Bullets....where do you buy?

[tac]

Hmmm. We'll be over in the metro-PDX ara at the end of May, working our way down to Eugene, then over to Bend, Baker City and finally ending up in the Wallowas. Just looking for 155gr SMKs now that the price here in yUK has hit $70/c.

Any tips in those areas - apart from Mazama's in Eugene, that is.

tac

 

[noylj]

For cast lead, mastercastbullets.com, Missouri Bullets, or Penn. mastercastbullets has GREAT bullets in a softer alloy at a cost savings that I think are better than the way-too-hard normal 20BHN commercial cast bullets.
For swaged lead .45 200gn L-SWC, I would buy from Zero Bullets (by way of Powder Valley) or Precision Delta
For moly-koted, Precision Bullets or Bayou Bullets
For jacketed, I was buying from Montana Gold, Zero Bullets (by way of Powder Valley), and Precision Delta.

 

[theflyguy]

Ok guys,

What are the pitfalls of shooting lead? Does it cause excessive wear, leave more dirt, wear down the barrel?

If I want to reload using lead bullets, is there any additional steps that need too be taken when reloading??

 

[Mikej]

Very limited experience here. I decided I wanted to shoot lead in my S&W 629 .44 Mag, traditional, cowboy thing. I got me a 500 pack of S-n-S Casting 200gr RNFP to load up in .44 special. S-n-S claims 14-17 BHN and that sounded good to me, not too hard not too soft. I've loaded and shot about a 100 rounds through it, (ten for each recipe), with a couple of different powders that were in the Speer14 book. The blue lube on the bullets is really smoky, I had issues with leading, either from too little velocity or too much. There really should have been a middle ground where leading was minimal if at all, I thought. I had issues with unburnt powder which has nothing to do with lead or not, other than I couldn't try another powder as other, possibly more suitable powders haven't been available.

Don't know if that helps you or not, but if you have a good affordable supply of jacketed bullets I'm not sure why you'd want to mess with lead. Hell, some of those fancy cast bullets cost almost as much jacketed/plated bullets anyway!

Mike

 

[noylj]

To shoot well in a revolver, the bullets must be a snug fit in the throats of the cylinder, but should not be much over 0.001" over throat diameter. Next, the bullet, in general, must be at least 0.001" over the groove diameter of the barrel. You need to make a few measurements and verify what size bullet you need.
The blue lube that most casters use is almost worthless. It seems to be little more than paraffin and coloring.
I find the a very light tumble lube with Lee Liquid Alox solves a LOT of leading issues.
I load .44 Spl equivalent loads, but always use .44 Mag brass. This often requires upping the charge weight by 0.3-0.5gn.
Your hardness is still too hard for .44 Spl velocities, but will work for .44 Mag quite well.
Where was the leading?

 

[Mikej]

I feel like we're stepping on Flyguys thread here, but I suppose it's not too off topic.

To shoot well in a revolver, the bullets must be a snug fit in the throats of the cylinder, but should not be much over 0.001" over throat diameter. Next, the bullet, in general, must be at least 0.001" over the groove diameter of the barrel. You need to make a few measurements and verify what size bullet you need.
The blue lube that most casters use is almost worthless. It seems to be little more than paraffin and coloring.
I find the a very light tumble lube with Lee Liquid Alox solves a LOT of leading issues.
I load .44 Spl equivalent loads, but always use .44 Mag brass. This often requires upping the charge weight by 0.3-0.5gn.
Your hardness is still too hard for .44 Spl velocities, but will work for .44 Mag quite well.
Where was the leading?

I haven't measured cylinder or barrel throats, yet. My bad, I did know about the .0001 over being needed, in the back of my brain. As far as the bullet lube, you can smell that it's paraffin, for sure.
I'm using .44 special brass, and loading established recipes. One thing that confused me was the WIDE difference of the recipes for .44sp between the Speer14 book and the Hodgdon website. Those two sources spanned loads from 4.5gr--6.8gr of 231, (not the ideal powder I'm sure). I tried powder amounts from 4.7-6.1.

My leading was all in the first third of the barrel, it would come out in strips with a tight patch pushed through!

Thanks for the input noylj......

Mike

 

[noylj]

Where is the leading:
If it appears near the chamber, chances are that bullet diameter or hardness are the cause. A diameter too small or an alloy too hard will allow high pressure gas to leak past the bullet, which erodes the bullet and leaves leading near the chamber.
If the leading first appears on the leading edge of the rifling (if you imagine the bullet being pushed through the barrel, you will note that one edge of the rifling does most of the work of imparting a spin to the bullet--this is the edge you see when you look through the barrel from the breech end), the bullet might be too soft or the velocity too high.
From your description, the bullet is either too small or too hard or both.
One thing about lead bullets--you learn a lot about your gun.

 

[SunTzu]

I'm not sure you're going to find anyone with "Bulk" 9mm, .40 maybe. I'm not actively looking, for some reason last year I was making sure I had 1000-1500 of all I load.
Mike

1000-1500 rounds IS NOT a lot of ammo.

currently i'm lamenting my cruel fate because i only have around 1,500 9mm loaded cartridges and i'm in starvation mode for 5.56 because i'm down to about 800 rounds in that caliber... if you run your guns and practice/train etc you can blow through 1k rounds in a month or two really easy.

 

[deadshot2]

i'm in starvation mode for 5.56 because i'm down to about 800 rounds in that caliber... if you run your guns and practice/train etc you can blow through 1k rounds in a month or two really easy.

Funny, that's how I roll too. One benefit of being "older" is that you've seen this kind of crap before and what the "triggers" are. Sure glad I ordered ahead of "The King's second coronation".

Between loaded rounds stocked in 50 cal cans and components ready to make more my "9" supply is somewhere around 6k and for .223/5.56 it's pretty close to the same. .308's not bad either. I feel "naked" if I don't have at least 500 rounds of that ready to go. Fedex is due to deliver another thousand bullets today to go with the 2k on the shelf.

My wife told me I could make a fortune by selling off my "excess". I asked her "What excess"? Fact is that this is about a 12 mo supply, maybe 24 if I slow down a little.

 

[HappyRoman]

widners, they had 223 62gr fmj yesterday in 5k lots..

 

[SunTzu]

Funny, that's how I roll too. One benefit of being "older" is that you've seen this kind of crap before and what the "triggers" are. Sure glad I ordered ahead of "The King's second coronation".

Between loaded rounds stocked in 50 cal cans and components ready to make more my "9" supply is somewhere around 6k and for .223/5.56 it's pretty close to the same. .308's not bad either. I feel "naked" if I don't have at least 500 rounds of that ready to go. Fedex is due to deliver another thousand bullets today to go with the 2k on the shelf.

My wife told me I could make a fortune by selling off my "excess". I asked her "What excess"? Fact is that this is about a 12 mo supply, maybe 24 if I slow down a little.

oh i've thought about selling off hardware etc but the very short term gain isn't worth it because down the road i know i would want to buy it all back anyway.

i didn't stockpile at the re-election i just use ammo so it makes sense to buy it when it's a good deal etc but now im wishing i had a few pallets of it for personal use.

 

[GuyBMeredith]

Sure love the look on the person who delivers a 50# box to my door.

Ha! When I was competing more frequently I was reloading 12,000+ per year. I got tired of the usual order of 1,000 to 2,000 (25 to 50 lb) so decided to make a bulk order and get a price break. You would have loved the look on the UPS driver's face when he brought up 12,000 bullets (300 lbs) on the hand truck!

I use X-Treme Bullets' copper plated 158 gr RNFP exclusively for my .38 spl and .357 magnum rounds.

 

[MarkAd]

I use X-Treme Bullets' copper plated 158 gr RNFP exclusively for my .38 spl and .357 magnum rounds.

What loads are you using for these?

 

[GuyBMeredith]

What loads are you using for these?

POSSIBLE OVERLOAD ALERT THESE ARE BASED ON LYMAN RECOMMENDED LOADS FOR CAST LEAD AND QUITE A BIT ABOVE CURRENT HOGDON RECOMMENDATIONS.

For the .38 spl I use the X-Treme 158 gr plated RNFP, 4.9 gr of Winchester 231 with a Winchester Small Pistol primer in Starline brass. These reloads are for use in my 686+, PC 627 V-comp and M66 for action pistol.

This chronos at around 900 fps. and is a fairly stiff load for .38 spl. but I've not had any over pressure indications. I often load down to 4.0 gr for a cream puff round for new shooters. Now that I'm into marksmanship a bit more, I will probably be trimming back and comparing for accuracy.

I'm still experimenting with .357 magnum from time to time as I don't often use them.

 

[springfield0612]

You're on the right path of using Lead for plinking. Why would you pay premium prices for premium bullets just to shoot them for plinking? Buy Lead, with the money you save over jacketed you will be able to buy more! I cast my own, catch the bullets with shreded rubber and recycle the lead just like we do with our brass. Once you shoot the lead once and recycle it, the second time you shoot it, it's free! I pay for powder, and primers. Everything else is free! You can buy a 6 cavity Lee mold, and handles for the same price as 200 premium bullets. Just a thought. Also using lead you'll be loading lighter loads and using less powder making it go farther and again saving money! If you want hollow points they make molds for that too!

 

[nwbobber]

I ordered some hard cast lead from Badman bullets in Albany, I think it took about five weeks to get them, they work pretty well in my XDm9. He is using a proprietary lube - red. So far so good. I would use jacketed, but I'm not going to spend my days trying to find them. The lead works fine. Prices were as good as any 1000 115RN for 75, shipped.

 

[P7M13]

FTF mostly
just bought 200 .308 180gr SPBT and 100 .308 200gr SMKs in the Costco parking lot.