Just a show of hands, how many make their own ammution?

[Macon Due]

Time is a precious commodity. I'd rather spend time shooting than inhaling lead fumes. Read a post here yesterday that said a certain RB could be bought for 14 cents each. If you made your own the lead cost was 8 cents. Amortize the cost of the casting equipment & you are saving nothing for the first few thousand rounds. Hardly worth it, IMHO. I understand that some enjoy that part of our passtime & am not criticizing those that do. It's just not for me.

First off..........you do it in an area where you don't inhale "too many" lead fumes and secondly........you scrounge lead so you end up with basically free lead. Your equipment can be a ball mold or mould if you prefer, an old spoon to dip with, and old hammer handle and a camp stove with an old discarded sauce pan. .....Macon Due

 

[shorthair]

Time is a precious commodity. I'd rather spend time shooting than inhaling lead fumes. Read a post here yesterday that said a certain RB could be bought for 14 cents each. If you made your own the lead cost was 8 cents. Amortize the cost of the casting equipment & you are saving nothing for the first few thousand rounds. Hardly worth it, IMHO. I understand that some enjoy that part of our passtime & am not criticizing those that do. It's just not for me.

I do my own casting because some sizes aren't available commercialy .

 

[stink koat]

Time is a precious commodity. I'd rather spend time shooting than inhaling lead fumes. Read a post here yesterday that said a certain RB could be bought for 14 cents each. If you made your own the lead cost was 8 cents. Amortize the cost of the casting equipment & you are saving nothing for the first few thousand rounds. Hardly worth it, IMHO. I understand that some enjoy that part of our passtime & am not criticizing those that do. It's just not for me.

Me either!

 

[Snydly]

Since 1968.

 

[Tinhorn]

My JBMR shoots .495 balls when clean, but in a long string at Rondy, I will keep 1 bullet board in the bag with patched .490 balls for when the Mountain Rifle gets a fouled bore. So casting balls makes sense to me. I get lead from the bait/fishing gear shop.

 

[BadDaditood]

Been casting over 35 years, (except for .22s) haven’t bought factory ammo since.
I did buy a box of .490” and .495” balls when I built my first frontstuffer. It likes .495”
Now every caliber I build I buy 2 Lee roundball molds. Two TOTW Hawkens like .535” balls while my first Kibler SMR tested .440” & .445”: it prefers the .440” & .022” denim patch.
You never know what a particular gun will like, so what I do is buy every mold I lay eyes on and if I don’t have a gun for that caliber I make one

 

[Pukka Bundook]

Homemade rig.
Only thing Not homemade are the lock, (Chambers early Ketland) and a few of the small wood screws for the patchbox.

 

[bisleyjohn]

Buying Mr Hornady's/Pedersoli's .44cal RB = $32.00 per hundred.

Casting tac's .44 RB = ~$3 per hundred

YOU figure out what I do.

Fish?

 

[beardedhorse]

Been casting since 1972. Long learning process. Mostly round balls and with newer rifle calibers have to find suitable molds. Also knap own gun flints, make own patch lube - most recently bear oil and beeswax. cut own patch from red and blue pillow ticking and using home made black powder from a friend who I supplied alder, tree of heaven and willow for the charcoal. Assemble own rifles and trade gun from manufactured metal parts. Machined first percussion lock plate with Russ Hamm guts for left hand lock. A satisfactory challenge to run balls in hunting camp from salvaged soft lead from black powder gun range and use them in home made rifle with home made powder and patch and lube to harvest big game. Trying to find a tower tall enough to screen and pour lead shot from. Still experimenting with brain tan buckskin and silk for patching material. Like to "roll my own" if you know what I mean.

 

[bisleyjohn]

I have just started, for the first time, to make paper cartridges. Made my own former, using end-papers. Very fiddly, especially getting the wad and ball to seat on the powder. Then a thought occurred, what if I just made paper charges then lubed the packet. On the firing point, tear open, pour powder, stuff in lubed paper as a wad, shove the projectile on top and Bob might just be my uncle perhaps? I'm talking pistol here, I don't use a wad for my rifle.

 

[Loyalist Dave]

Amortize the cost of the casting equipment & you are saving nothing for the first few thousand rounds.

Quite true!

Luckily I didn't buy all of the unnecessary casting equipment, and paid for the mold and ladle after making less than four boxes of bullets.

LD

 

[toot]

I cast my own. I also make as much of my own gear such as powder horns, bags, patch knives, short starters as possible. To me it's all part of the pastime.
John

I rely like the CANOE / BLANCKET GUN. what is the under hammer?

 

[toot]

Homemade rig.
Only thing Not homemade are the lock, (Chambers early Ketland) and a few of the small wood screws for the patchbox.View attachment 46881

a great set up! I like it!

 

[toot]

for 65+years, and sent a whole lot of em down range!! both RB'S and BULLETS.

 

[Eras Gone]

I started casting muzzle loading bullets as a 15 year old in 1972. I brother taught me how to reload modern center fire ammo even earlier. I enjoy the ammo making as much as the shooting. The quest for finding period correct percussion bullets led me to start my own bullet mold company in 2017.

 

[RSbilliard]

I mostly cast although I buy what I don’t have molds for (yet). Such as .31 & .55. I am blessed with a growing supply of lead. I scrounged plumbing lead from construction sites for years and now have a few roofers giving me old “boots”. I am going to larger calibers just so I can shoot up more of my stash, don’t want my daughter to have to deal with it when I am gone (kidding).

I used to cast on the back porch. This year I am going camping, just the dog and I, for a week at Thanksgiving. I think it is a splendid idea to sit around camp casting bullets in the cool fall air.

Will you cast over a fire or on a stove? I've been wanting to start casting but I want to do it over a fire. Not sure if I would be making things harder for me.

 

[omark]

Been reloading / casting for 60 years. Haven't saved a nickel. Done a lot more shooting then I would have otherwise.

 

[mooman76]

Over a fire would be more difficult but doable. The tricky part is consistency of heat. First plenty hot then by the time the lead melts fire starts to die out. You need to have coals ready to keep putting under the pot.

 

[Crow-Feather]

Do they make store bought lead projectiles? Not in Calif. OK OK, political shot. I always make my own. I bought them "pressed round balls" once. Weighed them and found out why I prefer my own.

 

[tenngun]

Will you cast over a fire or on a stove? I've been wanting to start casting but I want to do it over a fire. Not sure if I would be making things harder for me.

I started casting at my kitchen stove. Lay down foil around and heat up a few pounds. With damp towels to drop on.
Since then I got el cheapo hot plate and cast off that.
I also have cast off a small fire, or in my braiser.
Just melt one or two pounds at a time
Lead melting furnace cast about a hundred dollars and you can melt I lot of of lead at once.
I like to cast but get bored after a a bit. So I cast a hundred ball or so at a time.
I’ve got Lee molds I can cast on all day, but I bought my first Callahan bag mold about 2012 and since then bought several and cast off them. You can only cast five or ten ball before you have to let it cool so you can hold it. It takes about an hour to run a hundred ball. And I cast at a little fire often for these in a braizer.
It’s pretty neat. I’m in jeans and a teeshirt beside my braizer. But for an hour or so I’m in the tall timber in a camp, or beside a trading post or fort. Just a mini ‘voo on a random day.