Bullet moulds

[waksupi]

Many years ago in my (relative) youth I decided to salvage lead from several batteries. It was a mess! I did drain the acid first so that sort of minimized the chances burning my face off. Plus, I apparently was lucky. Then there was the fact that the end product didn't shoot very well. I suppose if you have industrial level safeguards the danger is not so great.

My local recycler will give me $5 for a battery (if not needed for core charge). The $5 will buy me 6 lbs of lead so........ Funny thing, I once checked with him if he had any lead i could buy. He says "sure come take a look". He walked me behind the shop and introduced me to a piece of lead that was about 3' X 3' and over 6" thick. I would have bought it but getting it home was more than I wanted to attempt.

Don't mess with batteries. Lots of dangerous stuff to deal with, for very little return.

 

[Rob M.]

Round ball for my NW guns are expensive and not readily found , in any store , so I cast my own. I have collected so much free or darn cheap lead over the decades I should be good till the dirt nap . Its not difficult to do , running ball , and is traditional as well so ....why not .

 

[bpd303]

about 3' X 3' and over 6" thick. I would have bought it but getting it home was more than I wanted to attempt.

I don't blame ya, a piece of lead that big would weigh about 3,185 pounds. I would see if he would let me cut off about 100-200 pounds with an axe.

 

[longcruise]

He wouldn't let me reduce it. Not sure why. Had I got it home, the ax would have been my approach.

 

[Marplot]

I am thinking about casting because I like to shoot "originals." My Swiss Jaeger rifle was made 18th century. High end gunsmiths built a rifle and it came with a mold that was made for the specific caliber of the barrel of this gun. This .70 caliber came with a .680 mold.

My Danish Jaeger rifle, 19th C, is also .70 caliber, but the mold that came with it is .656. I may can find some shop that makes what I want, but more fun to me is to make my own. Or get with a friend who has all the stuff to cast, bring my molds and have a great afternoon!

Though I would be very unlikely to do this, but I saw a movie, "The Buffalo Hunter," They would shoot a buf, dig the RB out of it and melt it down over their campfire at night and re-cast their bullets for the next day.

 

[Bucks Co]

Hard to quantify but I feel my 40cal Bedford (Douglas Premium Barrel) shoots 'better' with balls cast from a .395 Green Mountain Mould compared to Commercial swaged .395 ones.

 

[Sooty Scot]

Running ball is as much a part of the muzzleloading ritual as sharpening your own flints. Either you do it - and enjoy it- or you transpose a cartridge mentality; buy everything pre-made and low effort..in my opinionated view.

 

[Psycho Mike]

I got into casting my own when I had a Brown Bess...those 635 grain, .735 cal balls were almost impossible to get otherwise. I liked the "zen" of casting my own and had no issues finding cheap lead.

That Bess was a monster though....only one indoor range that was really close (the outdoor ones were a fair amount further away, so I did the indoor one on occasion). They used a common trap for both the rifle and pistol bays and those rb's could ring the trap like a huge gong...cleared out the pistol bay a few times with the massive amount of noise I could generate

 

[B P Maniac Shooter]

I've poured over 10,000 round balls of various sizes to shoot in past few years.
That wouldn't have happened if I had to buy them by the box.
If you only shoot a few 100 a year, buying them by the box is fine.

Pouring is the only way to go if you shoot a lot.

 

[Kevin]

It's pretty easy to run through more than a pound of powder and a hundred or so roundballs in an afternoon of plinking. I can only justify that much shooting a couple of times a week if I mold my own balls. Besides, I kind of like casting them anyway. Part of the fun.

 

[Marplot]

Running ball is as much a part of the muzzleloading ritual as sharpening your own flints. Either you do it - and enjoy it- or you transpose a cartridge mentality; buy everything pre-made and low effort..in my opinionated view.

I am with you. Muzzle Loaders are a much more organic ritual. I feel much closer, more a part with black powder in a more Zen like experience than to my metallic cartridge guns.

 

[bpd303]

I've cast so many balls/minies/boolets that I probably could do it in my sleep. To me it's about the same as hitting hot steel on the anvil in my blacksmith shop very peaceful and calming. Along with having so many odd calibers that boolits are like hens teeth impossible to find. Last count I have 45 molds in different sizes.

 

[fistmil]

I also enjoy casting my own round balls just as I did making my own cedar arrows. It adds to the satisfaction of the hunt knowing you killed something with something you made. l started casting my own round balls since I was 13 years old. Lately though, I ran into a problem casting with a new Lyman mould .I recently purchased a Pedersoli jaeger rifle, 54 cal. .530 or .535 round balls were recommended. I ordered a .535 lyman round ball mould. The problem is the mould is casting balls .537 to .540 diameter. The first ball loads fine, tight but manageable. I have to swab bore with 2 damp patches followed by dry patches before I can reload. Anyone else have a problem with a mould casting a ball this much out of caliber. Mould is stamped .535 and the caliper we used to measure balls was checked against other know standard measurements. I'm using a .005 lubed patch.

 

[springfield art]

Some simply don't want to deal with the melting, etc. Too much work/messy. Others love using the old-school method like the pioneers did, over the campfire one at a time! The pre-made ones with no evidence of a sprue are neat, they're swaged.

 

[maillemaker]

As others have said, if you shoot a lot, it only makes good economic sense to cast your own.

If you only shoot round ball of a common diameter, and don't shoot a lot, you can get by buying bullets.

For example, you can buy 100 Horandy swaged .490 round ball for $15.50. Or $.155 cents a piece. They should weigh 177 grains.

I can buy lead for about $1.20 a pound (7000 grains). So to cast a .490 round ball will cost me about $.03. So purchased bullets will cost you 5 times as much as cast ones.

If you shoot 1000 rounds, that is $155 for purchased bullets, but only $30 for cast-yourself-bullets.

I shoot competitively with my two kids. We probably each shoot around 900 rounds every other month, so about 5,400 rounds a year. And our bullets are considerably larger than round balls!

Of course if you are shooting anything other than round balls, like, say, expanding balls (minie balls) then casting your own is about the only viable option. You can purchase bullets from someone like Pat Kabowsky, but it's not viable if you are going to be shooting any kind of quantity like a competition shooter does. Mostly I only buy bullets if I am doing a Boy Scout activity which requires commercial ammunition, or if I want to try out a particular bullet before buying the mold.

Getting into casting bullets is fairly inexpensive. You can get a Lee electric pot and a good bottom-spout ladle for under a $100.

 

[springfield art]

I have a new furnace, and will be casting some Minies soon, as a pal and I are getting into more Minie shooting lately. I have about 3 diff. types Minie moulds, incl. .54, ash-can, etc. Some I got at small gun show where a woman was dissapating husband's stuff after his passing. Paid very reasonable for them considering what they cost now! Have .69, and RB for Bess, too.

 

[Psycho Mike]

Maillemaker, even up here in the "Great White North" it's still a good chunk cheaper to cast your own. Yeah, there are up front costs, but in the long run it can be an awful lot cheaper.

In my case, I have a .58cal, so the store bought boxes only give you 50. As a result, the box of .570 rb on the shop shelf runs a little over $0.50CDN each when all the taxes and such get added in. Heck, because I used to cast, I grabbed a box of 100 .54cal rb and re-cast them as .58cal (got 80 our of it, so ~$0.35CDN each) to tide me over until I find a good local source of soft lead. If my local contacts hook me up, I wouldn't be surprised if I am casting bulk rb in the sub $0.05CDN range...

PLUS, I have the added bonus of being able to do my own qa/qc so I am able to keep the variation very low. My first batch (even getting used to ladle casting) managed to get me a good supply of rb that were +/- .1g (roughly +/- 1.5 grains) which is probably just variations in the sprue cutting. Plenty consistent for the calibre of shooter I am

Springfield, I hear you too....when I had my 'Bess, I had to cast my own...nobody up here was crazy enough to offer a .735 and if they did: ouch, my wallet!