Thought on Why WW's

[Mitch]

Casting reloading and saveing money HUM.This to goes back to the old days of free WW.Back in 1990 my best Bud and I tryed to cast bullets.He owned a mall atomotive rapair shop so he knew every one in town.so we collected 600lbs of ww in no time all free.He got the weights i did the melting so it was a 50/50 deal just like our reloading setup at the time.all we got done was severly lead the barrels of our S&W 686s.didnt take long to give up and shooting cast bullets.

IN 1990 the ww were still all lead and still free long story short my best Bud who by the way passed away sudenly at 50 wanted to get out of casting and sell the ww lead so that is what happend. We both figured we colud cast bullets and save more money like we did with the reloading setup we bought about a year before. the thought was totaly rolling your own would make it so we could shoot more yet.This was true at the time free ww ad a basic rcbs special 5 reloading kit.one lee mold and i got my Dads old plummers furnace for free to.So this still partly true today.For those who keep things simple for there shooting needs.be it weekend plinking or lots of practice rounds for comp shooting.the bad news it the free stuuf is all but gone least in any volume,

Fast forword to about 2011 to present that is when i found this site and got all the helpfull information i needed to get my guns shooting cast bullets.If i would have tryed my cast bullets in my 586 they would have shot fine.it was the gun not the bullets.iI have always found more soft lead then anything hard>sure i fund a fair amout of WW.But what is gone today is the solder is use to find on most trips to the scrap yeard next to none to be found now days.I gave up on WW long ago.I think back to the 90s if i would have got my cast bullets to shoot then my house would be sinking from all the good stuff i would have found back then lol.

Now there is another thing that is in all the casting books type metals Lino Mono Foundry no matter. I have never found any type metals at the scrap yards.I been hunting lead since about 2011.Is it out there sure is but like the WW not very much of it.That went away in the 80s like alot of things.Still to this day the Layman cast manule gives bullet casting aloy made from WW and linotype.I totaly agree that the new caster my be better off buying some ready made alloy to start out.that would elimitate all the learing there is to hunting lead of unknown alloy and get them going on the right track.I took me quite a while to get the jest of making my own allot from scrap.
I am by no means and old pro at alloying and casting bullets just getting older lol.I have learned alot from this site and many of the fine members here.If i do post some advise it is likely that i have been there done that type of thing.I have learned that erly on i wasted alot of tin thinking I needed more.I learned that the right tools for the job make things go much better.I learned that as we get older and into our hobbies more and more it is not about saveing money as much as makeing good quality ammo and being proud that I made my own.And as we get older mybe we want to pull the lever alot less times per round.Most of all i learned there are still good people out here on this site willing to help a guy out.I still miss my best bud Rick and wish he could have been here with me thru the journy of learning to cast our own bullets. He would have enjoyed it all.

[RyanJames170]

One thing I’ve picked up from reading some older books is that wheel weight lead had to be a post WWII thing, probably late 1950’s maybe..

[Cosmic_Charlie]

The main reason I bought Elmer Keith's book ," Sixgun Cartridges & Loads " , was to see what he used to cast boolits from in 1936 . Chapter 4 - Bullet Casting revealed exactly what I wanted to know:

1 part Tin with 20 parts Lead (1 / 20 ) : For most revolver cartridges including all light (target) and normal pressure loads up to 1,000 fps.

1 part Tin with 16 parts Lead (1 / 16) : For heavy and magnum loads over 1,000 fps.

1 part Tin with 10 parts Lead ( 1 / 10) : For automatic pistol and small cal. smokeless rifle loads like 30-30 , 32 Special , 30-40 Krag , 30-06 etc.

Evidently Elmer didn't have access to wheel weights and I had an unlimited free wheel weight supply but he retired from the tire business and I have only a couple buckets left . Scrap lead is available as Range Scrap and building materials ... they still build with it . Tin is still available ...but...
I needed to know what the old sixgun shooters used and the ratio to cast boolits.

If anyone wants a copy of Elmer's reprinted reloading book it is available for $9.95 w/ free shipping at Amazon . You can actually read exactly what his loads are ... he reloads one for himself but recommends the reader use a lighter load ... You get to see what a "Real Keith" load is and he explains his bullets designs ... not second hand info ... cool read too !
Gary

I wonder if tin was cheap and plentiful back in Elmer's day. Must have been. https://tradingeconomics.com/commodity/tin
In 1974 tin was less than $2.50/#

[RyanJames170]

I wonder if tin was cheap and plentiful back in Elmer's day. Must have been. https://tradingeconomics.com/commodity/tin
In 1974 tin was less than $2.50/#

The wheel weights pre 50’s were not even close to the clip on or stick on things, they looked more like a lug not like thing that bolted on, and probably were steel. Like I figured the WW lead thing is probably a 1950’s and later thing probably getting popular late 50’s early 60’s

[Dusty Bannister]

https://www.tirereview.com/working-w...the-right-one/

Says patented in the 30's, with little change since then.

[oley55]

I'm a purty young feller, but tin couldn't have been too expensive else we wouldn't have be using and tossing Christmas tree tinsel (well actually we reused our real tinsel year after year). I remember when the chrome plastic stuff came out and how walking past the Christmas tree your static charge would pull off some of the tinsel. I remember thinking why would they sell this junk instead of the real stuff. So maybe it WAS getting more expensive.