Anyone cast their own lead bullets, or just buy your bullets? Is lead hard to come by?

I've got a bunch of lead I need to get rid of, it's been sitting in my garage for about 7 years now.

We have a bullet casting forum check it out lots of experience posted there for the taking..

I scrounge old nets that get balled up on the beaches and salvage the lead line lead.

That's what I do. The commercial guy throw fathoms of it away every year. I just mine the line. Of course I throw in a handful of wheel weights with it when I'm melting it down into clean ingots.

The hardest part is separating the lead from the line material. Recently I just been putting it in #10 cans over an open fire and allowing the material to burn away.

One of the military bases had like 20 or 30 thousand pounds a lead for auction a while ago. The real kicker was the material had to be destroyed or cut up before it left the base. It would take a long time cutting that stuff up.

I've turned over 1000#'s of lead in bullets. I don't seem to have as much free time, but still manage to cast some now and again. To get the most out of cast, tailoring the dia and alloy to your gun by casting your own is really the only way to go. That and I doubt I'd be as big a fan of the 480 if I didn't cast for it.



and if you get truly aflicted you'll start casting hollow points

Find your nearest junkyard and ask them about scrap lead.


If you have a tire store nearby ask what they do with old wheelweights.

Used to. Will again.

In 76/77 I lived in Galena and was into muzzle loaders(have yet to kill with one!). At some previous time they had ripped a bunch of 3 inch lead conduit out of the runway and dumped it in a pile over the end of the dike. At the time the Air Force was still flying F-4 s out of there as Bear interceptors until the F16s from Great Falls could get there and used 3 arrester wires and sometimes their poop chute to stop on the 5,000 foot runway. I suspect the junk was part of this system. Fun to watch those landings. Pilots were a might twitchy even after a couple bears at the club. We lived in on base housing and had privileges.....

At any rate my cruiser ax and I salvaged several hundred pounds of the discarded lead melted down into ingots on the kitchen stove. Prolly not all that healthy!

Last time I used any of this was as a gill net anchor several years later, enclosed in a 7x8x9 inch IIRC plywood box. Weighed 68 lbs. The Manley Postmaster was overjoyed when I sent it to myself there, as I was between jobs and spending a couple months at my cabin. He also enjoyed the 30 something boxes my wife and I sent to his 8' X 10' post office.

As I recall, his exact words when I walked in the door a couple weeks later were "You SOB(abbreviated), I almost ruptured myself!" I ask you, is that any way a public servant should be addressing a client? Fortunately he was also the bartender, and it was only about 8 steps between jobs.

I really should unbox that lead one of these days. As soon as I get a 1/28 barrel in something. That compromise 1/48 TC used on the Hawkin 50 and Seneca 45 ain't worth spit, but they are fun to shoot even if the aren't accurate with either ball or Maxie. Probably should ask my Denver brother for the .50 Hawkin back after these 16 years. He went and bought an in-line, the putz. Nowhere near the record 21 years he kept the .270, now an '06 caribou killing machine here in Kotzebue.

yup, have been casting 30 cal and 44 mag "Kieth" bullets for many years ..

have bugged Stoner at gun shows to cast some 500 S&W Mag 500 gr bullets but he whined about the cost of a mold and refused to do the fitty !

Last year I developed my own bullets for the 500 S&W and had Tom at Accurate Molds make me a custom 4 cavity mold, 555 gr and 500 gr .502" bullets as cast with wheelweights.... I made the meplat .416" and straight tapered to .502", these boys will hit HARD and penetrate deep ....

only $165 shipped ,
and now molds for both bullet designs are available for everyone .. contact Tom @ Accurate Molds
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http://www.accuratemolds.com/bullet_detail.php?bullet=50-500M-D.png


http://www.accuratemolds.com/bullet_detail.php?bullet=50-555M-D.png

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That is [bleep] ironic given the topic.

Tom

Good topic because if I move back up there again, I'd like to keep casting. Currently working on load development for a 255 gr LBT LFN for my 9.3x62 which was purpose built for Alaska.

Alan

The Lyman Great Plains Rifle has a 1:60" for PRB and their Great Plains Hunter is 1:32" for for conicals.

One of my buds bought a Lee mold for casting hollow-based Minie balls and they seem to shoot pretty well out of my .54 Lyman GPR (we both have .54 GPRs).

The Minie being hollow based with most of the weight forward seems to stabilize pretty well so far kicked off with 80gr of Triple7 even with the slow 60" twist.

BTW, I lived downriver 50 miles back in the day. Spent a lot of time in Galena......mostly at the courthouse.