....is something I have the basic equipment for, but haven't done yet. The main reason is that lead bullets ("boolits") have to be speed controlled unless you crimp on a copper Gas Check, or else the hot powder burns lead onto the bore, and this can happen in just a few rounds. This limits lead bullet usefulness to practice and target shooting, for the most part. Generally, you don't want your lead bullets going over 1,000 fps. Most boolit people have some Sooper Secrit lube that they they somehow get to stick to the lead boolit (soaking it on, baking it on, squishing it on under pressure), and various claims are made that (whatever) lube cuts down barrel leading or even prevents it entirely. I am SOOOO skeptical, sorry, and I have the barrel-scrubbing calluses to prove it.
Leading is a factor of lead alloy hardness (Brinell), heat of the powder flame and speed of the bullet after ignition of the primer and powder. Leading occurs by flame-cutting of the base of the lead boolit by the powder burning, or by smearing of the sides of the lead boolit in the bore as it travels from the chamber to the muzzle, or a combo of both types (the usual case). The general solution is to go to bullets with copper skins, either plating or actual copper jackets which the lead cores are swaged (pressed) into. Those are expensive, running 1/2 again as much to 2 1/2 times as much as a cast lead boolit bought outright, or four times as much as one cast at home. Even more expensive is the all-copper bullet.
Along comes a new anti-leading process entirely. Not a lube of any kind. POWDER COATING!
Read this and think on it.
Bears looking into, doesn't it?
Dog, I cast my own bullets for .45acp when I first starting in IPSC competition. It was the source of endless contemplative hours of inhaling the sweet succulant scent of lead while I burned my fingers on the hot 3-bullet molds.
Never did get the hang of casting hot enough to keep the bullets from coming out with bubbles. At first I just dropped the rejects back into the pot, be eventually I hit on the idea of saving these less than perfect miniature works of the casters' art and designating them as "practice rounds"
I soon realized that I had hundreds of rounds of "practice ammunition", and very little "Match Ammunition".
Then linotype lead became very rare and hard to find (this was back in the 1980's) and my original source dried up. Too many newspapers were migrating to the new process which didn't require cast lead type.
Finally, I was burgled. The fools stole my entire bullet casting apparatus, and the final five pounds of linotype .. which was actually all rejects which I had recast into ingots.
I never found out who robbed me, but if it hadn't been for the other things they stole (a Lyman bench press and dies) I would have paid them for the service they performed.
There are many reasons why one should take up casting your own bullets. However, if you factor in the time spend mucking about with failed attempts, and the embarrassing number of times you have to remelt, and add a reasonable cost for your own time ... economy of effort was not one of them. Well, not for me.
Hope you have a good time casting bullets. But I have a box of 1,000 9mm 115 grain which you're welcome to! (No, I did NOT cast them!)
Posted by: jerry the geek | January 19, 2016 at 19:25