Casting

[sarcasmn]

Ok, I am new to black powder reloading. Have done some smokeless powder reloading but not black powder. This means I will probably have to learn to cast boolits too.

So I am doing my research and this is what I have so far. I am going with an RCBS Easymelt as it keeps the lead at temp even when it gets to half a pot.
From the pot I ladle it into my mold, drop the bullet from the mold.

Now I guess I need to lube and size the bullet. What is a good sizer and what is the best lube? I will be making bullets for a High Wall for BPCR and general shooting. I also have a lever action in 38-55 that I will be loading with smokeless.

Any other equipment for casting? I know I will need a good set of gloves and a stick to open the mold.

[Bazoo]

Howdy and welcome.

You'll need a ladle. RCBS or Lyman is fine.

You'll need a spoon for scraping dross and fluxing. Lee's "casting" spoon is suitable for this if you want to buy one, but I made my own by attaching a wooden handle with ferule to a table spoon.

You'll need flux. Any organic compound will technically work. I prefer beeswax. It helps the melt to flow better and release debris in my experience. The other things people use is candle wax and sawdust. I use those too, but only when rendering wheel weights or dirty lead into ingots. I use beeswax for the casting pot.

You'll need a metal pot or coffee can to put the dross in.

You'll probably need something for an ingot mould. You can buy ready made ones or you can use a 1 piece aluminum muffin pan.

You'll probably want to pick up a copy of the Lyman Cast Bullet Handbook 4th Edition if you haven't already.

From Ingot to Target By: Fryxell & Applegate has a lot of great information about all aspects of casting, and is well worth the time to read.

When I cast, I have a round cake pan in front of the melting pot to knock sprues into. I have a folded towel or the like on a piece of cardboard immediately to the right, to drop the hot bullets on. I like to use the thin cardboard flat from canned goods to lay my rag in.

You'll also need to keep a rag handy. Make sure the rage and drop cloth are 100% cotton as polyester will melt.

I also keep a carpenter's pencil there on the cloth. It's handy for moving bullets from the drop zone into the done pile.

It's also handy for lubricating the mould. Graphite is a good mould lube. I color the underneath side of the sprue plate, the top of the block halves, the alignment pins, and the sprue pivot with a graphite when the mould is cool. When hot, if you have a lead smear between the sprue cutter and top of the block halves, you remove as much of the lead smear with a rag as possible, then color the areas again with graphite. The pencil is also good for lightly scraping off any offending lead.

Many people use a mould oven to pre-heat their moulds or to keep them to temperature if they have to pause. Basically, this is an electric hot plate with an old skillsaw blade or other round metal object on the burner and half of a metal coffee can on top. Cut the coffee can so it has a square hole in the side, which is where you place the mould, and place it with the bottom facing up on the skillsaw blade.

You'll also need a way to clean the mould if you use an iron mould. You have to put some sort of oil on the mould to keep it from rusting between uses. I use mineral oil applied with an artist's paintbrush but about any oil will suffice.

I remove the oil by first wiping as much as I can with a rag. Then I clean the mould with lighter fuel. When the mould is hot but not up to operating temperatuer I then the sprue cutter and fill each of the mould cavities with lighter fuel. The lighter fluid will will boil in the cavities and does a good job of removing any remaining oil residue. It's also quick and easy.

Some people will use VCI paper in a container to prevent rust. This is probably the easiest and best way, but I haven't switched to it yet.

[Bad Ass Wallace]

There are a lot of small tools that you can gather, wad punch, powder compression plugs (sized to suit the cast bullet), a boolit mould that casts at least 1 or 2 thou over bore size!

[fatfudd]

Look for - Black Powder Cartridge Reloading Primer by Garbe and Venturino

[JKR]

Lots of good advise for you here. About the only thing I can add is, for bpcr, use a known alloy.
20-1 is a good start for most black powder cartridges.

[Mr.doug]

Instead of a lubrisizer I would pan lube bullets and run through a lee push through sizing die.
Reduced driving bands on bullets can not be lubrisized, it’s kind of messy. And all bullets with same
Driving bands can be done same way and it’s less expensive. Reduced driving bands will
Let u get more powder in case if desired , and also aids in centering bullet in the bore.
I have a lubrisizer and never use it for Bpcr bullets.

[Gunlaker]

One option is to order a mold that casts a bullet of the correct size. In general I don't size bullets. In the very rare cases that I do, I use my old Meacham push through sizer, or a Lee push through sizer. For the most part all you need to do is cast them and then pan lube them. Very simple and inexpensive.

Chris.

[JKR]

I’ve done it both ways. Pan lube is easier. If your bullets need to be sized, the Lee push through dies are the way to go.
Of course you could always paper patch!

[country gent]

I pan lube and shoot as cast.
I cast BPCR bullets from 20-1 lead tin.
When casting I "overfill" the moulds when casting. My moulds have the sprue plates vented. I dont pour for a sprue but pour a full ladle into the sprue hole letting the excess run bac into the pot. This keeps the base molten longer aiding fill out and off gassing
I then set this mould aside and fill a second mould while the first cools. Set this one down drop bullets and refill first mould.
This gives very consistent bullets with sharp edges.
Another thing is to throw the first 10-12 casts away this heats the mould and gets it to the proper temp.
Have plenty of cotton hand towels when casting when the pile gets large remove the whole towel and set aside then lay another towel down. I use a paint roller tray with 4-5 towels layed in it. When the top towel is full pick it up by the corners and set to the side and continue. This keeps hot soft bullets from getting damaged.

[Bazoo]

I use a pair of round cake pans for pan lubing (when I pan lube, I mostly use a Lyman 450, but also I tumble lube). Stand your bullets on end in the cake pan so they are about 1"-1¼" apart. Then you heat your lube to liquid and pour it into the cake pan, so that the level of lube comes up past the lube grooves. Then, put the cake pan in the oven on 175 or so for about 15 minutes. This heats the bullets too.

Remove the cake pan and let the lube cool. When it's still slightly warm to the touch, you will be able to dump the cake pan over and the lube cake will pop out. The bullets are easily popped out of the cake by pushing on their noses.

Now, you put the cake back into the pan and stand fresh bullets in the holes, then repeat the process.

You can either, not size the bullets, if they are the correct size when cast, or use a push through sizing die such as is available from Lee Precision or NOE.

I prefer to size bullets before they are lubed.

[35 Rem]

I cast with my Lee 20lb pot sitting in a large shallow baking sheet. This allows me to pile dross up beside the pot without burning the table plus gives a place to dump sprues in front of the pot. Obviously, you don't want to mix dross with sprues. The walls of the baking sheet keep it all contained. Also gives some protection in case you turn your melting pot on and walk away and it empties itself due to a leaking spout. That happened once. Lesson is - don't leave once power is on the pot. If you eat at Chinese buffets get a few of the wood chopsticks. They make great scrapers to remove unwanted lead that is sticking to the face or top of your molds. The wood will remove the soft lead while still hot with no chance of damaging the mold.

[Bazoo]

I put my dross in a coffee can or the like. One advantage of that round baking pan I mentioned for sprues, is that after I get a dozen or so, I can dump them back in the pot with the pan. Another thing that I do, is to cool the mould slightly when needed by letting it rest in the pan. It works quite well for me.

[1885_Highwall]

38-55 was the first caliber I learned to cast and reload for. I started with the RCBS Easy Melt and highly recommend it. There is tons of great info on this site and the Shiloh forum. If I could go back in time and give my past self any information, it would be the following (some a little off topic):

1. Slug your barrel. It’s incredibly important with this cartridge. The bore diameters are all over the place. Mine slugged to 0.381! if you need a custom mold, Accurate molds are amazing

2. Pre-heat your mold with a hot plate.

3. Get a BACO dual diameter expander to properly load the bullet diameter your rifle needs. The expander that came with my dies was too small for the bullets I was loading. I didn’t realize it at the time, but the cases were swaging down my bullets (reducing their diameters) when seating them. 20:1 is still very soft.

4. If you can’t get a cartridge with a properly sized bullet for your gun to chamber, get the starline brass, they have thinner necks. It’s not uncommon to have a 38-55 barrel cut with a large bore and narrow chamber.

[JSnover]

The best sizer? The dies themselves? Dunno. Carbide should last forever but if it turns out to be the wrong size you'll have to buy a new one or send it away to be ground out. I have some from Hornady and RCBS. I've lapped a couple of Lees to get them to just the right size.
If you're asking about a lubricant-sizer, the Lyman 450 is pretty popular. A buddy of mine actually gave me one but I've been pan-lubing for years and I'm not loading large batches, I guess one of these days I might try it.
Best lube? If you make it yourself, Emmert's is a good, easy home-brew that works with BP or smokeless. But SPG is better. And SPG Tropical is allegedly better yet. There's probably another dozen or two of the "best" lubes...

[JBMeier]

I'm want to pick your brains about dross ...I've cast plenty and have used both fats and charcoal to reduce lead oxide back to lead metal, both work equally well. I drop my bullets into cold water and have quite a collection of molds now, experimenting with powder coating to increase nominal bullet diameter, I e .308s into .311 for 7.62x54R....452 cast into .456 for Ruger Old Army.
Know what else you can do with dross? Convert it to lead nitrate and make EPH-20 and FA-70 primers. Recycling at its finest...

[Rockindaddy]

Ya want to be casting a boolit that will lube and size .001~.002" over groove diameter not bore diameter!!!!!!!

[Bent Ramrod]

I save the dross skimmed off the lead after fluxing until I get enough to fill one of my lead pots. I dump it in there, turn on the heat and let it sit a while, then start stirring it with my skimming spoon. The dross gets more finely powdered and easier to stir as the procedure continues and it acquires a uniform grayish-yellow color.

When it appears uniform and as easy to stir as it is going to get, I start dredging the powder out of the pot and back into the coffee can with the stirring spoon. I hold the last of it back with the spoon while I tilt the pot into an ingot mould. I can usually get at least two, and sometimes three full ingots of good, usable lead by doing this. The dross, which is now well and truly “spent,” is allowed to cool for later disposal.

I used to be able to mine the berms of my former rifle ranges to my heart’s content. Not so at the place I go now, so such desperate expedients are now practical.