casting bullets

[kevin01041961]

Hi, guys now although I'm not new to shooting or reloading having done the so for the last 30 years, I know absolutely nothing about casting bullets. so I want to ask what should I buy for a 45-90 sharps a 44 mag rifle and 357 revolver.
I used to load for hand guns back in the "good old days" and still reload for my stalking rifles, But as my birthday is coming up the wife wants to treat me, now she wont buy everything but I don't want to buy twice but I don't want to buy above what's required.
I understand I'll need a furnace dipper and moulds etc. , so as its an open house any advice is good when you know nothing. sharps will be for long distance at bisley and other ranges the 44 henry will be 100 mtrs as the 357 that will be a max of 50 mtrs, so if you have suggestions please give me the information, I realise its a bit naïve ,but I'm asking

[FredB]

Here goes: I cast everything that I shoot and have been doing so for more than 40 years. Every caster has his own approach and preferences.
For the calibre that you are proposing, you only need one bullet mix: 25:1 lead to tin will serve nicely. I cast for muzzle loaders in pure lead and as a result need more than one lead pot. I have a Lee bottom pour pot which I only use for very large bullets: 360 grn upwards as a find that I get better results for most calibres with an open pot and a ladle. If you go down the second route, you have a choice between a gas ring or an electrical one. I have no particular preference, but use a single electric ring.
Once a year, all my accumulated scrap lead piping is melted down, the rubbish skimmed off and it is cast into ingots. I buy bar solder with a known lead/tin mix and mix this with some lead ingots to produce my preferred 25:1 casting metal.
Some years ago, I was given a large amount of paraffin wax by somebody who used to make candles: this is my normal flux. A gas blow lamp is used to ignite the smoke when the wax is added to the melt and the blow lamp is kept on as the mixture is stirred and the debris skimmed off. My open pots are actually paint mixing tins from the local DIY shop.
Common mistakes: melting lead pipe with water trapped in it: an explosion results spattering lead around.
lead too cold /mould too cold----wrinkled or partially formed bullets.
mould too hot-----fins forming around the bullets.
I used to cast under an open over / under garage door to get adequate ventilation but some 25 years ago, I fitted an industrial extractor fan and hood in the store room above my garage.
Good casting,
Fred

[mag41uk]

What ever moulds you end up with for the 357 and 44 just tumble lube them as cast with out sizing.
I use liquid alox mixed with Johnsons Paste Wax (JPW)
Plain base bullet more than adequate. We have a club comp at 200 yards each year and the GR boys use their standard PP1/1500 load.
I have some 44 saeco moulds I am parting with. These are superb moulds.
As said get your moulds very hot. I pre heat on top of the pot while waiting for the lead to melt.
Castboolits is a mine of info-in fact maybe too much!
45-90 The Lyman Postell is a good off the shelf design. I use it in my 45-70.
You can pan lube with appropriate lube. (natural if using BP)
You can get these boolits from a few specialist casters in the UK.
HTH
Tony

[andrew375]

Get an electric, bottom pour, pot of decent capacity, 20 lb will do. I've used an RCBS promelt for the last 30 years and the Lee one should be fine. In the beginning do not over complicate things. Lee mould are excellent, just follow the instructions about care and you wont go far wrong.

Buy the Lyman Cast Bullet Manual. A gold mine of information; the current edition has an excellent article on loading for black powder cartridge.

Don't worry about bottom pour v. ladle. I cast everything from 50gr. .22 bullets to 540 gr. .577 Minies and have never had a cause to worry about quality variations. The key is to let the pot get to a stable temperature and then cast with a steady cadence; that means no distractions and being comfortable. I cast at a rate of around 3 pours per minute. Put scrap bullets and sprues to the side, do not drop straight back in the pot or you ruin your rhythm and increase temperature variations.

Do not size bullets unless you have to.

You will need a case neck expander die to get the bullets seated without damage.

Don't let water anywhere near molten metal!!!

[dodgyrog]

Sorry but the Lee bottom pour furnace is not called a drip-o-matic for nothing! Lyman or RCBS (the best) pots are not cheap but will pay dividends.

[dromia]

The Lee pot only holds 17lbs.

The Lee moulds are excellent? This a new use of the word excellent. RCBS moulds, NOE moulds, Accurate Moulds, Rapine moulds, Mihec moulds, CBE moulds, LBT moulds are all excellent and you cannot put Lee in the same league as these quality products.

Lee can be OK and if you get one that works without having to fettle or if you get one that works after fettling then they can produce bullets as good as any but these ifs are big ones, at the end of the day with moulds and equipment you mostly get what you pay for and with Lee you don't pay very much so you don't get very much.

If you are new to casting then best to start with a decent mould that has a chance of working so that you can concentrate on the process without having to worry about a dodgy mould as well.

[andrew375]

Sorry but the Lee bottom pour furnace is not called a drip-o-matic for nothing! Lyman or RCBS (the best) pots are not cheap but will pay dividends.

Well my ProMelt drips most of the time! Comes with the territory of having a bottom pour, with a full pot there is a lot of force being applied to the metal trying to push its way past the valve. A good design feature of the Lee is the ability to spin the valve spindle to keep it seated.

My intention here with my endorsement of Lee casting equipment is to reassure the Kevin that you don't need a big outlay of cash to get started in casting. Telling someone they need to lay out a couple of hundred pounds before a single bullet gets poured can be counter productive. For the record I use equipment by most of the major reloading manufacturers so I do have something to make a comparison. The Lee ball mould that I bought to go with my ROA back in 1977 has cast well over 20,000 balls and is still fit for use! Balls still drop out at .457" just like when new and are as spherical (apart from the spru cut off of course) as I can measure with my Moore & Wright micrometer. I've just finished casting this year's supply of .312-185s for the Mosin that takes that moulds output up to over 5000. I've not found a Lee bullet design that did not shoot well. Their 200gr. .30 cal. round nose is terrific in 7.62 NATO and their tumble lube designs represent an option for those wanting to avoid the expense and hassle of lub-sizing.

I also use moulds by RCBS, Lyman, LBT and NEI as well as those I have made myself. The NEI mould is a work of art and worth ever penny and I put off using it for over a week because it was so beautiful.

Another point to consider before slagging off Lee product consider the prices we used to pay for even basic items of reloading kit. Back in 1978 when I started reloading a set of RCBS, steel, .45 acp dies was over £40, that was over two weeks take home for me. When Lee launched their own die sets the .45acp dies, with carbide insert, was just under £25! An RCBS carbide resizing die, on its own, was nearly £100! When Lee got in on the act prices of dies and presses by the other makers fell virtually over night. And one other thing before I leave this; if you bought Lee dies the shell holder was included, every other maker had you buy the shell holder separate for another £5+ !

[Alpha1]

I've not found a Lee bullet design that did not shoot well. Their 200gr. .30 cal. round nose is terrific in 7.62 NATO

Hi any chance of you posting your load data for the 7.62 Nato please or pm it to me if you don't want to put it in the forum. Id much appreciate it.
My apologies to the original poster for going of topic.

[dromia]

I have two Promelts that I have had for decades and neither have ever dripped, if the RCBS is dripping then it is usually just down to mucky, poorly prepared alloy and a bad maintenance regime. If they dripped like a Lee then I would have got on to RCBS customer service which is recognised as the best in the business, RCBS care about having a product that works from the box, Lee don't.

No one said that Lee don't make good bullet designs, never had a complaint about the designs only about Lee's non existent quality control and the high likely hood of getting a pig in a poke. If you wonder about Lee quality just have a look on that youtube thing and see how many "fixes" there are for the poor quality Lee kit, including the Lee dripomatic, you don't see such a need for fixes for RCBS kit, that says it all really. Lee design has been in the past very innovative but always let down by having to come in at a price point and further compounded by poor or non-existent quality control.

Of course no one wants to spend more than you need to see if you can get into casting but it doesn't have to be expensive as you don't need a bottom pour pot to start, a cast Iron pot on a gas ring and a dipper is more than adequate for making good bullets, I recommend people start with a dipper as it lets you concentrate on the casting process.

What you are trying to do is learn how to make good useable bullets, for that you want to concentrate on your technique and the casting process and not have it complicated by dodgy kit which needs a learning curve also to get to work. You can cast very successfully without a bottom pour but not without a mould. If you buy a Lee mould then there is a very high likelyhood that it will have issues that you will need to find out how to address before any bullets are dropped, an added complication that you don't really need. With moulds from the better makers then the chances are very high that it will work as advertised and drop to specification and the casting process will be a pleasure rather than a struggle. Also if you find that casting isn't for you then a good mould will hold its value well second hand and will sell.

I am not a Lee basher, having a contrary view to someone else is not slagging of, it is just telling you that people have different experiences and is a poor choice of language used to devalue some ones opinion rather than discussing the issue. I use Lee kit, their Collet dies are one of the best and most flexible neck sizing dies out there bar none but it does need fettling to get it to work and stop crushing cases, their Pro Auto disk measure is faultless so much so that I have a few of them, their Classic cast press is a direct and successful challenger to the venerated RCBS Rock Chucker and yes I do have Lee moulds that have worked well from the start, still needed some fettling though and have dropped thousands upon thousands of good bullets over the years. However I have many more that have failed me and were not worth the effort. Just for information you don't need a tumble lube design to tumble lube bullets, tumble lubing works equally well on non tumbles lube designs but tumble lube designs do not work so well with ordinary lubes. Tumble lubing design bullets is just another Lee marketing strategy at which they are very good.

Over on Cast Boolits we used to use Lee to make bespoke group buy moulds in many cases to address the undersize dimensional issues found by many in existing Lee and Lyman moulds. we went for the six cavity versions as they are a tad more robust. Lee would take your money up front and then make you wait for anything up to two years before they cut the moulds and then there would be all the faff on returning the moulds because they were cut wrong. Out of this grew a crop of bespoke and semi bespoke makers to meet that demand and they are now making high quality moulds at little more than the Lee "bespoke" moulds. A Lee double cavity mould with handles costs around £20 an NOE double cavity mould costs £50. Carriage on the NOE will be a bit more than UK carriage on a Lee mould and then you may have to pay VAT and duty on top plus a set of handles which is a one off cost and can be used on other moulds. A Lee six cavity costs £40 and an NOE 5 cavity costs £69 before carriage and both need handles. More than a Lee yes indeed but not that much more that it will break the bank for a quality product that will work as advertised and in the unlikely event that there is a problem they will put it right at no cost to you other than some inconvenience, Lee won't do this. Lee kit is about 50% of my reloading sales and over 90% of my returns.

Of course the best way into casting is to find someone with experience who is already set up to cast to show you how they go on. By using their tried and tested kit your will learn the process and skills, at no cost, that will equip you to better make the decisions about equipment, the questions to ask and whether the casting game is for you or not.

[FredB]

i have about 25 moulds by every maker. My hollow base Rapine mould is the only one that has impressed me as a piece of engineering art. I must have at least a dozen Lee moulds, one of which was bought in 1978 and has been in continuous use since . Never had a problem with any of them, except that their ball moulds do not cast their nominal diameter in pure lead---they always come out smaller. Although I do not like bottom pour pots, I have a Lee one which I use for large bullets. It is 8 years old now, and has never dripped.
Fred