Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Hunter's Campfire Say a guy wanted to start casting lead.....

I used Lee Liquid Alox as well as Johnson Paste Wax. Both lightly dusted with mica. Both worked well even at .30-30 speeds.

Melt the Johnson's and heat the bullets just enough that they are too hot for fingers. Hold with pliers or similar and dip. Cold bullets get too thick a wax coat. Mica keeps them from being sticky.

If you want to melt larger quantities of scrap a turkey fryer and big cast iron pot are the ticket. While wheel weights are great, they are getting harder to find. The best place to find scrap is at the range at the base of the berm after a hard rain. They were bullets once...let them be bullets again. Even the jacketed scrap is usable and save the jackets for the scrap yard to make a little money back. The key to relatively consistent alloy is large batches and a Lee Hardness tester. I prefer RCBS molds but have also had good luck with older Lyman. I didn't care for Lee molds but some people do fine with them. When I was using lube, I liked White Label the best and used an RCBS Lubrisizer. I am shifting to powder coating with material from Powders by the Pound using the shake and bake method. I really like the results and use Lee Push Through Sizers. One advantage to the powder coating is the ability bump up your bullet size if your mold is a little undersized.

The first thing to do is get acquainted with some roofers who do flat roofs. When they tear off an old asphalt roof, the drains and scuppers are usually flashed with pure lead. It all ends up in the dumpsters. If you can get it, it'll take some cleaning up to get the hot tar off of it but it's good stuff and it's free. The lead from just a couple drains will make hundreds of bullets or ML balls.

I'll never use bullet lube again. Here is 38 pages of guys posting pictures of their powder coating results.... some are even hand painted.... I'm thinking people only take the time to do that is in the dead of Winter though

https://castboolits.gunloads.com/sh...y&s=0041320e1eb9e9f396d846b50519bc5d



This guy stocks powders proven to work well also the plastic air soft BBs needed to get an even coat while shaking before baking. The 25.00 toaster oven I bought works fine.

https://castboolits.gunloads.com/forumdisplay.php?205-Smoke-4320-s-Corner

Thank you!

I don't powder coat for a number of reasons, but to each their own I reckon.

First airplane I ever flew was a DC10. First time I flew a plane upside down it was a Cessna. First time I flew upside down was in a chopper. You provide the chopper and I'll give free lessons on that.

If a fella was to say he was going squirrel hunting the question that comes to my mind, is what kinda squirrel? Little fuzzy varmints or liberals? I suspect the same load would work for either depending on circumstance, no? Maybe if a fella was hunting liberals a rainbow colored powder coat would be appropriate.

As for Lee pots leaking, it's because crud builds up in the spigot hole.

To fix that I'd chuck the steel "stick" that plugs the hold into the spigot and give it a good spin with a hand drill for a while. Doing so would lap the plug into the spigot hole and create a good seal.

Melting and fluxing lead is messy business. I don't care what brand of melting pot you buy, you're going to have to come up with a way to clean the crud out of it.

I started out with the Lee melting pot and Lee molds. I eventually went to Lyman and RCBS molds but I kept using the Lee bottom pour melting pots.

Also, the vast majority of bullets I cast were quench cast. I'd knock them out in a 5 gallon bucket half filled with water.

I found that straight wheel weight alloy casts dead on size, while adding 2% tin to the mix results in them coming out about .001" larger than straight wheel weights.

The RCBS molds cast very concentric bullets. The Lyman molds would cast very concentric bullets after I tapped the alignment pins in .005" farther than they arrived from the factory.

I didn't actually size my bullets. I would use a sizing die .001" larger than the diameter of the cast bullets and the lube/sizer would just seat the gas checks and apply lube to the grooves.

As for applying the gas checks, first, you have to learn when to cut the sprue so that it doesn't either A: tear a hole in the base of the bullet or B: leave a tit sticking up off the base of the bullet. It's all a matter of timing. Eventually it will become automatic. You'll learn to cut the sprue at the appropriate time to leave a flat base on the bullet.

THEN

When I would affix the gas checks, I would first lay a small, flat piece of steel over the die on the lube/sizer, set the bullet base down on it, and use the ram of the lube/sizer to push the bullet down into the gas check before I crimped it into place.

Doing so would result in a nice, flat bullet base.

It doesn't take much to cast up a blob of lead that will spit out the muzzle of a firearm. But if you want to get consistent results from your bullets, you've got to cast and prepare them in a consistent manner.

If you do it properly, it will become an OCD sickness.

If you haven't figured out exactly what diameter your firearms really prefer you might actually start upstream of casting and order various sized bullets from various cast bullet manufacturers and figure out what bullet diameters your guns like. If nothing else, figure out which diameter bullets leave the least amount of lead with the load you're going to shoot and this could potentially save you from buying one or several moulds that you can't/won't use or at least can't use without dumping a bunch of expensive alloy into the mix to get them to the right diameters. After you do this, order moulds that you are as close as possible to getting the right diameters for your particular firearms and get good at casting. After you have your technique hammered out, go to "Accurate Molds" on the internet and order the EXACT size moulds you want and designate the alloys you intend to shoot and buy a proper mold for each particular gun you intend to shoot cast bullets out of. It'll be pricey but make up a mold that drops 3 different bullets for 3 different guns and the savings can add up fast if you veer away from mixing in alloys and stick with wheel weight type lead and have the mold cut to work with this mix. Ended up buying two moulds. For me, one drops a 45/70 and a 454 Cassull bullet and the other drops a 45 ACP/K31/8mm bullet with every drop. This will get you the best long term results with the least amount of messing with stuff that ends up not meeting your needs.

Casting bullets resulted in a severe case of tendonitis in my left forearm from hours on end spent squeezing bullet molds in my left hand. After having to wear a brace on it and consuming anti inflammatories for 2 weeks, I decided that I had done enough.

It was fun while it lasted, however.

Im gonna sign up for that one just as soon as I graduate from chainsaw college!

Bristoe,

What happend man!?! I miss your witty responses that I read in southern drawl.....but now all I'm reading is,

Getting old is getting old.