Getting started with cast bullets

guncollector · Posted: Mon Apr 09, 2007 8:37 am Post subject: Getting started with cast bullets

I've reloaded for a number of years and recently decided I want to cast some of my own bullets. I found a Lyman lubrisizer on ebay and know i need a lead melting pot, molds, sizing dies, and top punch. What else?

Any comment on Lee lead melters? They are much less expensive but are they adequate?

What sources of lead alloy do you use?

Thanks for the ideas!

SHOOTER458 · Member Joined: Nov 05, 2005 Posts: 27

I have used Lee pots for years. All I have had that have bottom pour leak till you lap them in. Outside of that, no problems.

Morax

SHOOTER458 wrote:

I have used Lee pots for years. All I have had that have bottom pour leak till you lap them in. Outside of that, no problems.

yep i got one many moons ago, and after doing the smoothing of the drain.... right now it is sitting with nothing in it, cause i just ran off a bunch of round ball for the .36 bp pistol.. heats fairly fast, and is not too bad otherwise, i think it was like 45.00 or so so not too hard on the wallet either

rdncktink

For lead me and my dad use old tire weights that we melt down into bars and then melt into bullets. I don't remember what kind he has but when we open then up that little bite extra on the top (yup there's so techniqual words for ya) will sometimes come right back at ya. Had little burns up and down my arms one summer from it.

fireball 3

hey there, an old friend of mine sold me his casting equipment years ago. the furnace was the 20-25# rcbs unit for $25. i use wheel weights ,antimony and tin. the hardness is 24 on the brinell scale as we heat treated them. i was going to buy the lee kit from cabales but that was before i got the rcbs unit. my father in law uses a lee melting pot and likes it. sounds like ya pretty much got er' handled. can you still get wheel weights? out here they're hard to get. epa and all ya know. i think i still got 350lbs left. see ya foks later Dave Very Happy

Morax

little known thing, the xray bite wings that dentists use come with a covering of thin lead, a bit thicker than a gum wrapper, you can use this for a source of lead as well as wheel weights... also check out towing companies, and scrap yards, they usually have abundances of the stuff laying around..plumbing supply houses still carry pig lead too

Crackshot

I have a Magma Master Caster & Star lubesizer and would not trade for a million bucks! Would have to hold a gun to my head to get me to go back to the old pot and mold methode of casting.
However I still use an old cast iron dutch oven and a turkey fryer burner to melt down my wheel weights into ingots.