Does this hobby result in cannibalism of discards?

[rmichael63]

First off let me say this, my boss and I have a running joke between us and that is this "you know we've been in the business to long when they start tearing down buildings we helped design to build new ones" with that said, do bullet caster hobbyist find themselves scrounging around for unwanted / obsolete bullets to melt down in order to cast bullets they currently shoot?

[10x]

First off let me say this, my boss and I have a running joke between us and that is this "you know we've been in the business to long when they start tearing down buildings we helped design to build new ones" with that said, do bullet caster hobbyist find themselves scrounging around for unwanted / obsolete bullets to melt down in order to cast bullets they currently shoot?

Short answer, yes, If the price is right unused bullets can be repurposed to usable bullets.
I have bought cast bullets from estate sales and repurposed them on a number of occasions. It is much less expensive than buying a new gun and dies, and eventually molds to use these bullets up.

[Ed K]

Never got fare enough ahead to have to do that. Now recycling once-fired is another matter.

[Don Purcell]

Yes, was cleaning out my deceased fathers shop and found probably 20 pounds of assorted dusty lubed bullets and they are now 300 grain WFN for the .45 Colt. I have in my own shop gathered probably that amount in scrap bullets I forgot I had and they will this afternoon meet the same fate. An extra 1,000 bullets available and didn't have to break out a single ingot.

[GhostHawk]

Boolits cast in the past which turned out to be excess to my current requirements were lubed, stacked in air tight food storage plastic containers, labeled, and sealed. They look just the way they did when I put them in there. It is not a massive amount, Maybe 75 158 gr .357 mags, about 100 .30 cal most cast closer to .314 than .309. Some .32s and .22's. But no I'm not melting them down.

I would if I no longer shot that caliber, but that has not happened to me yet.

And I don't scrap and repour just to be doing something.

[rbuck351]

I don't look for cast bullets to recast but if I run across ones that I am no longer going to use or find some at an auction cheap and not usable to me I will recast them. All lead is boolit material and won't be wasted.

[Hossfly]

Before I started casting, I ordered 60# cast 9mm and lubed from commercial caster. The lube is ? Blue and hard.
Started looking into powder coating because this blue lube was getting in my seater die, tried to get blue lube off so could take powder, not much luck.

Ordered some cast, not sized or lubed, better pc with these.

Answer would be, yes I would melt these if run out of wheel weights in the future, or just load em and shoot em.
They shoot just fine, they just aren’t as pretty.

[pworley1]

I just turned 2000 175g 40's into 452's and 459's

[ButchC]

Other casters have given me samples of whichever mold over the years. As I find myself owning new molds that shoot well, the samples find their way into the pot to make more of what works. Similarly if I sell off a caliber and find a pile of something I casted up, those will be sacrificed to the greater good. Now I can't think of more than once where I melted down anything I went out and purchased. Found them post caliber sell off and thought it easier to melt down than resell.

[jaysouth]

I have several thousand commercially cast .45 bullets. They are lubed with the traditional hard blue lube that commercial casters like. I started to boil the lube off the bullets so I could powder coat them. It takes two or three boiling sessions plus flashing with solvent. I find it is easier to melt them and recast to get good adhesion from powder coating. The commercial lube makes good flux in the pot. In another instance, I acquired a thousand Lee 309 200 RN bullets cast from a very hard alloy. However, they measured .3065. My favorite 30 cal lead flingers like .311. It was easier to just melt them down, add pure Pb and recast in another mold to get the desired diameter.

[JoeJames]

I have done that with two boxes of .429 240 grain swc's that were inaccurate in every 44 Special I shoot. Why keep them, when I can recast them in .430?

[skeettx]

NO!!!!

The correct answer is you find a NEW (used) firearm that will use those bullets
he he he

Mike

[Kraschenbirn]

Oh yeah! I've got almost two full cartons of old commercial .429 SWCs sitting on top my (diminishing) stack of COWW ingots. They lead badly in my M24 and 'pattern' (as opposed to 'group') from my 1894 Marlin. They were gifted to my by an older gentleman who found them while cleaning out underneath his reloading bench...said they were useless to him 'cause he no longer casts and his old DW silhouette gun had gone to his grandson in Florida years ago.

Bill

[Friends call me Pac]

I have two coffee cans on my bench. One has "Puller" on it and the other simply says "Lead". If it's an oops it goes into the puller can and if it is a bad cast it goes into the lead can.

[Pine Baron]

No. I never know when a "new" caliber tool will find it's way to me.

[Ural Driver]

Each time I got to my local scrap yard I check their lead pile. In the last year or two I have found several unopened boxes of commercially produced bullets in that bin. None of them were calibers I was interested in to reuse.....but all of them were melted down into ingots of a known composition and hardness.....no chemistry required. :D

[Cosmic_Charlie]

A friend gifted me a couple thousand lead .38 Super boolits (.355"). I melted them down and made boolits I want.

[waksupi]

I recycle many bullets. Usually because I have sold the gun that took that particular projectile.

[lightman]

I've recycled bullets that I had cast a few times for various reasons. Dropped or otherwise dirty bullets, the last hand full left over after loading a batch, a change in lube or alloy, a sized diameter that didn't work out, ect. Its not something that I try to do in any great amount.

[GOPHER SLAYER]

I went to a yard sale about a year ago and they were trying to sell some reloading gear. Bullet molds and dies. The man had passed and left his widow with tens of thousands of cast bullets. They were all .429 with gas checks. They were all packed neatly in large cookie tins. There were three large cans of bullets. One I could hardly lift. The women said her husband spent his entire day either casting or reloading. She said he and his friends would take a pickup load of water melons to the desert and shoot them with 44mag pistols. I asked her if she sold the guns and she said no, our son took all the guns. I then asked why her son didn't take the bullets and she said he didn't reload. Next question, does he buy his ammo and she said no, he doesn't shoot at all or hunt. He just wanted what was worth money. I did buy some molds and dies. I went back later to buy some bullets. I couldn't find the house.

[gbrown]

If you need, and don't have, it's not a good thing. My buddy's favorite saying. "Better to have and not need, than to need and not have." If I needed boolits, I'd find some old boolits I didn't have a great need for and recast them to what I did need. Luckily, I've never found myself in that situation.

[FLINTNFIRE]

I have cast a bunch up and then when shooting interest changed or if bullets were oxidized or I switched lube they get mixed back in the pot and made into what I need or want to stock for future use , any rejects go back into pot , defects and culls pulled bullets all go into pot .

Called true recycling , I shoot I dig them up I melt into ingots and I cast into bullets .

[lksmith]

ABSOLUTELY! Any ammo I come across that someone wants to get rid of I take. I can always use the primers or bullets one way or another

[Texas by God]

I've been giving my 50 year cartridge collection the hairy eye lately for pull down.....

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[Harter66]

I bought 2/3 of a 5 gallon bucket $52 . 151# of 45,50,54,58 cal RB , 2 qt of 358462 148s , something north of 40# of corn muffin ingots and misc 41 cal . All of it was WW probably +2% I guess I should have saved the 54&58 to use for 20&16 ga maybe but it made nice 401-175s as did the 41s . I did save the WCs .

[Brassmonkey]

NO!!!!

The correct answer is you find a NEW (used) firearm that will use those bullets
he he he

Mike

But what if the boolits are all mixed up with other sizes and jwords? Guess I'll get to sorting and weighing haha [smilie=b:

[kevin c]

Like 10X, I've gotten estate cast bullets in calibers I don't shoot. On top of that they're all hard lubed, whereas I HiTek, and even if they were a caliber I use, it's easier to melt them down and recast than to strip off the lube as is necessary to HiTek them.

I even have a good supply of HiTek coated commercial cast that I was using before I started to cast my own, made of a hardball alloy that has twice the Sb of what I cast with. These are now a reserve that I can shoot as is, or, if I'm ever in dire need of alloy, can melt and cut 1:1 with pure to make twice the number of boolits at just over half the cost of the original purchase.

[richhodg66]

My dad had thousands of various cast bullets, nearly every one of them I have something that I can use them in. A lot of them, the lids of the containers they were in were compromised in some way and the lube got Texas grit on them. I've boiled a lot of them, relubed and shot.

I'll be darned if I recast bullets that are useable. There's enough work involved in casting that if the work is already done, I'm gonna figure out something fun to shoot them with.

And yes, I have bought bullets from estate sales of casters, last Spring, I bought something like 70 pounds of .38-55 bullets from a guy whose grandpa was an avid shooter and he wouldn't use them. That'll keep me shooting without having to cast for a while.

My situation is pretty good, the vast majority of my lead goes into a berm on land I own. When and if I ever run low on lead, I'll recover it. If I was hard pressed for lead, I might consider casting old bullets into new ones, but not now.

[Soundguy]

Yes.. I have melted and recast pulled bullets..culls..estate sale oldies with dirty lube..etc.

[gbrown]

Sorry, I can't relate to "it's too much trouble to recast. Casting to me is solace, meditation time. I like it, enjoy it. Just me.

[jsizemore]

Lead is lead regardless of it's former configuration. Shot or unshot bullets, roof flashings, plumbing lead or wheelweights. Pewterware or rolls of solder. They all can be got for free, you might have to bend over and pick it up or pennies on the dollar as scrap. Those parts and pieces combined look good flying downrange.