Having driven a few Detroits, that is just too funny.
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try a 6-71 Detroit they have torque band about twice as wide as the needle on the tack . See hill coming put it to the red line ,every time you can the needle move drop down a gear till it will stay on the red line. They told me when I started just drive it like you stole it.
Wow i can't even imagine casting without the handles all that time
I started casting way back. First WW were smelted in my electric pot. Miserable job that way but it worked. Eventually, I found a plumbers pot and a heavy gauge cast iron pot for smelting. Much better, but...small volumes of ingots. Needed another bigger pot. Had a friend weld a plate across a heavy 10" piece of pipe. Worked like a charm. Lacking a plumbers pot...go get a turkey fryer and have somebody weld a plate on the bottom of a piece of pipe that will fit with about a half inch clearance all around. NOW you can turn WW's into ingots PDQ. Much easier to flux the "mix" as well. If you pay attention you can figure out how many ingots to add to your pot as you go along casting. Saves much time in bringing your pot back up to temp. Finally, thank your lucky stars that Lyman decided to reprint their cast bullet manual. Back in the day there wasn't any casting info other than that VERY expensive out of print collectible Lyman manual, or the (also out of print) collectible Philip Sharpe book. This site provides all you could learn from either book plus much much more. Cherish it. Pilgrim
BTW - don't try to deprime old military cases you are salvaging by putting them in a shell holder of some sort and then smacking the primer with a nail, or punch or similar using a hammer for the force. Those primers will depart the case and whiz by your ear (if you're lucky) right quick. Makes removing crimped in primers real easy. If you are up to it. I tried it one time in a row. Got smarter real quick.
I started casting boolits by first learning to cast lead sinkers. I had a old 6 sinker metal mold I got somewhere. I was 14 or 15 at the time.
I was a junior shooter at a local club that was being torn down after the building was sold and the new owner had other uses in mind for the building than a shooting range. We're talking late 1960's here.
So, I got the idea of digging out the lead from the backstop area and selling it for cash. Now we're talking real lead now!
Well after a weekend of digging and riding back and forth on my bike, I had enough lead for all the sinkers I could use in a life time and then some.
That lead followed me around to 4 houses, always ending up in the back of the garage somewhere, because "you never know".
Then I got into casting for bullets.
I did all my melting from a 6 inch wide cast iron pot and a ladle. Sometimes over a fire, sometimes with a propane touch. That's how high tech I was at the time.
And I too, didn't have a set of handles for a .45 caliber mold that was given to me by older man who just didn't want it any more, let alone the metal sinker mold. But he did give me a very nice thick chunk of burnt cork that the mold sat in, and I used that for two years.
So we all have to start somewhere. For me it was sinkers and yes the feeling is back in my hand also.
Well I go over this thread about every 4-5 months after I found it, not long after I joined.
I've finally decided my story.
I shot My Own Father.
In the butt, with a shotgun at 30ft.
We were Quail Hunting the first season after getting my first Hunting License. For some reason My DAD was on the left and I was on the right. I shoot shoulder guns from the right, he shoots shoulder guns from the left. Our old German Short Hair stopped right in front of Dad, he moved forward to flush. I shifted because they flushed straight across in front of me. My back foot hit something and down I went face forward. My 20ga went off and the edge of the pattern hit my Dad's right lower cheek.
To this day I remember the sights, smells and the sounds. The Sounds !!! I learned every swear word & combination possible in the English language and a few German ones too. We got back to the car were I proceeded to dig out 16 pieces of #7 1/2 birdshot out of my Dads hip, thigh and lower cheek. I was warned to never speak of this to anyone EVER.
But since I'm the sole surviving Family Member left , and all our Lodge Brothers from that time have also passed, and everyone else I knew at the time.
I figured it was time to tell the story.
And Dad, NEVER hunted on the left again.
I've always heard that as an Italian joke, the guy at Sears sells Luigi a chainsaw when he comes into the store to buy a file to sharpen his hand-saw and tells him he can cut down and cut up 20 trees a day, Luigi
tries his best but can only get three trees down and cut up and thinks something is wrong with the saw, the salesman starts it up and Luigi exclaims "Whatsa that noise?"
GONRA sez - PLEEEEEEZE do NOT tell Lee u really do NOT need handles on a Boolit Mould!
Great stuff guys, the Kitchen Stove ,Lead on the Ceiling had me Laughing so hard I thought I would wake up my Wife ( whom cooks like that ! ) keep em coming .
P.S. Love the Detroit Explanations , luckily that is one I was never Stuck with.
To: Pistol Pete 45acp...…...I did mold all those boolits and I shot them over those years to keep up my shooting skills and because it was such good fun. I joined a local shooting club and I was lucky enuf to be able to mine the berms for lead. I believe that I have a lifetime supply left. However I have had to move the pile 4 times and there is still another 1,000 lbs in the back of my Nissan Frontier. It costs me about 1 mpg less in fuel economy but the ride is no longer harsh on the small bumps. Stopping distance has increased and the pick up don't have much pick up any more. I am now casting and handloading for about 25 different weapons and the equipment has taken over my domicile. This hobby is a disease that has no cure. Now I am in the process of documenting all my weapons and equipment with an eye to allow my wife to dispose of it and glean the most possible when I go to meet Jesus. I have left her a lifetime supply of 45 Colt and .38 Spcl ammo for her two favorite guns. A smith 586 with a 8 5/8 bbl and a Ruger Vaquero with a 5.5" tube.
After learning how to reload in a friend's dad's garage I attempted to do the same thing, so I bought a set of 30 cal Carbine dies, shellholder, powder scoop... and with a hammer, a pair of channel locks, and a couple of blocks of wood (but no press) I went at it. Didn't get very far.
But... No handles on mold blocks!!!!
Wah! No mold handles, Can't top that. Shot the wall and almost the cat, Maybe. When I was about 14 and home alone with an older sister we were frightened by the most god awful ruckus at the back porch. With shrieks and screeches it sounded like a murder was happening in the back yard. Sis was frightened ( so was I) so I grabbed my Dads colt new service .45 and a flash light and went outside to see, cocking the revolver before stepping onto the porch. Well the murder was two raccoons in a tree doing what raccoons do. So I came back in and had a laugh with Sis and went to put the gun back in the drawer.. But a Colt's new service is a big gun and I had small hands. As I lowered the hammer it slipped out from under my thumb and fired a round into the drawer front of my parents big chest of drawers angling down. I was on the second floor.
I panicked thinking I had shot through the chest and the floor below where our bedrooms were. I looked between the chests legs, but no hole in the floor. pulled it away from the wall, but no hole in the wall. Where was that .45 bullet? I pulled out the drawer with the big hole in the front and turned it over. The bullet had punched through the bottom and was trapped in a wad of material. How? Turns out it was my mother's pantie-hose drawer and they had stopped a colt .45 at 1 foot distance. No wonder the gals
wear those things, they'r bullet proof. I'll leave aside the rest of the fallout from when my folks got home except to say it left me wishing I was bullet proof.
Grayscale
I read this one when it was first posted. Keep coming back once or twice a year to read it again. Always brings a smile and makes me realize there are more manly men out there than me. Casting “by hand” for two years is quite an accomplishment.
Might make it harder to judge the heat of a fire on the grill cooking though. Have to push he palm down on the grill grate vs us sissy’s that hold our hands 4-6” above to judge.
[QUOTE=Crash_Corrigan;: Wow! I never knew they came with handles. [/QUOTE]
Send off for that DNA family history thing.
You might be related to Chuck Norris.
Long before I started to reload my own ammo and then cast my own boolits I was a very determined shooter. My Dad bought me a few bb guns when I was just a little guy and he taught me the rules for gun safety first. Then he taught me how to line up the sights after I had taken a decent stance and a decent grip on the gun. Working the trigger on a Daisy BB gun was a real chore. The trigger pull was awful and decent accuracy was just a matter of luck even if I did everything prior to that trigger pull perfectly.
At about age 9 Dad introduced me to his Savage model 23 bolt .22 LR rifle. It was not sleek nor lightweight at all but it did have butter smooth trigger, decent sights and a very smooth and well worn in bolt action. However the safety left a lot to be desired as if you left a round chambered and the bolt cocked a small lifting of the bolt handle would allow a round to cook off without touching the trigger.
I was then introduced into the world of rabbit and squirrel hunting by my Dad with that very very accurate .22 Rifle. I got to the point where I could accurately take out a woodchuck at over 100 yds about 80% of the time with a head shot. When I was 13 he brought out a veteran Colt Woodsman .22 LR semi auto with a 4" tube. He taught me how to shoot this pistol but it was never very accurate at all. At 14 he allowed me to shoot his WWII G.I. bring back .32 ACP Mauser pistol. This one was very accurate but the ammo was too expensive to shoot very much. He also introduced me to his Baker side by side 12 gauge shotgun. It had a sold recoil impulse that I could endure if I was standing in an a offhand position. Sitting or prone was not as much fun. At 16 I bought my first rifle a Remington model 514 single shot .22 LR. I about wore it out over the next few years.
At 21 I was accepted as a rookie by the New York City Police Department and I was restricted to buy either a Smith Model 10 heavy barrel .38 Special or a Colt in the same caliber. I opted for the Smith and I was taught by some of the best revolver shooters in the country. Guys like Al Syage, Frankie May and Jim Cirillo showed me how to the get the best out this fine workhorse revolver.
As a cop in NYC I was required to spend a whole day and got to shoot around 300 rounds at the departments outdoor range at Rodmans Neck I the Bronx during the warm months and during the winter months we were required to shoot another 50 rounds at one of the indoor ranges in the city.
My first command was the 20th Precinct on West 68th St in Manhatten. Close by in Central Park was the 22nd Precinct which had an indoor range that was open one night a week and as a cop the department gave us a 50 round box of ammo each month if we bothered to ask. I made it a habit to ask every month. A close friend had a Dad who was in the Army on active duty as a Warrant Officer and he provided unlimited amounts of US Army .38 Special 130 gr FMJ rounds in neat little boxes.
As time went by the Range Officers who supervised the shooters soon realized that I was a serious student seeking accuracy and with the large amount of ammo I provided they took pleasure in help me out to get a better handle on this plain jane Smith. One night a top shooter took it upon himself to take my Smith and work over the action and trigger.
All that work took a few hours and the results were very appreciated. Properly tuned and lubricated by an expert that Smith took on a new life and with it I really began to achieve what I was looking for.
By spending one night a month and sometimes a half dozen nights shooting off that free Army fodder I became an expert shot and developed a mastery of that weapon which gave me the confidence in that weapon that I was looking for. The only downside to that was the copper fouling those boolits put into the barrel of the Smith. Once the barrel was loaded with copper fouling a few shot of lead boolits really caused a major leading problem of mammoth proportions. I soon learned to use the NYCPD's lead boolits first and then the Army's lighter rounds. Of course the lighter rounds did not impact anywhere near where the heavier lead boolits did. However at the shorter ranges of 25 yards or less the difference did not really matter that much.
I pretty much kept up with the extra range sessions over the years until I retired in '84. For a few years I did not utilize a weapon of any kind until I moved to Vermont. Say what you want about that rural and very lightly populated state the laws regarding concealed or open carry were up at the top.
I got a job as an Insurance Adjuster and I soon was packing my beloved Smith everywhere and all the time. The only time I needed it was when I was required to dispatch an injured deer which had jumped into the bed of my pickup and broken her leg badly.
It's a big deal if you hit a deer in Vermont. I had to contact the local State Trooper and he came out to the scene and determined that the deer was hit with the rear half of the vehicle. This meant that I could salvage the meat and I had no liability. However if the deer had be impacted by the front half (meaning anything forwards of the back of the front seat) I would be ticketed and I would not be given the deermeat.
These days I still love to shoot my Smith but it has been upgraded to the 586 level with a 6" tube. This one has also been worked over and is a better shooter than my beloved 4 incher. I do miss those free Army 130 copper FMJ's.
Wow, that's a first. I've never heard of anyone casting bullets with no handles on their mold. LOL.
What a maniac! I'm glad I ordered a Lee 2-banger mold for my first mold as it came with the handles. So, it would have been impossible for me to make the same mistake.
Wow!
I bought a press and a set of dies to start my reloading. Several friends talked me through the process. I seems none thought to mention lubing the cases before sizing. I put all that junk in a box and never touched it for about ten years. Then a real friend had me come to his house and we reloaded on his bench and he taught me what I needed to know.
Glad I ran across this thread. Very entertaining.
One TOUGH man, I started with a 2 quart, copper bottom, stainless sauce pan on a Coleman stove, and used an old gravy dipper spoon I had swiped from my grandmas kitchen, and I thought that thing used to be hot !!!
[QUOTE=Bill*;445466]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.
No comment. I started to but it wasn't worth it.