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I'm all for casting for bigger bullets such as .45-70 and .45 Colt. Even have some molds for 10mm/.40 S&W. But never bothered with 9mm.
...
Heck, I'm still getting used to the indignity of reloading 9mm.

LOL about 9mm.

I bought the mold when I did an inventory and found I had overbought .380s and underbought 9mms, then went to Xtreme's website to buy more 9s and they were totally out. Panicked a little, bought a pot and while I was at it, bought a 9mm mold before they sold out (and also a .40). Later I bought a .44 caliber mold for bullets to put into appropriate sabots for my .50 cal muzzleloader -- it turns out that at least for me, casting a smaller bullet is much easier than casting a big one. That made me glad to have the 9mm mold -- feels like a good training wheels mold.
 
I'm all for casting for bigger bullets such as .45-70 and .45 Colt. Even have some molds for 10mm/.40 S&W. But never bothered with 9mm.

My .45-70 govt. boolits are for competitions, and my 10mm and .45 Colt boolits are for bears. With decent 9mm target bullets at under $.10 each, and my having to buy lead at $2.50 a pound (that works out to $.05 each for a 115 grain boolit), saving a few cents per round, minus the time, trouble, and lube, just didn't seem worth it to me.

Heck, I'm still getting used to the indignity of reloading 9mm.
Lead has been $1/lb at the scrap yard for a loong time.
I've cast 3/8" bores for a long time because I feel they are waay more range time worthy than .22 rimfire. I've hardly ever shot .22, why bother.
 
No scrapyards for 70 miles out here. Plus, I like to use Lyman's #2. It works well for my bear boolits. I don't have time to fuss with adding tin or antimony to $1 a pound lead that I had to use $27 worth of fuel and an afternoon of driving to get.
Yea, it's not like it's milk, it's shelf stable for billions of years. Whatever.
Back when I was a kid I'd pump 1,000 9mm slugs into a lump of bull pine in an afternoon.. toss it in the wood stove, retrieve and repeat.
 
Anyone know of sources for tin that are cheaper than, say, Midway? I have a whole bunch of pure lead, I'd like to add a little tin to get it to flow better.
 
Anyone know of sources for tin that are cheaper than, say, Midway? I have a whole bunch of pure lead, I'd like to add a little tin to get it to flow better.
Amazon prime has rotometals pure bars about $24/lb? free shipping
I use it with bags of high antimony shot I have laying around if I need to.. a little bit goes a long way.
 
With a bottom dump Melting pot:
1. Have it sitting on a large cookie sheet to contain any spills.
2. Keep a small container, (cast iron) under the spout to catch drips. I use a corn bread mold from Good Will.
3. Keep a screw driver handy to rotate the stopper as it will tend to stick open at times.
4. Wear safety glasses.
5. Don't, "Socialize" while casting or, reloading.:p
 
Don't let the lead get too hot, it starts vaporizing above 700 deg.s (you will see a yellowish crust forming near top of pot) and you DON'T want to breathe lead vapor. Get a Propane torch to preheat the mold, dipper, and any new lead you want to put in the pot, you will see the moisture form then evaporate. The torch can also be used to re-melt the sprue after you pore if the bullets are not coming out complete (Right after you pore the mold keep the sprue molten until no more sprue shrinkage). A face shield and safety glasses will help protect you until you get the hang of it.
 
Your local Goodwill or Salvation Army.

Carnac.jpg

Where do I buy some cheap bullet casting accessories?

Such as.....
A dedicated spoon (or scooper) to skim off the dross and fish out the jackets if you reclaim the lead from the berm.
Dedicated muffin pans to make ingots.
A fan to get that smoke away from me.
Maybe some used crayons to use as flux for your raw mix.
Perhaps some rags to put the hot lead bullets on when you open the mold.

Probably forgot something. But, it's a good thing that the local Goodwill is close by to me.

Aloha, Mark
 
Don't let the lead get too hot, it starts vaporizing above 700 deg.s (you will see a yellowish crust forming near top of pot) and you DON'T want to breathe lead vapor.

:s0153:

There is zero danger to inhaling lead fumes when casting bullets since the vaporization point of lead is NOT 700 degrees. Not sure where you picked up that myth.

Furthermore, I get the best results at around 750 to 780 degrees. The crust at the top is formed by impurities getting burned off and oxidation, which increases at higher temps.
 
With our 'travelling scrap metal redistributors' epically busy removing lead from our church roofs almost as fast as we can replace it, there are always some repair scraps going begging when the inevitable repairs are being carried out.

I lucked in to around 600 pounds of scrap lead for a small donation to the church roof fund - again. I shared it out among a bunch of us BP shooters.

However, churches are getting wise to the policy of providing the less-lawful with the means of supporting their Range-Rover and thirty-foot luxury trailer habits, and replacing lead with stuff a bit like Cerro-Safe, that does the same job as lead but is basically worthless as scrap, simply because the only thing you can make with it is church roofing.

As a bright side to the roof-theft story, on the last occasion the pik- sorry scrap-metal redistributors were caught in action on the roof, and their ladders were removed. The roof of our local church might have settled somewhat since it was built and consecrated in 1220, but it's still almost thirty-five feet from the ground...:)

Additional aids to keeping them in place until the police arrived involved the 'accidental' spot-welding of their truck's wheels to a twenty-foot length of scaffolding pole. 'I tripped while carrying my welding set', officer,' replied Dave the local garage welder, when asked if he knew anything about it. :eek:
 

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