By doing everything yourself (casting, loading, etc.), using scrounged lead that is free or virtually so, one can equal or beat the cost of average .22RF ammo-- the wrench in the works is the time spent doing it. If one views that as a hobby and treats it as one would any other handloading venture/experiment in chasing pure accuracy it makes total sense. If one's goal is to prepare plinking ammo for blasting tin cans, golf balls, rocks, and pine cones at 50 feet (wherein I bet 70% of RF ammo gets wasted in this country) then it's a losing proposition- save your time and buy a brick of Walmart .22's.
Scrounged lead is hard to come by in these parts. The place that don't sell to a scrap dealer all seem to have somebody lined up. For my purpose, small game shooting with a Hornet, the price of jacket bullets isn't a problem. You can get a lot of bullets, especially if you wait for sales, for the price of a Lyman mold and handles, not to mention the added cost of non-scrounged lead. My favorite is the 46gr FP Speer made for the .218. Last ones I bought were about $.14 each. It's no great trick to get other ones for $.10 or so if you are patient. SPS seems to have lots of blem and overrun Varmageddons available.
I wouldn't try to get a jacketed slug down in the .22LR velocity range, but 2000 or so is good and should be enough for the odd turkey, fox, or 'yote.
