Reloading and bullet casting

Andy Couch, in previous columns, has discussed building fishing rods and making spinners and other terminal fishing tackle as ways to pass the long winter months and improve your future fishing adventures. Here’s an edited column from a few years ago discussing reloading and bullet casting to do the same for your firearms related hobbies.

Reloading your own ammunition is both an enjoyable hobby and a way to achieve the best possible accuracy from your firearm. It can also be a substantial cost saver over factory ammo. These savings allow you to do more shooting and the extra practice will pay off on tough shots.

Another hobby under the reloading umbrella is bullet casting. By making your own bullets, you further reduce your shooting costs and can custom tailor some unique hunting loads to your firearm. But before you jump into this endeavor, you should know the limitations of using cast lead bullets.

First, there are some potential health and environmental concerns. You will be working with lead alloys which melt around 800 degrees Fahrenheit. Handling lead and the vapors from melting the lead alloy can be harmful. When you are casting bullets, work in a well-ventilated area and be conscious of the temperatures of the molten alloy. When you are finished with the casting session, be sure to thoroughly wash your hands before handling food items.

A second limitation with cast lead bullets concerns the velocities at which the bullets can be driven. Reloaders using factory jacketed bullets routinely push their rifle reloads into the 2800 feet-per-second (fps) range and beyond. A cast lead bullet, even one made from a hard alloy, can only achieve maximum velocities in the range of 2000 fps before significant leading in the barrel usually begins. Once the lead starts building up in the rifling, your accuracy will degrade.

Revolver and semi-automatic pistol calibers generally shoot ammunition with velocities under 2000 fps, so cast bullets work very well in these firearms, even for heavy hunting loads. You can shoot cast bullets in your rifle for practice or as small game hunting loads. If you want to hunt big game with cast bullets, that can easily be done too, just be aware of the reduced velocity compared to factory loads.

The final major consideration is the cost of getting set up to cast bullets. While you can melt the alloy in a pot on the kitchen stove, a much better method involves the use of an electric lead furnace specifically designed for bullet casting. Then you need the bullet mould itself, in the specific caliber and for the specific bullet design you are interested in using, including the gas checks if the bullet is designed to use them. Next are the mould handles, the mallet to bump the sprue plate open, the bullet sizing press, the bullet lubricant, the specific diameter bullet sizing die and top punch, the alloy fluxing chemicals and ladle stirrer, the ingot mould, a lead alloy thermometer, and a bullet hardness tester.

Just getting set up to cast one style bullet in one caliber using the listed equipment can easily set you back $400 or more. Once you have the furnace and bullet sizing press -- the two most expensive pieces of equipment -- the rest of the items are relatively inexpensive. If you shoot a lot, as with your ammunition reloading equipment, the bullet casting equipment can pay for itself over time.

Now that you’re equipped, what type of lead material should you use? That depends on what type of bullet you are casting and what you plan to shoot it in. For a muzzleloading rifle, use pure lead. Bullets intended for a magnum revolver or a blackpowder cartridge rifle can be cast from salvaged wheel weights. If you’re making bullets to shoot at 2000 fps, linotype metal, if you can find it, is almost ideal. Lead alloys used in bullet making contain only three main materials – lead, tin, and antimony. If you are a scrounger, you can find scrap materials to further reduce your costs.

If you cast a batch of bullets using an unknown alloy mix and they turn out to be the most accurate ever, how can you repeat the process? You can’t, exactly – the best you can do is test the alloy’s hardness and make the next batch to that same specification.

If you’re seriously thinking of casting lead bullets, go buy two books and read them cover-to-cover. Once you’ve digested RCBS’ Cast Bullet Manual and Lyman’s Cast Bullet Handbook, you will be knowledgeable enough to move forward into the hobby.