Essential tips and gear for pouring your own rifle and handgun bullets A pile of shiny new 7mm rifle bullets cast with an RCBS two-cavity mold. Bill Buckley Should you cast your own bullets? Well, sure—but then again, maybe not. Handloaders of an experimental mind who shoot a variety of rifle and handgun cartridges should definitely cast their own bullets, and casting may be the only source of bullets for obsolete cartridges. And there is no sense in shooting expensive jacketed bullets at the relatively slow velocities reached by handgun cartridges and some rifle cartridges, such as the .45/70. But casting bullets is probably not a cost-efficient proposition for reloaders who shoot just a few boxes of cartridges a year. Money they would spend for casting equipment would be better put toward buying cast bullets from one of the dozens of small companies that sell them. Equipment essential for basic bullet casting is simple. I started casting bullets for my .41 Magnum revolver by melting wheel weights in a lead pot on a Coleman camp stove and pouring the lead alloy from a dipper into an RCBS .41-210-SWC mold. A rap on the mold’s sprue plate with a hammer handle swung the plate to the side, and bullets slightly larger than .410 inch in diameter dropped from the mold. I rolled the bullets in a liquid lubricant, dried them in the sun, and then loaded them. I shot thousands of them, smug with my savings. Over the years, I started buying more molds to cast bullets for rifle cartridges and specific bullets for handgun cartridges, as well as equipment that made casting easier and faster. A learning curve came with all that casting. The Lyman Cast Bullet Handbook was and is a great source of information on everything about cast bullets for newcomers to the hobby. When I killed a bull elk with a 250-grain roundnose bullet fired from my .35 Whelen, there was the satisfaction that comes from a successful hunt, but nearly as much gratification came from the knowledge that I had cast that bullet for just a few pennies. Casting Tips1. Consistent Weight 2. Heating the Mold 3. Best Bullet Shape 4. Using Gas Checks Read Next: Extreme Accuracy: Handloading with Consistency Casting EquipmentThe gear you need for casting your own ammo. See below for descriptions. Bill Buckley
What do you need for casting bullets?Lead and Tin: Pure lead is required for casting muzzleloader bullets. A mixture of lead, antimony, and tin is required for other cast bullets. B. Melting Pot: An electric lead furnace with a temperature dial allows you to adjust and maintain the heat, and its bottom-pour valve dispenses an even stream of lead alloy.
What materials are used to make bullets?Most pistol bullets are made of a lead-antimony alloy encased in a soft brass or copper-plated soft steel jacket. In rifle and machine-gun bullets, a soft core of lead is encased in a harder jacket of steel or cupronickel.
Is it cost effective to cast your own bullets?Reloading your own helps to save quite a bit, but you can take it a step farther and save even more by casting your own bullets. Besides the cost savings, casting your own allows you to work up custom bullet styles and weights that might not be available over the counter.
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