: The stock split from the forend through the grip. The internal components of the clip were imbedded in the ground, but were otherwise unharmed: After cleaning them off, they reassembled and functioned fine. The stock was replaced by gluing a couple of pine 2/4’s together and inflicting some serious damage on the assembly with a drill and some chisels. 'Twarn’t pretty, but it still went bang reliably. However, a vivid recollection of the results of the last shot inspired me to limit its use thereafter to unmodified factory ammo.

But the crows still got my goat, so I traded most of what little I owned for a really nice little .222 and some ammo. It was great, but it’s astonishing how fast a gun crazy kid can go through 20 rounds of ammo. And the stunning prices asked by the local emporium for new factory ammo brought me back to considering reloading again. It couldn’t be all that hard: I had plenty of 22 powder from the rimfire ammo, and disassembling them provided me with lead bullets too: What could go wrong?

However, well recalling the excitement that accompanied my last attempt at something of this nature, I decided to play it ultra safe: I only filled the .222 case half full of ’22 powder’. The bullet was crimped into the mouth of the case with a pair of pliers, and I closed the bolt and pulled the trigger from my shoulder.

I’m sometimes considered a rather slow learner, but I’m proud to say that this is not always the case. When I pulled that trigger, I learned a great number of things in an astonishing short time period. I learned that there were more things to consider in powder selection than bore diameter, and I learned to be grateful for safety glasses. I learned the value of hearing protection, and to be grateful that I’d decided to test my reload privately, instead of before friends. I became the only person I ever knew who literally had gunpowder in his blood – or at least under his skin. It’s no longer visible in my wrist, but the little black specks were there for decades. I also learned that brass takes on some rather strange shapes while extruding from a chamber.

I also learned that if I hoped to survive much more of this sort of thing, I’d better find someone who knew what he was doing. This was considerably more difficult than you might think: A kid back in the mountain ‘hollers’ had about a three mile or four mile walk to town, and to the local gun store, where more experienced reloaders could be found.

I no longer recall the name of my instructor, but some kind soul took me under his wing for a few hours, and taught me how to use a mold and loaned me one for 311414 – possibly the worst possible design ever made for high power cast bullets. But what did I know? It had a short body and a long tapering nose just like the factory ammo for my dad’s ’06, so it just had to be good. And I’d heard that you had to have the right lead alloy, a topic about which I knew nothing whatsoever. But I had frequent access to a formal rifle range, and scrounging through the backstop provided me with several pockets full of spent jacketed slugs. I knew this metal I melted out of the jacketed bullets – whatever it was – had to be the right stuff, because it worked so well in factory ammo. I cast up a couple dozen bullets, lubricated them with lard (I think), and seated them over a factory equivalent load from the Lyman handbook. They were beautiful! I hied myself to the range, set up my targets and sandbags, and had at it. The results were impressive. Or rather, they were depressive. Not one shot hit the 50 yard target. Target reset to 25 yards. Same results, except that I saw a bullet hit the dirt about halfway to the target. I estimate the accuracy was something on the rough order of 25 degrees. Not minutes of angle. Degrees of angle! And the bore no longer had visible rifling in it, for all the leading.

This was most puzzling: The ammo looked almost exactly like factory ammo, but sure didn‘t shoot like factory ammo. That incident sort of set a pattern for my life: Shoot a bit, cuss, fuss & fume mightily, go back and try something different. I was determined to find out why cast bullets that looked so nice would shoot so poorly. Over the years, I’ve stumbled on bits and pieces of the explanation, and think I now have a decent handle on them. I can easily load to factory velocity and accuracy with paper patching, and very nearly so with bare gaschecked bullets (a bit lower velocity). Factory equivalent loads with Cream of Wheat fillers are a bit less accurate, but don’t require gas checks, lube or sizing. But over the years, I believe I’ve made just about every mistake it’s possible to make with cast bullets. If I get good results from my techniques today, it’s because I’ve already tried just about everything you can do wrong.

[digger44]

I first got a hold of Lymans casting manuel and read it cover to cover a couple of times


Really ??? Reading this manual cover to cover and there were no pictures of a mold with handles anywhere in the book ?

[Dewey606]

Wow. I am new to casting and thank you for making me feel better. :smile:

[MBTcustom]

Welcome aboard Dewey! Pull up a chair and ask some questions.

[longbow]

First time I have seen that Molly. An excellent read! In fact it is very reminiscent of my childhood and introductions to shooting and casting. A few things around me went BOOM too! I blew up a .22 in much the same way you did... well, I still have the gun and it functions fine but the gas escaping from the ruptured cartridge split the stock badly. I accomplished this in almost the same way you did by pulling a bullet then adding powder from other cartridges to get more poop. I have to say though that I did not venture into "four finger" country. That's just funny!

I too still have all my digits but some have a few scars.

Very nicely written Molly, That really gave me a good laugh!

Longbow

[MT Gianni]

A sad reminder that Molly passed away this past summer. RIP and I am greatful for the wisdom you managed to share.

[MBTcustom]

Oh no! I didn't know that.:sad: I wondered why I wasn't seeing any new posts by him. I am so glad that he always had a lot to say. I learned a lot from him.
A true booliteer of the finest sort.
RIP friend.

[burch]

Now that`s funny right there boy, I don`t care who ya are. :grin: Don`t be so hard on yourself. We`ve all done some pretty dumb sh%t. I once had a .410/45Colt derringer. We set up a plywood target about 15 feet away so we see how well a .410 #8 shotshell would pattern. Since no one else has the nerve to shoot it I humbly agreed to take the first shot. After pulling the trigger on my little man cannon I got a stinging sensation up my arm. My first thought was the derringer was malfunctioning and may be seperating at the seams. After a good inspection I came to the conclusion everything was alright and must have just been a flook. I then fired it again and the same thing happened. We finally figured it all out and after laughing our asses off we discovered the #8 shot was hitting the plywood and bouncing straight back. My right arm looked like it had a case of chicken pox.
burch