Casting your own bullets with molds?

[Weird Guy]

I want to get a bullet mold, but I don't want to get crazy and buy a specialty cooker to melt the lead down (shotgun shot, or fishing sinkers).

I was wondering if a charcoal grill gets hot enough to melt lead and if anybody does it that way? I wouldn't use my cooking grill mind you, but just a coffee can full of charcoal brickettes and a cast iron ladel.

[Low Key]

Many years ago, (probably 16 or 18 years) a buddy and me used a small cast iron skillet and a coleman stove to melt down some lead to re-cast for fishing sinkers, so I know that will work. I don't remember how big of a mess we made though, but it must not have been too bad since his mom didn't kill us both.

[gmatov]

Wierdguy,

What's "crazy" to you, in casting your own? 10 bucks or 50 bucks or so?

It it is 50 or so, you can buy a 10 pound Lee Production pot for about 35 bucks, and a double cavity mold for 15. You can heat it up, cast 50 balls, let 'er cool down, and heat it up next time you need 50.

http://www.bosesguns.com/product_p/lee90022.htm
http://www.bosesguns.com/category_s/268.htm

Prices up since I bought mine, 40 for the pot, 16.50 for the mold. Still cheaper than most places, and mine got here pretty danged quick.

AND, you got another hobby, get out of the wife's hair for a couple more hours a week. Since you already got the pot, another mould is another 17 bucks and no more 10 bucks a 100 balls to buy.

Lead, you can look for telephone guys and ask them if they have any scrap. Plumbers remodeling old houses, same, ask if they tore out lead pipe, can you have or buy it from them. Wheelweights or the like, heat to high, flux, scrape off the dross, the lighter parts of the alloy, soon get to near pure lead.

Not a bad hobby to get into, and if you fish, there's sinkers to be made, too.

Cheers,

George

[armedandsafe]

I use a cheapo propane camp stove dedicated to that purpose. The round-bottomed castiron pots (about 4 or so inches at the top) works fine. Cut a gauncho (stick forked like this ____> ) to lift the pot when it is hot. I use old tin cups to cast ingots for storage.

Wheel weights are too hard for BP, but work very well in my modern pistols and the 8x57 Mauser. Even though you can dross off much of the tin, the antimony in the wheel weight alloy doesn't come out so easily. I get plumbers lead from the scrapyard. Dirty, but it cleans up very nicely.

I look through old hardware stores for the older wax toilet rings. They were/are beeswax and weigh about 1/2 lb each. They work very well for fluxing. I can also get beeswax from the honey packaging plant in town.

Have fun and practice safety. You are exposed to lead fumes, so no eating, drinking, smoking until you have cleaned up and changed clothes.

Pops

[gmatov]

Pops,

I don't believe a lot of that stuff they tell you. I don't believe you're gonna drop dead from melting lead. Or that it's gonna stick to your clothes, or no eating or drinking, etc If I couldn't have a cuppa coffee there, and smoke, too, without dropping dead, I wouldn't do it.

You're not 2 years old with a developing brain to be affected, you're an old fart, just like me, and more's the chance aluminum pots and pans will send you, and me, over the hill.

I've reached my age while smoking for 45 years or more, drinking beer, working in different industries, soldering, welding, grinding copper, and everything else, and still kicking. Don't eat oatmeal to lower my cholesterol, or take any of the drugs that the quacks prescribe, you know, the "Purple Pill" that was the Godsend till people started dying from them.

Get 'er up pills that people died from.

Stop smoking patches, that people still smoked, died from.

Best yet is the Flu shot that they insisted us old farts, more than anybody needed, this past flu season, with the Number 1 maker of the vaccine out of commission, and fewer people died of Flu than in any year since the vaccine was introduced.

You wanna keep giving them money to keep you safe? Fat chance. Medicine is more of a crap shoot today than it was 30 years ago.

Cheers,

George

[fastforty]

I use a long handled antique, hand forged ladle made for the purpose (a golfball would almost disappear in it). When my woodstove is burnt down to a handful of coals, I scrape them together in a pile & nestle the ladle full of lead into them. If I'm in a hurry, I blast the coals with my bellows to get the lead to melt faster, but it will melt without fanning the coals, it just takes a while. I believe the rising heat from the interior of the woodstove takes any vapors up the flue. I can cast about 8- .50cal Minnies or 10-12 .50cal Balls with that much lead. If yer gonna use a coffee can, punch some holes around the bottom to let air in or the coals definitely won't burn hot enough. Beeswax is a good flux, have an old teaspoon or something handy to skim the slag off the top of the molten lead.

Oh yeah, I set the mold on top of the stove to warm it up while the lead is heating- a cold mold will yield a handfull of reject bullets before it starts producing usable ones.

[Weird Guy]

To me I don't like spending cash on stupid stuff. I can afford a specially made cooker of all types, but I just don't go for the doo-dads and specialty gear. If I can do it with common household items, spending even a penny on something specially made seems like something only the paranoid type of people do. The type of person who worries that because it wasn't made for the job, you shouldn't use it for that job.

If it is stupid and works, then it is not stupid.

That is why I think just using any old fire ought to be just fine.

I don't understand the beeswax comments though. I know what flux is, but I didn't expect that I would need a flux for casting lead. What is the story behind that?

[gmatov]

Wierdguy,

The only REAL advantage of a "production pot" is the bottom pour spout. Hold your mould under it, lift the lever, clean melt comes out, not the dross on top, which you will have to skim from your ladle to pour into the moulds.

Beeswax or paraffin work for flux, a pea sized piece, helps draw the impurities to the surface, where they can be skimmed off. Mostly oxides of thin and lead. Hot metal in contact with the air will oxidize, period.

And, since tin is lighter than lead, over time, with enough heat, will rise to the surface, oxidize and be skimmed off, "purifying" the lead.

As to wheel weights, yes they say pure lead only. Wonder why MEC's book keeps mentioning wheel weights, and not warning against using it. Many others also mention wheel weight metal, and not in the context of..."Blew my gun up using wheel weight bullets!!!"

Cheers,

George

[Remington kid]

George, As you know I just started casting my own balls right after Christmas.
I did buy a Lee #10 pot with the spout because it really wasn't that much.
My wife gave me a ladel and old cast Iron Dutch oven pot for smelting.The Lee molds were cheap too but work great!
My first lead was really old wheel weights that my Mechaic had laying around.
I was on a roll and casted several hundred .380 and .454 balls for my 1851
.36 Navy and my Remington .44. They shot real well but they are just way to hard on my arm and my loading levers. I'm still surprised that the levers never broke or the pins.
Now I've got some pure lead and what a difference it makes and my arm is ALMOST back to normal , Mike

[gmatov]

Mike,

I said almost the same thing about the 1000 I bought from National Bullet, I can't scratch them with my thumbnail, and I consider my nails, if nothing else, pretty damned tough.

First is they're too hard, second is the halves of their moulds, at least the .451 dont match, .447- .474, depending on where you turn the ball, just past the parting line.

I'll attach a pic of 8 balls. Look at the size of the sprue cut, and look at the partings, how mismatched the mould halves are. Top 4 are horrible, bottom 4 are not TOO bad, not matched, but they will go in without breaking the rammer.

How do yours look as to the parting lines, with the Lee moulds?

I'll see if I can scan and post Fadala's squib on "purifying" lead from wheel weights and the like.

Cheers,

George

[gmatov]

Mike,

I'm not gonna scan and post the page, but it does seem to be, from Fadala, that if you heat the metal to more than casting temp, and flux, and let sit, the lighter elements, tin and even the antimony, will come to the surface, where they can be skimmed off.

The tin is WAY more valuable than the lead, so see if you can sell it as scrap. It once went for 7 bucks a pound, don't know what it is now.

Actually, the harder alloys seem to be fine, as long as they fit the bore. They don't blow the gun apart, they just don't upset as much as pure lead in a small chamber-large barrel. They are enough harder to grip the rifling beter, and they are a little lighter, so velocity would be higher.

Figure, smokeless shooters strive for the hardest alloy they can to keep from stripping the bullet through the rifling.

Cheers,

George

[fastforty]

Dang, that's some sad casting! I use a Lee combination mold that does one .500 RB & one .500 Minnie. Yer pretty hard pressed to even figure out where the mold line is, it's darn near completely invisible.

[gmatov]

Fastforty,

Ain't it the truth? One P**s poor index job on the mould halves. And, man they are a Bi**h to ram.

You note the size of the sprue cut? Approx a 1/4 inch flat.

Think I need to make a bench loader to use them up, hard on the hand, otherwise. Else I should just throw 'em in the pot and trust to my Lee mould for better product.

I want a bench loader, anyhow, I know, I know, speed is not of the essence, here, but less than 10 minutes for 2 pistols to be loaded would be nice. Could shoot just a few more balls in an afternoon. At this rate, I won't Need TO look for more BP, what I got would last me the rest of my days.

And what about the 36 Colt I haven't shot, or the 36 Rem I haven't shot, take 4 and 15 to 20 minutes to reload. Loading device, could charge in half the time at most, then fumble on 24 caps.

Fun, fun, fun, specially the cleaning, at least there I can relax.

Cheers,

George

[Remington kid]

George, That's the ugliest set of balls I ever did see At least mine are nice and smooth and round.
Both of my Lee molds are working great. When I smelted this WW lead I did it several times and came out with really nice clean looking lead but it's really hard stuff. Someone told me that the old WW were much harder than the newer one's used today. Some of these are over 40 years old according to my mechanic.
I loaded my own shells for all my guns years ago and used a lot of lead cast bullets that I bought and they were super hard and work great in modern guns and they shoot great in my BP revolvers.
If I were to shoot .451 instead of .454 in my Remington and .375 instead of .380 in my .36 they would load much easier and I could probably use the WW.
Think I'll just stick with the pure lead, easier on my gun's and my hand. Mike

[fastforty]

Lotta talk about lead dangers here, sounds like they know what they are talking about:
http://www.thefiringline.com/forums/...d.php?t=197202

[gmatov]

Sounds to me more like a bunchs guys who have an OPINION, not who know what they are saying to be the truth.

The one guy who says "Danger, danger, absolutely do not exceed 1100 degrees!!!" Well, Duh! Aluminum melts at 1220 degrees F, so, yeah, don't goTOO much over 1100 if you are using Lee moulds. Lead melts at 621, so why get it anywhere near that hot. Tin lowers the melting point even further.

Lee advises 5 or 6 on their thermostat. You're not going to get much lead vapor at that setting.

The only lead poisoning I would worry about is having one of mine go off in the wrong direction, towards a part of my body.

Cheers,

George

[jsflagstad]

I am just kind of getting into bullet casting here. Actually, I have the stuff coming from Midway and it should be here tomorrow. I have looked around the Minneapolis area here, and can't seem to find a decent place to get any casting alloy. I know about the wheel weights and stuff, but I figured I'd start out with a specified prepared alloy for my virgin run and tryout. Then I would probably go to the wheel weights and such as I gained the knowledge needed.

I did find a place that has lead ingots for molding fishing sinkers, but they want abou $2 a pound for that. The best deal I can find is bags of lead shot. I can buy a 25lb bag of "Chilled" lead shot for $12. That seems like the deal to me... Has anyone here melted down lead shot to mold bullets before? Does it work well? What is better larger or smaller shot size, or doesn't it matter?

I will be molding bullets for my 40 s&w and my 50 cal inline muzzle loader.

Thanks,

JSF

[gmatov]

JSF,

I don't know if you know any telephone company repairmen. If you do, or if you can catch 1, ask him if you could get some sleeves that they use to seal repaired multistrand wire bundles.

I think what they do is slide the sleeve, like a lead pipe, over the busted wires, match and mend the wires, then slide over the repair and crimp down on the insulation.

When they need to remove 1, it's no longer usable. They might be willing to give them to you.

Another is to ask any plumbers you know to save you the old lead pipes they sometimes tear out of old houses, or a demolition company, the same. Don't pay too much for lead pipe, if they sell by the pound, a lot of the weight would be a 100 years crud buildup in the pipe.

Your 12 bucks a bag shot is damned cheap, actually, last store I was in, for a transfer, was asking 19 bucks a bag. Last time I bought it, near 30 years ago, paid 4.50 a bag, bought 500 pounds at a time for trapshooting.

That's as cheap a source as I could imagine you finding, for commercial lead. It DOES have some antimony in it, how much, I don't know, so it will be a little harder than pure lead.

I don't know what wheel weights are made of either. They should be close to pure lead, as if they are of lighter alloy, like 40% tin, they will be bigger than pure lead, and they don't want to make a weight any bigger than needed. And, lead is the cheapest part of the weights. Way cheaper than tin and antimony. Well, mebbe the piece of steel for the clip is cheaper, but you know what I mean, just if I don't add that, I might get jumped on. Not a hell of a lot gets past some of you guys.

I'll have to research that. And I gotta do what I just told you, need lead. Last I got, my s'inlaw's dad gave me, after I asked if I could buy some from him. I know he's down to his last 16-1800 pounds. Way better scrounger than I am. Course he's older, near 70, I'm still in the lower 60's, but I'm learnin'.

Cheers,

George

[Remington kid]

Please believe me when I say the WW is way to hard for cap and ball. They are not worth the smelting.
As George said check with the phone company guy's or better yet find out where there construction yard is and talk to some one there. They may have a few laying around and give you some. I got one the other day and after I got the pipe opened and made it into chunks that I could melt I had 21lbs. of pure lead. They don't use it anymore but they take it out when they are replacing with a new service.
Also check your recycle center and see what they have as well as any scrap yards you can find. Place an ad in your local "trading" paper or classified sections.

[gmatov]

Mike,

I just did a Google on wheel weights, and one guy who is using about 8600 pounds for a sailboat keel said they are lead, no tin, with about 3% antimony.

Tin reduces the melting point, antimony makes it harder.

(Kinda makes you wonder, huh, 100 grand boat, at least, to need 4 ton keel, and go scroungin' for wheel weights.)

I don't think I would be afraid to use wheel weights as ball material, mebbe not in my brassers, but the Rems, think I could, 'specially if I just threw a couple handfuls in to the pot with mostly pure lead. mebbe no, though, 'cause I think "hard cast" bullets usually go like 1 % antimony.

Have to check on that, too. Man, so much to check on when a question is asked, you wanna give the straight skinny, but it takes you from just readin' the stuff posted.

Cheers,

George

BTW, went to the S&W action site you mailed, couldn't get any booms. Still, out f'n standing action pics of the cycle. 6 ca'tridges fired, it changes to "reload", not start all over, but slip 6 rounds in. Ain't the guys amazing that can make a computer do that?

I can read my mail and interact with these forums, but be damned if I can do that. I think I'm gettin' old, these things came along too late in my life.

[Old Dragoon]

George,
That pistol is done with Animation software, I used Solidworks and it has an animation software to do the same thing. The pistol is only in 2D. I designed parts in 3D and then animated assemblies. Like the parts of the pistol going from what is there to an exploded view, or looking at the pistol at a 3/4 on view in 3d and having the hammer move back while the cylinder rotates.
But the powers that be in the engineering firms believe that anyone over 60 cannot possibly be capable of mastering leading edge technology.
So I work on a Ranch now. Still have the software here on the computer though.
It was fairly easy to master and yes you could do it.

[gmatov]

Yeah, bud, and you're probably happier, but making less money.

And that might make you happier, too.

I just did my income tax, after a 15 month sick thing, with SSDI as my main income, and am not too unhappy. Did a projection of next year with this years schedule, and a pension to boot, and think I can survive. Just gotta decide when to take the pension, keep screwing with the lawyers or just say the hell with it.

When I have a problem with the program side of the computer, I call one of my 3 surviving daughters, one will straighten me out, especially when it comes to graphics. When they have a mechanical problem, or want to get one of the g'kids a better video card, or a new computer, period, they call on Dad.

I build them for my family and friends. Was a better deal back when the things cost a couple grand. Now you can buy them for 300 bucks, I can't buy parts for that little.

Ah, well,

Cheers,

George

[Remington kid]

George,Using the WW for balls wasn't a problem and they seemed to shoot alright . The problem was that the balls are so hard it actually hurt my hand when trying to seat them in the chamber with the loading ram on my Remington and my Navy.
I had to wrap a rag around the handle's and it was just a matter of time before the rams or the pin broke.I'm using .454 balls in my Remmy and .380 in my Navy. If I were using .451 and .375 it would be easier.
That revolver animation would be great to show a new comer just how things work. I played with that stuff a few years back but it was just to much of a hassle for me to learn with the software I had. From what I hear it's much easier now.
OD and I were chatting the other day and it would be great if we could find a animated Remington, Navy , Army and maybe a big old Walker Mike

[Steve499]

Jsflagstad, another source for pure lead is your dentist! Mine saves the lead foil protective cover which they must remove from each piece of x-ray film before they use it. I picked up a box full from him a few months ago and got 14 ingots out of it. As far as I know, the practice is for the assistant to just throw that foil into the trash when they prepare an x-ray so if you could talk yours into putting those things into a separate container for you, you might not need to come up with lead from anywhere else.


Steve