casting your own

[Busyhands94]

hello everyone! i have been shooting muzzleloaders ever since last fall, and have fallen in love with this hobby. it's gotta be the coolest thing i have ever tried! i like shooting, i like working with my hands, i LOVE history and Civil War history in particular, i have somewhat of an addictive personality, so getting hooked on blackpowder shooting was not a matter of if, but when. i started out with homemade blackpowder guns, and of Tuesday i will have a new pietta 1858 Remington! I'm mighty exited and can't wait for it to arrive!!! so, i have been saving myself money on ammo by casting my own bullets, so i can in turn take that money i saved and buy more guns! hehe!

my casting setup includes the following:

Lyman "Big Dipper" lead furnace
Lee .450 revolver conical mold
Lee .454 round ball mold
Lee .490 ball mold
Lee improved Minnie ball mold
my homemade .17 conical mold
an ingot mold that casts four ingots
a Lyman dipper
a few old spoons for fluxing lead
a fan for ventilation
a stone-topped table
an old towel i drop my bullets on to cool them off
some bullet lube i keep nearby to flux the lead with
some good thick welding gloves
safety glasses
a radio (i like to listen to music while i cast ammo)
and of course... lead!

I've set my casting setup outside away from the windows, and i keep the fan blowing over the lead pot to blow any fumes away from my general direction to keep me safe.

bullet casting is incredibly easy, it goes quick too. if i get the mold, dipper and lead nice and hot i can easily churn out 2 round balls in about 5 seconds and repeat the process. with these Lee molds i found they don't really need to heat up for too long, i can often get a good ball or even conical on the very first pour! they are low-cost too and pay for themselves quickly. i have never bought a box of muzzleloader bullets except the .22 30 grain bullets.

a bit about safety. if you want to cast your own bullets i highly recommend you are safe when doing so. lead is hot and toxic, so there needs to be safety involved. i would STRONGLY recommend doing it outdoors, or at least in a garage with the door open and a fan pointing out to suck the fumes away from you. make sure you wear gloves too, the tools get very hot (obviously) so that is something to consider. keep water away from the lead pot, if you get a little bit in there it can flash into steam and shoot lead everywhere, that would be nasty. ventilation is key, so again, to it outdoors. when you handle lead in general, even bullets you should wash your hands as soon as possible, if you are going to cast ammo you should at least practice good hygiene (not to sound like a mother) make sure you change your cloths after a casting session, take a shower, and wash your hands. i cannot be adamant about safety enough. an ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure.

anyway, i strongly suggest you start casting. it's fun and will save you money on ammo. you can even reuse the lead you have shot! hehe!

Stay safe and God bless America!
~Hawken

 

[45-70 Ranger]

Guess I'm old school

Yup, casting your own is a good thing. Started out casting .375 RB from a Ideal mould and an enamel coated iron pot over my mother's kitchen stove in 1964 if I remember right. Used that same pot for about five years and expanded the mould count as calibers were added. Got a lot of those old Ideal and later Lyman moulds that I bought new from Dixie Gun Works. I later bought a Lyman iron 10# pot and used a hotplate. Got my first electric pot in 1977. Thought it was the coolest thing I ever used. Still using that same unit too. But the bottom pour had to be plugged up as it was worn out! So I'm back to using that old Lyman dipper and pouring them still.

Some of my firearms have never seen a factory bullet ever, just my cast rounds, both BP and smokless cartridge. Yeah, I like casting and wouldn't trade it for all the JHP's I could carry....

Glad so many are casting their own. It's a vital part of the sport that some miss out on simply because they lack the desire to do so. Me? Shucks, if I can't cast a round for whatever weapon I have, it ain't worth keeping!

Wade

 

[Busyhands94]

i would never contaminate my gun with that modern muzzleloader ammo! i haven't fired a single shot of purchased ammo through my rifle since the first shot i took. i would rather cast my own ammo and not be able to buy modern bullets than to be able to buy modern ammo and not cast my own. it's a vital part of blackpowder and needs to be kept alive. besides! playing with molten lead is fun when you do it safely! and pouring it in there, you gotta get the angle just right. and there's the whole part of the core pin when you are making Minnie balls that you have to get out from the center of the bullet. but over all the challenges it's just plain fun to shoot ammo you cast yourself. it's that sense of pride you know, doing things the old fashioned way.

i also forgot to mention i like to give my mold a little tap after i pour, it seems to keep the bullets nice and smooth.

 

[Tallbald]

Just finding the pure lead has me concerned. How do I know I'm not buying something contaminated when I buy from a salvage yard? I hear negative things about wheel weights. I used to see ingots of lead at the hardware store when I grew up in the early 70's, but no more. What to do what to do.....

 

[Hellgate]

Busyhands,
Be sure to wear leather boots that completely cover your feet and have your pant cuffs over the boots. It keeps spilled molten lead from getting into your shoes and onto your feet. A friend spilled his lead and some went INTO HIS SHOE! Burned the hell out of his foot. I always wear old cowboy boots when casting.

 

[junkman_01]

Tallbald,

I shoot nothing BUT wheel weight alloy. I use it in all 7 C&B revolvers, 2 single shot patched RB pistols, 1 smoothbore musket, and 2 Kentucky rifles. The only thing I don't shoot it out of is my 1863 Springfield rifle-musket, when using minies. They need soft lead to be able to perform properly. I load all my revolvers off the guns now using a cylinder press so as to not strain the loading levers. That is about the only negative I can think of.

 

[Skinny 1950]

I live in Vancouver B.C. Canada and there isn't much support for black powder shooters here. I order most of my supplies for the U.S. and buy my Goex FFFG from an "underground" supplier as there are no dealers that carry it,it is too explosive and needs special storage which nobody wants to bother with.
I enjoy casting which is good because with all the different calibers that I shoot it would be impossible to buy them here.
I have a basic set-up in a well ventilated garage,I use a single element hot plate which cost $25 new,a stainless steel ladle which cost $1 and Lee molds that I got from Track of the Wolf. I have 7 different molds producing.31/.36/.44/.45/.50 (gun calibers). I buy as pure lead as I can find in a scrap yard for seventy five cents a pound.
Here are a couple of pictures of an antique Colt 1849 Pocket Pistol mold that I use with my antique gun. It still works like a champ after 150 years.

 

[Hellgate]

Skinny1950,
I slid a couple of 410 shotgun hulls over the handles of my brass mold for my 36 Navy to keep from burning my hands. Maybe a hollowed out dowel would work better but I had the hulls on hand.

 

[Busyhands94]

Hellgate, i know the experience of pouring something hot down my boots, i have sadly had it happen before. i was boiling some soup, it was rather thin like bullion. i was wearing combat boots with the knot nice and tight, cutoff shorts, and some nice absorbent wool socks. not going to get into the details, but i had second degree burns. i fumbled with the laces while panicking, then went for my knife. i couldn't get my switchblade out of my pocket to cut the laces fast enough. after about three days i had a friend put something medicinal on it and i went into shock. i thought i was going to die, i couldn't even see and just felt numb. NOT an experience i would like to repeat. and for that little screw up my friends call me Bootleg. weird huh?

for casting i wear those exact same boots with my jeans going OVER them. i had to learn my lesson the hard way on that one!

Sincerely, Levi

 

[Skinny 1950]

I like that dowel idea,gloves are hard to work in and control the flow of lead, spilled lead makes a big mess.

 

[BHP FAN]

I've got over twenty molds, round ball minie ball, conical and round nose and spire point, and dies and sizing dies, and die sets, for both smokeless and black powder and can load for almost any caliber I own...I'm cheap!

 

[Busyhands94]

that is awesome! i wanna get a .22 mold, I'm sick of buying those bullets from NAA!!

 

[kBob]

I have not done it but I have seen folks wrap the handles of those older molds in leather lacing, like macremay. Looks neat as well. Still the design looks like a good way to pour molten lead on one's hand. Just recalled seeing a set of repro molds like that with leather slip covers sewn and slid over them. Think something like the fingers of a glove but sized to fit. They appear to have been made undersized and then wet and forced on before allowing them to dry and shrink as they were not moving. The sewn seams were on the inside of the grips.

-kBob

 

[robhof]

If you volume cast and get the mold really hot, those leather wraps get to stinking, at least mine did. I cut a few pieces off the garage broom and drilled holes large enough to fit the handles in then packed with wood strips and used pipe clamps to secure.

 

[Busyhands94]

anybody know where i can get a good quality traditional bag mold? i am thinking of making a field casting kit so i can make ammo by a campfire. i already made a small copper lead ladle that will accept a green twig as the handle, a case, and a few small lead bars. It is something i have always wanted, even before i owned a gun. a good old fashioned bullet mold.

 

[kBob]

I have a friend that read "the Little House on the Praire" books to his daughters when they were quiet young. His favorite passage is from "Little House in the Big Woods" which is actually chronologically in the story line first. In it Laura discribes her dad casting balls for his rifle.

I keep threatening to break out the electric pot and dipper. I have a set of blocks for a light weight .575 Minie I have yet to cast from. Hmm, the kids' schools starts next week......

-kBob