who taught you to cast boolits?

[mexicanjoe]

I learned to reload using an old Lee Loader( the type with a hammer loader). My first job in LE saw me with a .45 1911 Commander. I found an old .38 S&W revolver to play with... I went to my second job with LE and found a gentleman by the name of Malcolm Reimers ( may he rest in peace) who taught me the basics of reloading cast boolits. He was a perfectionist of sorts who would re-melt slightly imperfect boolits. He used old( ancient) Lyman reloading equipment ,and still used his Belding and Hull powder measure" because it works, 100% of the time"!! He took me under his wing and confided how Unique powder was Gods gift to reloaders. :). , how things were wild and western back in the old days. He was adamant that a revolver would serve me well and to stay away from self shuckers.....I learned a lot from old Malcolm, I learned how he kept his word so much so that all he had to do was call someones family and if that person had a warrant, they went straight to "Mr. Malcolm". He was a master Mason, a well respected community member, and full of information you could find anywhere.... I ended up with Mr Malcolms registered Magnum and other things. I was casting some 158 SWC the other day when I spied my can of Unique.... Ran off about 50 rounds of Mr. Malcolms loads and went and had fun......... Wish he was still around, they world will never see the likes of them again....I dont really have anyone I can teach right now , but I hope I will run across a young shooter someday....

[onelight]

Elmer Kieth :) I learned from books i new no one that cast so from manuals and magazines no internet in the 70s and I new no one that cast . Now I learn from the folks here :)

[Outpost75]

In showing how times have changed I learned to cast bullets for an original 1863 Springfield rifle-musket in high school shop class. We made our own black powder in chemistry class, the girls cooked Minie Ball lube and baked biscuits for us to carry in our possibles bags in home economics, and we built a ballistic pendulum, measured velocity and calculated the trajectory in math class. All as a senior project for the Musket Team, which competed in the N-SSA Nationals in 1964.

276385

[onelight]

In showing how times have changed I learned to cast bullets for an original 1863 Springfield rifle-musket in high school shop class. We made our own black powder in chemistry class, the girls cooked Minie Ball lube and baked biscuits for us to carry in our possibles bags in home economics, and we built a ballistic pendulum, measured velocity and calculated the trajectory in math class. All as a senior project for the Musket Team, which competed in the N-SSA Nationals in 1964.

276385
That is great ! I love it.
I would have gone to class at that school :)

[Der Gebirgsjager]

Lyman.

DG

[Scrounge]

My dad, starting at about age 10. I'm sure I was "helping" him before then, but not sure I was actually any real help before then.

[wyofool]

Self taught, well that and this web site. Thanks to everyone here who helped.

[mattw]

A very dear friend who has since passed. He taught me to cast for his Springfield Trap Door in the early to mid 90's. He then set me up with my first moulds, an RCBS Pro Melt from the mid 80's, a Star lubrisizer and a stash of alloy. I still have the Pro Melt and the Star! I went on to work weekends with his commercial casting and reloading business for another 15 or so years until he passed at an early age of around 66 of cancer and strange heavy metal poisonings from his previous day job, diagnosis to death in 3 weeks. Main casting done with the big Magma 8 mould units, I did all the low volume special request casting and loading by hand for the operation, loaded more 25acp and 32 acp than you could shake a stick at. Most of the stuff was to odd or to small a run to set up one of the 1050's for. On weekends we would often setup at a gun show from Indy to St. Louis, north to Kankakee and south to Louisville.

Those were really good days and I really miss them.

[smithnframe]

My dad.......started casting bullets at 10 and handloading at 12.

[toallmy]

I got started casting right here at cast boolits .

[farmerjim]

Lyman manual back in the 60's

[Flailguy]

Self taught, stated casing round balls for a cap and ball revolver at about 16.

[EMR]

When I started a few years ago, I knew no one that cast. My internet research took me here. You guys taught me.

[Kraschenbirn]

Trial, error, and a Lyman Cast Bullet Handbook...long before there was an internet. I was a member of Battery A, 124th Illinois Light Artillery (reenactors) and wanted to cast my own Minie balls. A Lee mold, a Lyman ladle, an old cast-iron saucepan, a Coleman stove, and I was in business. Once I got the hang of it, it didn't take long before I was casting for everyone in A Battery who had a .58 rifled musket or a .44 six-gun. One of the gun captains (with only one restored 6-pounder and three gun captains, they had to take turns) was a plumber in the real world and had what seemed to be an inexhaustible source for salvaged lead pipe.

Bill

[reloader28]

An old man I knew had a mold, a lead pot and knew how to melt lead. That was pretty much all he knew about it. Cast bullets were good for nothing more than shooting cans he said.
I started playing with it and figuring stuff out and taught him how wrong he was.
I found this site and picked up some very good tips, but most of mine is self taught

[ak_milsurp]

I found a box of casting equipment T. Garage sale 25 years ago. It had a. Lyman 4500 lube sizer, molds, ladles, sizing dies, lube sticks, and a Lee 10lb bottom pour pot..... The first I cast were .452, 200 gr8 swc for my 1911 combat commander. It all began from there!

Sent from my LM-V350 using Tapatalk

[pjames32]

Self taught with a lot of reading. No internet then (1970). I finally found an LGS owner who cast and he gave me a lot of tips.
Yes, my first reloads were from a hammer loader from Lee in 38spec.

[marlin39a]

Learned from reading Lyman cast bullet manual back in 1977. I knew nothing, nobody, and there was no internet.

[Hahndorf1874]

Self taught early 70s, bought a promelt + 3 RCBS moulds and went for it.My son and I mostly shoot cast Ranging from 40/65 308 303 6.5x55 218 Bee 30/222 + 222.I shot pistol for 20 yrs and Cast thousands of 45acp 32sw long + 38/357. As they say all time not shooting wasted!! Has been a most rewarding hobby.Still at it,spent yesterday helping train new R/Os at our new 200yd rifle range @ Adelaide Pistol and shooting Club her in Aus.

Cheers Mal.

[Minerat]

Me, myself and I. With the help of the good members here and a good friend giving me his dads casting pot and moulds when dad passed.

[Ed_Shot]

Gun's & Ammo magazine articles in the 1960's.

[Targa]

Self taught, books, you tube. Thank goodness it isn’t rocket science or I would have been screwed.

[AZ Pete]

self taught in about 1965. Casting .36 cal. round balls for a replica Navy Colt. I had a Lyman cast iron pot and dipper, a very old bunson burner and stand from my Dad's lab., plumbed into NG, and wheel weights from my neighbors service station. I am sure I read the basics from a Shooters Bible or other publication, but cannot recall. By 1967 I acquired a used single cavity Lyman 148 g. wadcutter mold, for a newly acquired Blackhawk. That Blackhawk is long gone, I used the mold last week.

That said, I continue to learn (maybe relearn) bits from this forum.

[Peregrine]

You guys did. :)

[DonHowe]

At about 16 I cast my first bullets, round balls, with a Colt mold. Shot them from a slingshot.
Some years later I acquired a 452460 mold and a Lyman Cast Bullet handbook andstarted casting. I have come a long way since and am still learning.

[Fireball 57]

About1975, I met a retired physician, Dr. Howard Kerr, M.D. a 1930's University of Michigan rifle team champion. He logged a million jokes on card stock by a single word in his shirt pocket. Well, he would spend his weekends casting in his garage with an old plumber's pot and a bevy of NEI rifle moulds. He casted all in linotype and NEVER used a filler as he had too many 1903's with "ringed chambers". He'd give ya 50 or so 30 cal. boolits just for conversation on casting. He'd sing the old songs of the Civil War Veterans that came to his father's general store in the upstairs iron stove meeting room in the summer afternoon on the banks of the Ohio river. God rest his soul, he claimed to be an atheist. But, I suspect he got pushed past the pearly gates!

[lightman]

I was self taught sometime in the late 60's. A lot of reading in a Lyman Cast Bullet book and a lot of rejects that were remelted.

We used that old black Ideal lube that smoked and stank really bad. It also fell out of the lube groove when it aged a little. We had a 10# cast iron Lyman pot, a small natural gas burner and a Lyman Ladle. The first mold was a 2 gang Lee that Grandpa finally threw away and ordered a few Lyman molds. My first bullets were a Lyman 230 grain round nose for a 45 ACP. Next was a 131 grain round nose for a 30 Carbine. Grandpa got tired of the gas burner and ladle and bought a 10# electric Lyman pot. I still have the molds but the Lyman pot eventually died and I replaced it with a ProMelt.

We used range scrap which was probably a better allow back then than range scrap is today. Bullseye was still a big thing and wheelweights, type metal and Lyman #2 was still common.

When I got up into high school I worked part time in a corner gas station and collected wheelweights. That was the day! They were still cheap or free and this was before Zinc and Steel took over. I'm pretty sure that I did melt a Zinc one or two because I remember having one or two that floated and I had to keep pushing them under. These were very few and far between.

Thats my story and I'm keeping to it!!!

[MrWolf]

Self taught, books, you tube. Thank goodness it isn’t rocket science or I would have been screwed.

Yup, basically the same thing. I do a lot of reading and research before trying things so this place was a perfect match.

[cwlongshot]

My Dad about 1985/86. We got our pistol permits and so began what I call my life.

Been hand loading since mid 1970's. Started that with Grandpa and a Lyman JR loading 22 Hornets on the kitchen table before Grandma came home. ;)

CW

[762sultan]

I was self taught...sort of. Read a lot of Skeeter Skelton and was amazed that you could make ammo at home. Read all the gun magazines that I could lay my hands on and learned the basics. But when this forum came along I found a lot of things that solved the problems that I was experiencing from time to time. Still have some ammo that was loaded in 1966 but not the old guns to shoot it in.

[BJK]

Not very much experience and still learning, but between this forum and native intelligence I'm learning casting. So far #4 buckshot (fairly difficult) and slugs (easy). Soon 9mm and .30.

Reloading? My brother taught me loading .300 Norma Mag' and shotshells. From there I learned the rest on my own from various print sources. When I want to earn something I'm a sponge.

[MOA]

No one. Still learning after 20 years. Would have been fun to have had someone there next to you when you were screwing things up but, well maybe it's good no one was there too. 😆
Now I'll add my caveat.... I've had lots of online mentors here on this website. And having had this website for my main mentor teacher has made my learning faster, more in-depth insight into understanding of the process of casting an excellent product. Yup, y'all have been my mentors. Thanks.

[Murphy]

Self taught starting around 1985 via Lyman books. I started reloading about 4-5 years prior to that with a Lee Kit. I kept reading articles by Skeeter Skelton and his love of the Thompson #358156. I couldn't find a source to order any, so I decided one way or another I was going to get some. Of course he spoke of the Keith #429421, I figured I may as well get that one too.

mexicanjoe,

I hope you find a young one to be a mentor to. I've been hoping for one for over a decade now. Given what all is out here on the internet, seems there isn't much use in their world for guys like us willing to teach them hands on. That, and a generation (or two) used to instant gratification. I wish you well in finding one, and kindly wish me the same. Lord knows we need em'.


Murphy

[dtknowles]

Lyman.

DG

Same here, Lyman manual, cast iron pot, ladle, one cavity mold 311041, on my mom's kitchen stove, Lyman 450 sizer. I was 16 years old. Wheel weights, lead pipe and 50/50 bar solder. Lyman Spar T press, Lyman dies. Winchester m94 30/30. Paid for with money I earned delivering newspapers.

Tim

[JMax]

Started with my grandfather when I was a wee lad in 1959, used an Ideal C press, 45 lube sizer and single cavity molds. Still cast and no going back.

[sharps4590]

Dad taught me to load in '61. I learned from books and trial and error. 'Course, starting with round balls for muzzleloaders there wasn't much error. Graduated to revolver bullets then rifle bullets in the mid-70's. If there was an internet then I sure didn't know about it. Didn't know about it for another 20-25 years and by then I'd been casting 30 years. Still learning.

[metricmonkeywrench]

This would have made a great poll.

I’m in the self taught group, no mentors around here, with the wisdom provided here, Ingot to Target and the Lyman manuals.

[Texas by God]

I read every gun magazine and reloading manual that I could find starting around 1972. I bought bullets to load. I started casting for .38 Special, .44 magnum, and .45 auto in 1980- learning as we went with my shooting buddies.

Sent from my SM-A716U using Tapatalk

[buckwheatpaul]

My next door neighbor showed me the ropes when I was a kid and then Lyman and hard knocks gave me my masters..... It has been a great road to travel and very satisfying!

[agcannon]

cast boolits forum

[Bigslug]

Dad and I largely self-taught from about 2010. We had been reloading since my teens in the mid-80's, but needed to start casting when he acquired a Whitworth rifle replica and I a Webley MKVI - - little did we know that we were starting out with two of the most difficult styles of molds to get decent results from. . .

[jimb16]

My father-in-law taught me to cast bullets, but my father had me casting fishing sinkers before that. The transition wasn't that big. Mostly it was learning about alloys. You can cast sinkers out of just about anything.

[jdfoxinc]

Self taught by trial and error over 40 years ago. Wasn't much written about it except in the Lee and Lyman mold instructions.

[Finster101]

Like others have said, self taught with trial and error and a great deal of help from this place.

[Digger]

everyone here ....thank you

[jimkim]

You did.....I learned it from watching you! Lol Thanks!

Sent from my SM-A515U using Tapatalk

[Bazoo]

I leanrned from the Lyman cast bullet handbook, the first and second, and through trial and error. I read some here when I had problems and have read every book I can get my hands on.

Nobody in my family was gun people. I'm still the only one.

[Eddie Southgate]

My pap , Bailey Wright Southgate . Started on .44 round balls for a revolving rifle , moved to conical bullets for a '58 Remington , then to Minnie's for my Zoli Zouave carbine . Pap was blinded in an accident involving a cannon at a local Frontier Day's celebration so teaching me amounted to telling me how to use the equipment involved, flux and clean the metal , critiquing my bullets until I had my technique down pat. He has been gone 31 years now and I have mourned his loss every last minute of it .

[Mitch]

I watched and old time bullet caster one day whe ni stopped at his place for somethinging else i had no clue he did this.never tryed it till some years later.My best friend and I tryed it but had no luck all we got done was lead our guns.that was 30 years ago.fast forward a few years and i found this site and did alot more reading.the biggest help was finding this site and all the great people here willing to help.30 years ago we tryed shooting the cast in our 686s.Tuns out atleats my gun had a bad barrel constriction and i am guessing my best buds did to.My Bud passed away in 2011 and i started castin gbullets in 2012.He sure would be amazed by what i do now.Just imagin if one of up would have had a gun that would shoot cast bullets 30 years ago instead of not knowing it was the gun.Anway.Thanks bunches to all here that were a huge help along the way and still are.I do not think i will ever stop learning about casting bullets.

I give a few casting lessons now and then.the yougis are just like i was back in the day Just that youg and full of it lol no time to set still.In time i am sure few of them will slow down a bit at some point.Just hope i dont slow down to much befor then lol.

[Vegas Vince]

My father and grandfather taught me at 13 or14. Did not cast much until I got out of the Corp. 1968!

[sigep1764]

The folks here on this forum taught me to cast. Started just a few months after my reloading began. Just spent a few months reading religiously, gathering supplies, then trial and error. The day I received an Accurate mold and a LatheSmith expander funnel was the day it all came together. The Lee mold I was using was undersized and my Dillon expander funnel wasn't helping in that it miked .353. It was great for the jacketed that I started this reloading adventure with, but for cast it was swaging down already too small boolits.

[wmitty]

In ‘65 I wanted to shoot the trapdoor Springfield dad had over the mantle in our den. There were a few rounds from an old box of 405 grain soft points from I am guessing the forties and some empty brass. Long story short, I mowed enough yards to order a 457124 single cavity w / handles along with the iron pot, ladle and stick of that nasty black lube from Lyman and learned to keyhole targets at 100 yards. Took nearly 15 years of reading before I tried again (successfully, this time) using the RCBS .37 - 250 - FN in a .375 H & H. Wished this site had been available back then!

[JeffG]

Myself and a couple Lyman manuals in 91

[2A-Jay]

Read about it in Hand Loader Magazine and read the directions that came in a box of Casting equipment I bought at a Yard Sale.

[Seeker]

Self taught, well that and this web site. Thanks to everyone here who helped.

Same here. Everything I know I learned from trial and error and castboolits.gunloads.com. I might add,...after I warm up the pot, I can start casting some really nice boolits in no time at all.

[JWFilips]

Self Taught with a lot of help from the folks on this forum! Most of them are not on this forum any more! But they became true friends and my mentors!

[Rug480]

Fortune cookie 45LC, many thanks to him.

[Coopaloop86]

I went to college for firearms technology and became a ballistics technician. During my course work we had a tiny section on lead and casting. Being a young, new father that loved to shoot I did what every youngster in this age does and hit the interwebs. I discovered this forum and Fortunecookie45LC and now my wife is furious that our garage has become a boolit factory. I buy guns now just because I want to cast for them...

[Mk42gunner]

I dabbled with a Lee .375 RB mould and range lead for my 51 Navy, melting the lead with a propane torch in a mess kit spoon during the early 90's. Didn't work all that well.

Then I got to shore duty in late 1999, and found Shooters.com and the sixgunner and levergun websites. Retirement in 2004 really cut into the disposable income, but now as long as I can find primers, I can make just about anything shoot acceptably.

Robert

[mexicanjoe]

MURPHY, I hope that my" part time son" who we helped raised for 3.5 years will be interested.. His dad ran out on him and his mom raised him. hes studying to be a teacher, and I wish him luck... My best friends son is serving in the Air Force in Florida and is very gun savvy. If anything happens to me I want him to have my entire boolit casting/ reloading stuff........ My part time son ; can have my shooting irons- all 4 of them, you see my oldest son is 24 and is autistic, and my other son is a blind, non verbal quadriplegic ; so i gotta figure out who gets what later on..........

[Evoken]

You folks here taught me the fine art of boolit casting! I've only been at it for 5 months but I have learned so very much in such a short time. I've went from making ugly, wrinkled, tumble lube boolits to beautiful PCed and traditional lube beauties.
Thank you!
Ken

[Hossfly]

I started reloading with the Lee kit in 30-30, had 2 boxes of rounds and would shoot on Saturday so i could reload during the week for next Saturday. This was 1971.
Picked up RCBS single stage press and a .308 rifle with dies J word bullets and powder was in business.
Use that press for a while then when I turned 65 wife asked what I wanted and of course Dillon 650 came up. Well it showed up so had to get .223 gun for that amount of capacity.

Then 9mm CZ 75 was next, picked up several K of each to feed the Dillon.

Old friend in town had some molds gave me one, think it was .311 said it was for an old British rifle he bought for $15. Tried to melt some lead with a propane torch, made a few wrinkled boolits.

Watched Fortune Cookie and Elvis Ammo make boolits and ordered Lee 4-20 pot and went to work.

Skipped the lube stuff and went right into PC.

Haven’t bought a box of bullets since started casting. Have a metric ton of ww ingots, that I pull from to mix the alloy with. Now trade for stuff with lead.

Got 45-70 mold then had to get a Henry to shoot them with. When will it end.

Mostly self taught, trial and error, lots of remelting bad boolits.

Been reading here at cast boolits since 2017 and have learned the finer points of casting. Thanks to all those who have way more experience than I do.

[John Boy]

From the best sources: Harry Pope self write up (including making a bullet drop box) and procedures in a old Ideal Bullet manual

[Elpatoloco]

A member here from way back. Carpetman taught me to cast and I've been hooked ever since. Dang shame he is no longer on the site. True Gentleman and scholar.

[tinsnips]

Lyman me myself and I.

[alamogunr]

I didn't start casting until I was in my 50's. I'm 78 now and still living in a cast bullet desert. When I tell people that I cast bullets they look interested at first but soon their eyes glaze over and I can tell they hope I'll shut up soon.

I learned by reading books, magazines and on line when I finally got a computer. My collection of gun, reloading and casting books is extensive as well as all the printouts of articles I found on line. The best source of information when I started was the old CB_L email list. One problem I had starting out was everyone seemed to cast nothing but perfect boolits. I finally learned to accept something less than perfect and then shoot to see what effect a small defect would have. Funny how the boolits got so much better as the years passed.

This board is probably the best source of casting information to be found. Yes, it has a few warts here and there but these are easily ignored. There is another casting forum consisting of those who left here to form, what seems to be a collection of experts. I go over there and hang out occasionally, but hesitate to expose my ignorance by asking questions, of which, I still have a lot.

[rintinglen]

In 1966 my friend Jim had me over to his house one Saturday where his dad was casting up some round nosed 30-30 boolits and some 38 boolits. I started asking questions and he not only gave me answers, He had me casting. In an hour or so, I had made a fair few, and he showed me how to size and seat gas checks on an old Lyman 45 (It wasn't as old then.) I had a couple more sessions before they moved away, and I didn't get back to casting until 7 or 8 years later. But I had been casting for years when I discovered this web site and I have to say I learned more in five years here than in the previous 25 on my own.

[kevin c]

I have a mentor who showed me the basics (who also taught me a bit about lead scrounging). The Lyman manual helped, as did the LASC site and some YouTube videos. But the finer points that come from the longtime casting of many varied boolits for different applications, which this short timer hasn't experienced yet, I'm still picking up from this site.

[samari46]

Computers didn't exist when I started and very few cast. Books and magazines. Frank

[Traffer]

In 2015 I decided to go to the range and do some plinking. I lived in cities between 1986 and 2012 and hadn't fired a gun since 1984 deer season. I went to buy a cheap 22 rifle and everyone told me not to waste my time because you couldn't get 22 rim fire ammo. I didn't believe them. So I bought a little Mossberg 702 from Walmart for $98. Then I couldn't get any ammo. hahahah. My brother gave me a couple boxes of 22lr but that was it. So I scoured the internet to see if it was possible to reload 22lr. I found that a very few people were doing it but the performance was like that of a pellet gun.
I had never reloaded a cartridge of any kind. Wouldn't have known a reloading press if I saw one. But I knew that lead melted easily.
Then taught myself (via research on the internet and experimentation) how to improvise priming compound, resize cases, mold bullets and yada yada. Since there were no tools for reloading 22lr I made my own. Started with a crimper and sizer then mold. It was off to the races. I soon found castboolits and learned a lot here.
One word about forums though. I had quit a couple of other forums because ALL I GOT was "you can't reload 22lr" even after I was successful. After coming here, I found a lot of encouragement. Still a lot of nay-sayers though.

[M-Tecs]

Started casting in 1968 at the age of 8. My dad was a member of a 7th Calvary re-enactment club. One of the members had rudimentary casting knowledge and he showed me what he knew about casting for 45 Colt and 45/70 for Trapdoor Springfield's. . By 9 I took over all the casting and reloading. If I remember correctly I got 2 cents a round for each loaded round. For the most part I was mostly self taught via the gun magazines of the time. Never actually got paid in money. The club purchased all the component and the members just signed for what they took. I never made enough to cover the amount I shot. By the time I was 15 I had cast and loaded over 50K.

[Butzbach]

My brother RIP.

[charlie b]

Richard Lee :)

Bought a cap and ball revolver back in the 70's. Lee pot and round ball mold. Read the instructions and started casting. That was also how I got into reloading. Figured it couldn't be any harder than C&B. Again, Lee hand reloader and a hammer. Pan lube.

[ioon44]

Self taught, bought books and magazines back in the 1970's .

[gbrown]

I got into it by a friend making a deal with a friend to cast 5000 30 M-1 carbine boolits. Started helping him, then he wanders off and I was left to cast the final 4000. What a buddy. Used a Star to lube-size them. Got out of casting for 20 years, then got back in, after helping a friend, master reloader, cast thousands of boolits. I say master, as he can tell you the burn rate of every powder imaginable, what bullet weight would probably work best in each caliber, just amazing to talk reloading with. Anyway, between him and this forum and all the knowledge here, I learned casting. Reloading? Been doing off and on since the '60s. Friend and I got into it to make our teenage dollars go farther for hunting with dove and duck loads.

[farmbif]

my cousin got this mail order cap and ball 44 with the little brass mold.
we learned together, found an old broken battery out back on the farm and melted it down in a pan he stole from grandmother and used a big spoon for dipper.
that what got me hooked.

[bishopgrandpa]

Those of us who learned mostly on our own, learn, understand and value that knowledge much more than those who get on the internet and expect a 3 line message on all there is to know. They expect a gun, load and boolit that will give them a 1" circle at 300 yds and if it don't then you are to blame. The fun is in the learning and the satisfaction is in the result when you do it yourself. Don't think I don't appreciate the help I get from forums such as this, I do. But I feel the way to do it is to put in the time and study necessary to do it right.

[BNE]

You folks taught me.

I did a lot of searches prior to starting and kept getting good answers from this sight. Still do.

Thank you all!

BNE.

[FergusonTO35]

Richard Lee's book Modern Reloading and this site!

[John Guedry]

Mostly self taught. No internet when I started. Had a lot of lead melting experience thanks to studying plumbing at a vo-tec school.

[FredBuddy]

I studied here for months, then started visiting
the goodwill stores and accumulated the necessary
equipment. Then the tire shop.........

Thanks to all of you !

[jonp]

Self taught with the help of the fine folks on here

[Murphy]

MURPHY, I hope that my" part time son" who we helped raised for 3.5 years will be interested.. His dad ran out on him and his mom raised him. hes studying to be a teacher, and I wish him luck... My best friends son is serving in the Air Force in Florida and is very gun savvy. If anything happens to me I want him to have my entire boolit casting/ reloading stuff........ My part time son ; can have my shooting irons- all 4 of them, you see my oldest son is 24 and is autistic, and my other son is a blind, non verbal quadriplegic ; so i gotta figure out who gets what later on..........

Joe,

Hopefully your best friends son will take to it with pride. I just wish my nephew wasn't 1,200 miles away. He grew up in less than ideal circumstances and never had much. He's doing well for himself now and learned long ago about the value of being self sufficient. I think a lot of shooters are learning something we heard about long ago. All the money in the world won't do you any good if there's nothing on the shelves to buy.

Murphy

[Wag]

Lyman and this forum. To this day, I'm grateful that I never dropped a bunch of nasty old wheel weights into my casting pot. :)

--Wag--

[rockrat]

Nobody did. Learned it on my own. Then got a lyman load manual that had a section on casting and read that. Then 30 years later, found this site and learned a lot more.

[Wooserco]

Lester and Joel, may they both R.I.P. I started reloading at 16 for my 30-30 with the Lee Loader (whack a mole). Marriage and family came along. Years later, met Lester at the VFW Junior shooting program. Met Joel at a Boy Scout meeting, all because of our kids being involved. We got talking and Lester was a long time caster. Joel had access to unlimited amounts of Linotype (his brother owned a scrap yard). We got together and Lester taught us casting. Ole Lester was a bachelor. Rinsed out his casting pot after cooking dinner in it and started melting lead. I suspect his lead levels were sky high.

I really started casting when we would get together Sunday afternoons at Joel's place. Between he and I, our two sons and his grandson it was not uncommon to go through 800-1,000 rounds. Soon figured out it was less costly to cast and load for .38 Special than it was for .22 LR. So, we both got progressives.

All of this enjoyable time ended with my son graduating and heading off to the Marine Corp. and my divorce (the divorce is what really ended it. I had to sell everything. Got to keep two guns: My daughters small bore match rifle and my Uncle built gun. It was bitter).

Now, my daughter shoots pistol. My son has my Match Rifle that my uncle built. Both live hours away. I do have a grandson (stepdaughter's son. Grandson still) that has shown an interest in casting. So with the blessings of my wife and the encouragement of this forum, he and I are embarking on what I hope to be a long and enjoyable journey. I'm slowly getting back what I had. Starting with Lee molds, pot and sizer. Purchased range scrap/scrounged lead. Wheel weights are non existent since my local tire shop owner retired and sold out to a chain.

The folks here have helped shake the cobwebs off. And, I have learned things and relearned things here. Many thanks to all.

[tankgunner59]

Self taught. I read a lot of the posts on these forums, researched casting on the internet and read the Lyman cast bullet manual twice. Then I bought the equipment and molds and got started. And the learning continues...

[Wooserco]

I have to add: I'm opposed the the term "Trial and Error). You NEVER quit on an error. It should be "Trial and Success." That was taught to me by a high school physics teacher.

[TyGuy]

My dad used to talk about saving brass for reloading but never bothered to actually learn to do it. He bought me a 50 cal Hawken repop when I was a kid and got a Lee .490 RB mold to feed it. The mold just sat on the shelf unopened for nearly 15 years. Little did I know at the time that would be the first mold I would cast with.

When I was fresh out of high school my dad bought a Mec JR 12ga setup from an old friend of his. He asked his friend to show me how to use it. That lesson taught me how to operate the machine but I had no concept of what I was actually doing. I just went through the motions he taught me. Once I ran out of the wads he gave me I went to a local shop for more and realized there was way more to the equation than just banging components into shells.

I bought my RCBS single stage press a few years later and started with .223 and 9mm Luger. It’s pretty humorous how slow and inefficient I was in those days but my loads did what I asked of them and I was actually reloading properly.

The next step was a lead pot. I brought home a box of wheel weights from work and decided to try to melt them into ingots. I had no idea about half of what I brought home was zinc. It was a mess. I eventually managed to clean it up enough to pour the ugliest ingots I have ever seen. I had no concept of fluxing and there was junk all through those ratty little bars. The smell of the stick on weight adhesive started drifting and I was living in a neighborhood with houses squeezed right up next to each other. Nosy neighbors on one side complained about everything. The pot went back into the house and didn’t get love until we moved to our new house in 2015.

Eventually I did enough homework feel confident enough to try casting some soft lead round balls with that old Lee mold my pops bought me years prior. Even the best ones were wrinkled and I’m a bit ashamed to say I layed the hot mold on a pair of garden gloves and melted them to it. There is still a stain of burnt plastic on the bottom to remind me that synthetic materials and heat don’t mix.

I found this site a few years back and bought more books on the subject. I’m now successfully casting and loading for multiple calibers and am still trying to absorb as much information as possible. I wish I could have found a mentor to help me avoid some of the bumps in the road but it’s funny to look back and laugh at myself and how little I knew then. Hopefully in the future I’ll be able to look back on my techniques of today and laugh at how little I knew.

[rbuck351]

I started casting about 1970. Dad had traded for a Colt Officers model 38 special so that I would have a center fire gun to shoot NRA 50' indoor at a local indoor range. Factory ammo was way to expensive for me to shoot at any regular rate so I bought a Lyman 2cav 160gr wadcutter mold and a dipper. I think I probably did everything wrong that you can do wrong.

My first attempt to cast some boolits was on my moms kitchen stove in a tin can. I hadn't thought about the can being soldered together. After cleaning up that mess I managed to find a 20 lb cast iron pot and was on my way. I lubed the boolits by rubbing a stick of Lyman lube on them and loaded them without sizing. I found that many would not chamber so I ran them back through the sizer die. this worked ok as the Colt has a bore of .356. The lube process was a pita so I went to a lgs and asked about a lube sizer. They just happened to have a Lyman 450 that someone had ordered and didn't pick up and offered it to me for $29.95 with a .358 die.

I still wonder how I managed to get through that alive. I wish there would have been something better, like this site, to learn from back in the 70s. I first started casting to save money but after looking around my loading room, I my have to load a few hundred thousand rounds before the savings start.

[Walks]

MY DADDY DID !!!!!

I was in the garage from the time I could walk. Dad, Uncle, Brothers, Cousins and their friends were there reloading & casting most nights in the summer and winter. But most casting was done in the cooler months.
I guess you could say I learned by osmosis. Didn't get to cast until I was 8yrs old. RB for Dad's .36 Navy. With a 1cav mold over an old Coleman stove, got about a whole 5 minutes of instruction.
Hanging from a press handle at about 3yrs, priming .38's & 9's with a 310 about a year later.
I was out with the grownup men, doing Man stuff.

Started My own setup when I got out of the Service in '75, A week rarely goes by when I'm doing something to make ammo.

[Peregrine]

I have to add: I'm opposed the the term "Trial and Error). You NEVER quit on an error. It should be "Trial and Success." That was taught to me by a high school physics teacher.

The reason we say "trial and error" is to desensitize people to the reality that when you are learning you will make mistakes. Lots of them. We normalize this reality so when they start making mistakes they're not discouraged and quit because they did not immedietly get success after trial, you implicitly understand it's part of the process when you are told "trial and error".

Besides the fact you and your physics teacher are not going to change the inertia of an age old expression your opposition is in fact exactly counter productive.

It's implied that when you achieve success you've finished what you've set out to do. Trial and error is the formula to get there.

The being ok with making "mistakes" is the most important part that expression is meant to to convey and you've neatly removed it in a misguided effort.


I'm only going through this pedantic effort because I've made a lot of mistakes learning how to cast, and otherwise as well. I solved a few of them just tonight and am reflecting on the others. It's a journey.

I didn't cast or reload much last year because I got caught up on several different things. I've got most of them licked now and am back at it.

[44MAG#1]

Old professor Experience in the School of Hard Knocks.
That type of education sticks with a person because it is a lesson that comes hard.

[Greg S]

You all, about 5 years ago.

[beezapilot]

My dad and his buddies. I never realized how fortunate I was to grow up like I did, until I was MUCH older. Rural Connecticut back in the 1960's, my dad had a shop with an old gravel bank out behind it. All his loading equipment was set up and we shot pretty much any afternoon the weather was nice. His buddies would stop by to work up loads as it was a 30 second walk from the loading bench to the firing line, and practice. In my eyes, his pals were just run of the mill people who worked at Veeder-Root, Pratt & Whitney, Colt, Kaman, Fenn Manufacturing- when you're young you just assume that your environment is "normal", gosh, didn't everyone hang around with machinist and engineers and precision shooters???? One of those guys ended up designing a bullet for Lyman - He gave these to my dad, I think that they are probably cut from the original cherry.
276569

[Dunross]

Myself, along with the instruction and advice from a number of books and Internet discussion boards such as this one.

[bedbugbilly]

I taught myself how to cast some 58 or so years ago. I wanted to shoot Civil Wr rifles - I worked a long time mowing yards and doing chores to earn the $65.00 to buy a Remington Zouve Rifle that an old gunsmith had in his shop that he said he would sell me. He also taught me how to shoot an 1851 Colt Navy that his grandfather had carried in the Civil War.

I bought a Lyman bottom pour ladle - think it cost me something like $2.75 and my first mold was a Lyman 575-213 bullet mold with handles. My Dad had a cast iron plumber's lead pot. I had neighbors who gave me soft lead they had laying around as they knew what I wanted it for - same folks ho used to give us old shotgun shells later on to cut down for the shot to use in a couple of muzzleloading shotguns my brother and I shot clay pigeons with. I started using a propane torch - not good - so fixed up an old gas fired plumbers pot - also melted leader wood fire/coals. It didn't take long and I could cast good minie balls to shoot in the Zouave that I finally had enough money to buy. I got into shooting in the N-SSA through a couple of guys that helped mentor me. I still have the Remington Zouave, ladle, pot, mold, etc. and have cast and shot thousands of minie balls since then in the Zouave and original rifled muskets that I have owned.

In those days - it was trial and error and a lot of fun figuring it all out - nothing high tech about it. The second mold I cast in was a bag mold that belonged to my grandfather (he was born in 1867) - we had his plains style rifle that he had bought off an early pioneer that settled in our area - still have the mold and rifle.

A lot of good memories. All of that eventually lead into shooting muzzleloading cannons and mortars and for years, I was with a group of great fellows - we had two full size 10 pound Parrott Rifles (South Bend Replicas - 3" bores) and we also had an original Civil War siege mortar that we competed with.

[Don Purcell]

My dad. First balls for muzzleloader then Lyman 429421 250 grain Keith.

[firewhenready7]

School of hard knocks...Lot's of readind and sites like this....A little trial and error

[David2011]

A great man who became a great friend taught me to alloy metal and cast. I miss you, Mac!

[Lloyd Smale]

taught myself. Way before the internet was around to give advice. didnt know a single soul at the time that casted. Just knew that if i wanted to shoot anymore then i did and i did want to, that i would need to make my own. Same reason i took up loading at 16 years old. Casting didnt start till 26. the year i got out of the service.

[Loudy13]

Self taught/tried didn't turn out great then a few years later tried again, youtube videos and then I found this site which was the most helpful. Glad I learned will be a hobby of mine as long as I can do it and I will teach my son how to do it.

[prs]

School of Hard Knocks. I ruined a mold or two learing. Also read the books. Too bad this forum and the internet in general was not available way back when....

prs

[country gent]

My Dad and an uncle helped me get started. ( 50 cal round balls and the tc maxi) Neither had ever cast a bullet that I know of, but Dad was a tool and die maker in a die cast factory and Uncle was a die cast Die maker in the same shop.

[dbosman]

George Nonte, Skeeter Skeleton, Elmer Keith all got me started. Elmer and Skeeter were still writing when I finished college. Major Nonte's book provided details that Elmer and Skeeter hadn't.

[MostlyLeverGuns]

Lyman manuals, articles, books in the early gun magazines, I was 14 or 15, it was 1964/65. Marlin 336 30-30, Lyman single-cavity 311041, blue Pacific C-Press, Pacific dies. No advisor, uncle brought bearing babbitt flash from Bethlehem Steel for me.

[MilSurpFan]

I'm not really sure... my father gave me an old Saeco furnace but I don't think there was any training provided at the time. Pops is an old skirmisher and I spent many years as a young lad at Ft. Shenandoah. I'm sure I saw a fair bit of casting over the years at the skirmishes and at home but not sure now what transpired right before I poured the first one myself. It was maybe 15 years ago when I got the first mold (Lee TL312-160-2R).

Since I can't remember I'll just say I learned here. It's close enough to truth, since I pretty much had to re-learn everything the right way once I got here.

[Lloyd Smale]

George Nonte, Skeeter Skeleton, Elmer Keith all got me started. Elmer and Skeeter were still writing when I finished college. Major Nonte's book provided details that Elmer and Skeeter hadn't.

i guess nobody taught me by Elmer Keith sure did inspire me.

[namsag]

Self-taught 25 or 30 years ago casting Minies and round balls out of pure lead, some book from the library or a gun show was most likely my source.

Now getting into alloys and revolver bullets, am tired of shooting commercial hard cast and having to get lead out of barrels. Still reading here and there but this board is a major help and time saver.

[Petrol & Powder]

Who taught me how to cast bullets?

A series of elementary school teachers and my parents who taught me how to read English. After that, I was able to READ and teach myself what I wanted to learn.

[John Guedry]

Self taught here also.

[Cosmic_Charlie]

I learned to cast by reading on this forum. Still learning.

[roadglide]

George Nonte, Skeeter Skeleton, Elmer Keith all got me started. Elmer and Skeeter were still writing when I finished college. Major Nonte's book provided details that Elmer and Skeeter hadn't.

Yes... this. I was the only one in my family interested in guns/shooting, so anything I did was learned from reading, and self taught. I started reloading in 1970, and casting probably 3 or 4 years later. I "grew up" reading Skeeter, Nonte, Elmer, Cooper, and Askins.... later, Seyfried and Ayoob... folks like that.

[gwpercle]

Me , Myself , The Lyman Cast Bullet Handbook , Elmer Keith's book "Sixgun Cartridges & Loads ",
the NRA publications : Cast Bullets ( Col.E.H. Harrision USA ret ) , Cast Bullets supplement no. 1

The above publications and 50 years of pouring lead taught me all I now know .
There was no computers , web sits , information videos ...just you a book and a land line telephone.
Some of the loads published in my first reloading manuals are now considered +P+ but we trusted Speer and Hornady , took the data and used it .
Gary

[abunaitoo]

I remember him well.
Old guy, who used to be a game warden here, somewhat famous.
The stories he used to tell.
Showed me the art of boolet casting.
First was black powder 50cal.
Then some rifle and pistol boolets.
Must have been over 20 years ago.
He passed away a few years ago.
He is missed by many.

[Land Owner]

I started reloading (and having serious shooting fun) 20 years (1990) prior to registering at Castboolits.com (2010). In the beginning I had two hunting rifles (270 Win. and 30-30 Win.), one shotgun (12 Ga. Win.) and one revolver (45 Colt/ACP Convertible Ruger Blackhawk).

It was 2 years AFTER I registered at Castboolits.com (2012 - reading and barely participating) before I become a caster. When I "thought" I might "like" to cast my own (to "save money") I STILL sat on the "serious side" of that fence from year 1 to year 2. My inertia in the purchase "another" avenue for reloading was fundamental to that struggle.

Twenty one (21) of 115 previous replies (approaching 20%) have expressed my learning curve that reading and recommendations on this site certainly taught and encouraged me. My final shove "into the casting pot" was a surprise gift of over 800#'s of pure nuclear isotope shielding lead and eighty three (83) DOT isotope transport boxes, formerly 30 caliber military surplus ammo cans painted gray. One cannot walk away from that magnitude of lead...

[dale2242]

I am self taught.
I went through many trials and tribulations in the process.
I learned to cast good bullets before finding Cast Boolits but have picked up MANY good ideas from people on this site.
They made casting good bullets MUCH easier and faster.

[MOC031]

Started off self-taught casting conicals for my brand spanking new TC .54 cal Hawken built from one of their kits.

Then sometime around the late 80's I bumped into Ken Mollohan on the old Fidonet prior to the Web, forums like this, etc. Back when 2400 baud modems plugged into the phone jack in the wall was followed by the creation of Fidonet. 30 feet of phone cable running from the phone in the living room of my apartment to where my Amiga computer was located on the kitchen table. Maybe guns.rec or something like that and we became modem pen pals using what was available at the time. Molly talked me into trying to cast bullets for centerfires like my Lee Enfield and 35 Whelen, suggested moulds, equipment, techniques, does and don'ts, and joining the CBA. He managed to sell me on it, and now here I am about three decades later.

Back three decades ago, as he was here and on other cast bullet sites, Molly was a wealth of knowledge and eager to help anyone turn out better bullets or deal with problems. Ran up some pretty good long distance phone call bills for a while there, because Molly was also just a nice guy to talk with about anything.

Anyways, Molly is sorely missed since he died, not just as a mentor willing to help anyone with anything related to casting or shooting, but as a fine and decent man.

And now of course there is this forum and the CBA's forum. But I'm still a lazy amateur, still more interested in the shooting than advancing my skill in the craft of creating the cast bullets to shoot. I guess I'm a bit of a failure as a student...

[Mr_Sheesh]

My dad, I ended up being cheap labor for him, learned a lot tho. Learned case forming (243 from 308 milsurp cases), casting, jwords and lead boolit loading, reduced loads, loaded a lot of varmint rounds. Shot a bunch of them, too. Learned to really enjoy long range varmint shooting, it's a good challenge! (Rockchucks and some coyotes, friends owned a huge horse farm.) Still more to learn ofc. Casting / reloading is a moving target, hard to lead it :)

[quack1]

Learned to cast when I was given an old Colt Official Police in payment for several days of yard work and exterior painting for an old widowed neighbor. A day after she gave me the gun, she said I might as well have the mold and about 50 lbs of lead that her husband had used to feed the gun. I was taught to reload by dad, but casting was pretty much trial and error. Neither dad or any of his buddies cast and no computers back then, but a Lyman manual and an article I found in a magazine in the school library got me started. After a lot of trials, I made a lot less errors and dad and I quickly shot up that 50lbs of lead. About that time, I was old enough to get my drivers license and since there were a bunch of corner gas stations all over town back then, lead was pretty easy to get. After that, I was addicted, and slowly got more guns and molds. I've always said I learned far more from this site in the relatively few years I've been a member than I learned in all those previous years of trial and error.

[William Yanda]

Self taught with a lot of help from this site.

[Thin Man]

I taught myself. Lived in a college town and was enrolled for classes. Found a fellow who was selling off his casting gear so he could start swaging. He had an RCBS Junior press, Lyman 61 furnace, Lachmiller sizer, about 12-13 molds, probably 8-9 sizers and a handful of top punches. I bought all this gear for $115. This happened in 1973. I started reading and studying casting, got fairly satisfied with my casts, then found this site. That was when my interest and success with casting came to a peak. My hardest lesson of all was to learn was that group buys can get nasty expensive when you try to join every one.

[bearhawk]

I was about 8 years old and my neighbor, who is the best shot I've ever seen in real life, taught me casting and pistol reloading. He and I went together and bought a Lee Load-All for 20ga. He taught me that and a lot of grackels and blackbirds fell out of the sky when he taught me how to shoot flying blackbirds back in the day. He got me interested by letting me help him cast, size, lube, and reload.

[8mmFan]

I learned pretty much everything I know about casting boolits right here, at Cast Boolits. Many a time, while reading something here before I go to bed, I’ve turned to my wife and said, “man, there are some absolutely amazing individuals on this cast boolit website,” and I mean every word of that.

My little brother, I suppose, got my curiosity about casting boolits started, when I saw him casting some round balls for his black powder revolver. But I never had shot that pistol or owned one. From seeing him do that, I came here, and 5,000 or so boolits later, here I am.

I taught my sons, now 10 and 12, the basics of it. They still don’t do it by themselves, but they’ve cast a lot of boolits with me watching. They love it. I hope they continue it all their lives.

8mmFan

[Cosmic_Charlie]

I used commercial hard cast boolits exclusively in 45 acp but had bad luck with them in .357. Kept me from looking into casting. Back then out of the dozens of shooters I knew only one casted. I used to bring him rolls of lead water pipe dug up on utility jobs.

[Harter66]

This forum taught me to cast , though I haven't been here long I count myself lucky to have been here with folks like Bruce B and many others now gone .

I learned reloading from my Dad , who in hindsight didn't really grow past the measure/ weigh 100 rounds a year stage . He did however start his journey with stacked 12 ga loads looking for 1500 fps with a 1-1/8 oz #2,4,5,&6 lead about 1967-8 .

I read the books for insite to the why's of the how's . I tried to share with my kids , I don't think it's going to take hold with the grands either ....... Life is such as it is .

[Landy88]

Cast Boolits and FortuneCookie45LC on Youtube, with a bit of help from many books and articles. Thanks!

[Smoke4320]

it was 1979 or 80 I purchased a 58 cal 1858 Enfield to shoot in Muzzleloading matches. Self taught sold the gun about 10 years later (huge mistake) and did not cast again till about 8 years ago. Learned much here that has taken my casting and lead shooting to new heights

[gwpercle]

Lets see ... I read a lot of articles on the subject :
Skeeter Skelton and Elmer Keith got me interested in it for handguns . Most information came from Elmer keiths " Sixguns" and "Sixgun Cartridges & Loads" . The Lyman Cast Bullet Handbook 2nd edition and from the NRA Publications , "Cast Bullets" and "Cast Bullets Supplement No. 1" . These NRA publications are made up of several writers and the one that I've learned the most from was C. E. Harris . His works would also appear in the annual "Handloaders Digest" books , which I bought each year . My favorite cast boolt article is one by Mr. Harris " The Load Or : What You Can Do with 13 grains of Red Dot " ... I had 4 military rifles hanging around the house gathering dust ... I read The Load and a light went on ... a few cheap LEE rifle boolit moulds and a pound of Red Dot opened up a whole new CB Shooting experience . I had a 30-06 Springfield , 7.5 Swiss K-11 Schmidt Rubin , 303 No.4 MKI British Enfield and a 8 X 57 Mauser . Boolits cast of wheel weights , a free public range , proper loading instructions ... what else could a new boolit shooter ask for...
That got me realy hooked on not just casting and loading for handguns but for all the rifles sitting around in a closet doing nothing ... It was the best article I ever read .
Gary

[fredj338]

Self taught, long before the internet. The Lyman Cast bullet was my guide. Then just trial & error. It isnt as difficult as reloading to get decent results, fewer things to go wrong.

[El Greco]

I started 42 years and I thought I knew a lot for a long time. Then i found this forum and I found out that I didn’t know much.
Thank you all my teachers.

[Drew P]

Me, myself, and Irene. With a little help from a certain web forum which all of you seem to be familiar with.

[LaPoint]

About 33 years ago I met Bill Leopold who taught me how to cast boolits and the finer details of reloading. Bill will turn 88 this year. He doesn't shoot much anymore and doesn't cast at all. He is currently helping a young man learn how to reload. I will always be indebted to him.

[high standard 40]

I started many years ago (maybe 1978) without any guidance other than what I had read about the process. I had some success but many failures. I drifted away from casting until a few years ago when I took on the challenge of seeing how far I could advance my casting skills. I bounced questions off of two mentors, both IHMSA shooters, and also dove deep into studying on this forum. I'm now pleased this my results.

[Capt.Red.44]

When i was younger we grew up casting boolits for two .45 TC Hawkens my father bought my brother and I for Christmas, age 10 or so. Hunting and camping were great time spent with him and learning the outdoors. No better teacher could have been had the an Retired Army Vet.

Later in life, he mentioned how it may be worthwhile to start casting for .45acp and big bore revolvers, since thats what we use for stress relief and he bought me a lee pot for a birthday present a few years ago. That was the hook. Three years go buy and I've cast several 1000 boolits and they keep getting better each cast. Mostly thanks to all you fine people and your wealth of info!

[bluejay75]

An older gentleman from the range taught me. Also passed on his connects for reloading supplies and lead and such.

Made me promise in return to teach at least one other person. To date I have taught 3.

[metricmonkeywrench]

Ingot to Target and this site…

I have now been able to pass some of my knowledge to the gent who mentored me in reloading

[wilecoyote]

self-taught, if not for Richard Lee, thanks to his book and his often factory discounted material, when it was offered as a cheaper 2nd choice.

[Jim22]

I was a Junior in High School at Belleville High School in Belleville, IL. I met a guy my age named Kieth Metzler. He and his younger brother were reloading using Lee Loaders - including shotshells. I still remember him seating the over powder wad with a hammer!. I didn't know any better. About that time I bought a new Ruger Blackhawk in .357 Mag. for $87.50. We figured out how to cast boolits and load using a Lee Loader. I well remember shooting that Blackhawk at a groundhog on the RR tracks. I lay down between the tracks and touched her off. Now, sixty or so years later my ears are still ringing.

Then got more Lee Loaders in .30-06 to go with my 1917 Enfield mail ordered from Klien's in Chicago for $29.99. Didn't do much more boolit casting until Alaska in the 60's. Mostly for handguns. Elmer Kieth told me to get a 4" Model 29 so I did. Shot a lot of Kieth SWC's through it. Finally got into IHMSA and shot some other .44's and .357 Mag and MAX in Contenders.

Got away from casting when I left Alaska in 1995 but have been back at it for a year or so. Love it. Skeeter Skelton also affected me.

[jimkim]

Roy Kramer, the Cast Boolit, and CBA members. Most of this was through private messages.

Sent from my SM-A515U using Tapatalk

[NyFirefighter357]

You guys did. :)

Exactly

[Texas by God]

My youngest older brother and Lyman books.
Still learning here, too.

Sent from my SM-A716U using Tapatalk

[DDriller]

My dad taught my brothers and me to cast fishing weights first and the .38 wadcutters.

[rbuck351]

I taught myself to reload and to cast boolits as I didn't know anyone that loaded or cast. Years later I found this site and learned how to do it right.

[William Yanda]

What I didn't learn on my own, I learned from reading here. Since I started reading before I started casting, mostly from here.

[Soundguy]

I learned to hand load from reading mostly. I did talk to a few people, especially a buddy that lives out of state.. but no one near me hand loaded when I learned. Same with casting. just had to get the tools.. **** and start ...

[Soundguy]

is the acronym "r t * m" not allowed?

[Garyshome]

Me, myself and you all!

[oldhenry]

In 1960 Mr. Davis @ Davis Gun Shop (aka Phoenix City Pawn Shop) took the bold move of stocking reloading equipment & components. Hard to believe that the P.C./Columbus/FT. Benning area didn't have this before Mr. Davis took the plunge. He had Lyman equipment, CCI primers & Speer bullets. I started loading J-word bullets until later that year I came into a 1873 in .38-40 (bullets expensive & difficult to get). Mr. Davis fixed me up with 2 Ideal 1 cav. molds, cast iron Lyman pot, Lyman heat reflecting ring & a Lyman dipper (I still have them).

With that Lyman book & trials & errors I learned a little bit at the time. 5 yrs later a friend donated a Lyman bottom pour that needed a heating element + a 358466 2 cav. mold for a newly acquired S&W #15.

I have learned many finer points from this forum & am learning a little each day.

Thankfully I have an understanding wife that puts up (a southern expression) with the clutter that accompanies the habit.

I don't play golf or watch professional ball type sports, but do plead guilty to recently acquiring a 9mm pistol (it is a 1911 which should lessen my sentence).
__________________________________________________ _____________________________________________
A real sport involves either gasoline or gun powder: all others are merely games

[dverna]

Like many "old timers", I started almost 50 years ago. No internet and no one in the family reloaded, cast or even shot much. Books and magazines formed my education.

At times I get frustrated with the newer generation of casters and reloaders who expect instant gratification and do very little work or research. I have stopped reading the monthly new threads on "Help me with my cast 9mm bullets", or "Need a cast bullet and load for my 5.56 AR15".

[Old Caster]

When in the Army in 1965 while on the Army Bullseye team. Me and the rest of the team cast a lot of bullets and what I learned is that every mold is an entity to itself. What a person needs to learn is what is causing problems so they can be corrected and while some molds clearly make the best bullets by pressure casting, other molds can't even come close to working by that method. Timing, how deep the pot is full and how open the flow adjustment is plus temperature compared to alloy and speed.

[slohunter]

Elmer Keith, Lyman and me back in the 70's.

[Three44s]

Me and reading, later here!

Three44s

[Sig556r]

youtube!

[oley55]

I guess the honest answer is, I dunno cause I'm still trying finger it all out, and I'm not sure if I'll ever be able to say "I'm a boolit caster" with confidence.

[Char-Gar]

Self taught in 1959 with the Lyman 1st. Edition Cast bullet Handbook and a gas fired plumbers furnace.

[abunaitoo]

This old guy, who was kind of a living legend here, and was a good friend, showed me how the first time.
Jimmy Kikuchi.
He was the first game warden here way back when.
He has since passed away.
Cast some Lee muzzle loader sluggs with a Lyman 20 bottom pour.
Opened a whole new world for me.

[robg]

my wife bought me a mold and handles .then one of the guys let me use a casting pot in the club .that was 20 years ago .since then ive hardly shot anything but cast boolits .saved a fortune .

[trapper9260]

For me it started with casting fishing sinkers from my dad before I was a teen , way before the internet . By use of sand and newspaper . Then he show how to use molds when he got them, then after I got out of the navy, I got into casting bullets with the use of Lyman cast bullet manual 3 rd ed . then pick up more later and on here and other sites and manuals . It was easy for me to do cast bullets for the basics, because of casting from casting sinkers. To get the mix of alloy is what I learn more after.

[Phlier]

My (now 91 year old) Father.

It was summer of 1977, and I was ten years old. Dad started me casting Keith SWC's in both .44 mag and .357. He'd started me reloading the previous winter. For my 9th birthday the previous February, he got me a Ponsness-Warren single stage shotshell reloader. Of course, I wasn't allowed to touch it without him being there to supervise everything.

About ten years ago, Dad gave me his coveted SAECO melting pot, circa late 1950's. Still runs great, but I hate to use it for fear of it dying on me and not being able to get replacement parts. He also gave me the rest of his casting equipment, including those original Keith molds. I don't use them... they stay safely wrapped up (and well oiled) in storage. Don't use the lubra-sizer he gave me, either, now that I've converted to powder coating everything I shoot.

Everything I know about reloading, shooting, casting boolits I learned from that great man. Can't keep him out of my head every time I sit down to reload or cast boolits... I can hear him saying, "take your time and do it right, son. Never a reason to be in a rush. Take your time and enjoy it."

Thanks, Dad.

[Beaverhunter2]

The people on Cast Boolits!

[6622729]

Yep. Between this website and YouTube, I have been enjoying the hobby for six years now. I blend an approximation of Lyman #2 alloy from a variety of scrap or reclaimed materials and cast for pistol and rifle.

[Idaho45guy]

My dad.

Sadly, I just helped him with his last boolit order. He has been a subcontractor for the past several years or more for a company that sells cast boolits. Most people here are familiar with them. He usually casts around 40,000+ boolits a year. The other main guy for the company does around 30,000 a month. That's a lot of lead!

So my dad taught me how to cast so I could help him when he injured his shoulder a few years ago. Turns out I enjoyed it.

Now, he is 83, had a major stroke a few months ago, and can't carry the 50 lb blocks of lead inside from his SUV. Plus, his two lead pots are about due for replacement, and he said they have doubled in price and are backordered until September. And the cost of lube and lead has gone up enough that he just doesn't make much anymore.

So he had one last order for 3000 boolits and I came over and cast about 800 of them for him, plus got his lead out of the car and stacked it on his bench.

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[John Guedry]

I am self taught. No internet when I started. If there was I couldn't have afforded it or known how to use it.