Home Forums Reloading Bullet Casting Get it while you can

Hell, I was casting bullets in elementary school.
Good ventilation, wash hands....zero probs.

Pops passed. Reckon 500# of Lyman ingots plus a couple big chunks from ?

Corner of garage.

powder coated don't care if it's zinc contaminated.

just the casting part will...

Exactly.

I started casting bullets in the early '70s. "Pure" lead for muzzle loaders and wheel weights for my centerfire pistols and rifles.

Then in the mid '80s I started competing in ATA registered Trap shoots, shooting up to 1,000 12 ga shells per week, and the cost of shot got to the outrageous cost of over $5 per 25 pound bag, so I started making my own shot. Wheel weights made the best shot and was hard enough for my 27 yard handicap loads. For about 15 years I was making about 700 pounds of shot each year.

I do my lead smelting outdoors and my shotmaker is in the garage which is well ventilated with one large door and the side door open.

For the past 30 years I have done my bullet casting on the bar in my 1,000 sf trophy room with it's 14 ft ceiling. I've never worried about lead fumes, because I've known that my casting and lead melting will not get the lead hot enough to vaporize. Last week I cast 13 pounds of .38 bullets and 17 pounds of .44 bullets.

I'm thinking you could sell some shot...

I was at a new salvage yard the other day and happened upon a 5 gallon bucket of "soft" lead. It took two guys to lift it into the back of my truck. It's soft alright. I can
dig a finger nail in it. Most of it is plumbers lead and some lead pipe

I toss 65 lbs in a GI ammo can and sell the thing for 75.
Guys buy it to make fishing lures.

That quantity and container keeps it convenient

It's not how much you have but how much you can recycle out of the bullets you cast. Shoot them into a easily reclaimble back stop and do so. No telling how many times. I've sieved my sand filled backstop rinsed, dried and returned them to ingot status. MB

I've always enjoyed digging spent bullets out of the backstop berm, and enjoyed making new bullets out of them. I have plans to make a used bullet sifter to make the endeavor more productive

Found a source that gets me soft lead every now and then for free. Anytime they tear out something with lead in it I get it. There are some nails and other stuff to clean out before melting. My old Coleman camping stove looks nasty but it sure works a long time on one fill of the tank. Be Well, RZ.

A few years ago I was given about three hundred pounds of pure lead which I melted and poured into one pound ingots. With Rotometal’s help, I can cast bullets from 10 to 16 Bhn. I haven’t fooled with wheel weights since. I only cast about a thousand bullets a year, that lead will last a long, long time. And I’m always on the look-out for more pure lead.

Us old plumbers have melted tons of lead, I haven’t noticed any bad affects from it yet. We wore gloves, but that was it. They don’t use lead for pipe joints in construction any more. I don’t think you could cast enough bullets to cause health concerns from lead. I’d do it outside if possible.

I agree! I started casting sometime in the late 60's as a kid helping my Grandfather. Since then I've seen lead go from free or cheap and plentiful to hard to find at any price.

I still get a partial bucket of weights from the local tire shop every 4 to 6 weeks. I sort them as I get them so as to not get hopelessly behind. The lead yield is still running 60-65% lead, pretty good compared to other places. Me and a buddy get together in late winter or early spring and have a joint smelting party.

I have a pot and Propane fired burner that will melt 400# of lead in 20 minutes or so, although only filling it to 350 gives us more room to stir and flux. We run about 7 or 8 of the Lyman style ingot molds.

Just picked up what might be my last load of WW. 400# +/- Melt pot is giggling.

Sorted about 100# today and the FE/ZN pile is a fair bit bigger than the last load. 35# is my guess.

I have a couple hundred Lyman ingots.
Doubt I use em up.

I picked up some xray sheeting at the local scrap yd for $1.25 a lb. the guy tried to push some wheel weights on me , i told him i wanted the pure stuff!

I spent years bird dogging wheelweights, and probably have enough "for the duration". Now I'm on the prowl for pure (or nearly so) lead and more importantly tin. Vintage single shot breech seated target rifles can be persnickety in that way.

I still pick up good lead wheel weights when I find them but have mostly moved on to other sources . I just got tired of sorting and ending up with fewer and fewer lead weights and more and more iron, plastic and zinc . I might try a pot of pure zinc bullets for target shooting . Zinc cast light but you can make bullets out of it and guys living in socialist states may have to use it unless they can afford more expensive alternatives. I don't throw zinc weights away , just incase !

I use more than that a week .

That they are. Again, entire 5gallon bucket from the shop I usually get WW from, ended up with two handfuls of actual lead. He apologized, said it is what it is and he didnt pre sort. I told him thanks for the yrs fo busisnes, I'll probably focus time on range scrap from now on.