Worth it to cast for my needs?

J

JDMLandscaping

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Lower Mainland BC
Hey guys and gals. So I was bitten by the reloading bug recently and I am one for jumping in with both feet so casting has caught my eye. I really like the idea of it and being a tradesman I like building things over buying them. Talking with people I know though it seems not many people think it will be worth it for me to cast. I will be reloading initially for my AR 223 and my stag 10 .308 but if I were to get into casting I would would reload 9mm as well. For the AR and 9mm it would be all range plinking ammo at 0-75 yards and I don’t need match grade accuracy. I have been watching videos of guys casting for 223 and powder coating them and using them with out gas checks as long as they use a water quenched harder lead alloy like what wheel weights are made of. If I have to gas check the 223 the added cost would put me in the negligible price range for cheap pre made boolits. So what do you all think? Would it be worth it to cast or should I just stick to reloading with pre made bits until I get into .44 Magnum’s or .45’s and such where casting makes a big difference. Thanks!
 
Do you have a source of lead? Lead WWs are getting harder and harder to find these days. That's something to consider.

Having said that, I cast all of my HG projectiles now, 9mm, 38, 45, 44. My reloading costs amount to powder and primers.

I don't cast for rifle, I don't shoot enough rifle to justify it (hunting only).

M
 
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I have not gone around and asked places yet about accessing lead as I would hate to set up agreements with people and then come to the conclusion that it’s not worth it for me. I was looking at this as a 3 step process. 1. Figure out if it would be worth it to cast for my needs 2. See if I could find access to lead and lead alloys such as wheel weights and such and if both of those were yes then 3. Purchase equipment and get started.
 
Well, i cast bullets myself (6 different calibers) and realy enjoy it. It so happens you want to cast for the 3 cheapest centerfire rounds to buy. Im not sure if it will be worth it cost wise. But it would be fun and once you are setup you then can shoot obsolete guns/rounds and not have yo worry about ammo costs.

But for the 9 mm its very often you can find loaded ammo for .25$ each. Or 1000 for 250$ free shipping.
 
I have a buddy who casts, he’s retired and has a lot of time on his hands.

If you find ,spending a full day casting a 1000 9mm bullets, that cost $100 to buy, is enjoyable,
Then have at.

But I think it would be great, to have all the equipment for casting.
Just in case:)
 
I think it would be worth for you to start. If you enjoy reloading you will enjoy casting. Bigger calibers Will be bigger savings.
 
Brianma65 said:
I have a buddy who casts, he’s retired and has a lot of time on his hands.

If you find ,spending a full day casting a 1000 9mm bullets, that cost $100 to buy, is enjoyable,
Then have at.

But I think it would be great, to have all the equipment for casting.
Just in case:)
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If it takes him all day he certainly is taking his time.

I dont regret starting. Still.dont shoot a lot. I have more fun with all the processes involved with our shooting sport.

I usually turn on the pot before supper and cast a couple hundread in about an hour or so after supper.

Havent casted in a while because i got bullets coming out the yeng-yang
 
Casting for .22's is not for a beginner.
It's much more fiddly that .30's and up.
You do it because you have the bug do it and do it right.
I stopped because I couldn't get the accuracy I wanted and the smaller bullets were a touch awkward to handle with pre-arthritic fingers.
This is after 40 years of casting experience.

That being said, some of my most enjoyable experiences were stalking the wily gopher, during my courting days, with a .22 Hornet and bullets I cast myself.
I could cover my 50 yard groups with a silver dollar. Remember them?
At 100 yards, I would require a tent.

BTW, powder coating adds thickness in a dimension that is not easily resized and can lead to chambering problems.
I'm not trying to be a wet blanket. I'm an unrecovered casting junkie, but have seen too many new casters give up too soon because of unreachable expectations.
 
Once you have your setup, casting your own bullets especially for pistols & revolvers can save you a ton of money over store bought lead & plated bullets. Powder coat these bullets and you have a durable jacket that resists fouling the barrel, and since the base is also coated, there is negligable lead vapourization. A LEE 6 cavity mold will cost you about C$82.00 delivered from Higginson's, paying for itself after the first 1000 casts.

Run your PC"d bullets through your normal sizer & they are the same diameter as any other. The problem is seating them out too far & the style of the ogive. If the ogive at the seated shoulder of the bullet in the case does not immediately curve inwards, it could catch the beginning of the L&G's. This is easily remedied buy seating a bit deeper.
 
Not sure about .22, but I cast for .30 cal, .303, .38, 45, 44. I have lots of moulds, all Lee but one. I use two 10 lb. Lee bottom pour pots, the older one for melting WW into ingots, and the newer one for casting bullets. The old one has melted a lot of lead in its life, both for casting and ingots.

I love casting, and wouldn't like to have to buy jacketed bullets for my addiction. :p

You will find various degrees of complication when reading about "how I cast" stories. When I first investigated casting years ago, the first guy made it sound like a rather difficult and convoluted process. I was lucky enough to have stumbled across a story written by an old time caster, Dean Grennell, who talked about Lee Tumble Lube moulds. Away I went, and have never looked back. I also have sizer dies for some bullets.

Take a look at the LEE catalogue online. A good number of people bad mouth LEE products, but another bunch of us have good luck with them.

Do a bit of research, and see if you can hook up with someone who casts. My motto - KISS
 
I still use factory bullets for rifle as I am generally shooting for max accuracy but I cast all my handgun bullets. Luckily I have a pretty good stash of wheel weights which will last me a while. I have gone almost exclusively to Lee 6 cavity moulds. To speed up production I bought two each of the bullets I most commonly shoot (125 gr. RN 9mm, 148 gr. DEWC 38 Spec and 200 gr. SWC 45). Picked them up in the U.S. for about $36 each so $100C per calibre. With duplicate moulds & a 20 pound Lee bottom pour melter I can easily do 600 bullets per hour (more if I'm really ambitious). So in 1 1/2 hours of casting (roughly 1000 bullets) the moulds are paid for and every bullet after that just drops the cost further. Even 148 DRG lead WC bullets are now going for $100/1000 so the savings are substantial. I figure 9mm is costing me about for about $3/50 (primer 5 cents, powder 1 cent, free range brass & free lead). I've also started powder coating and with two toaster ovens going I can easily coat about 600 per hour. The nice thing about that is I can use softer range lead of which there is always lots (not always true for wheel weights) with no leading and far less smoke which is nice for winter shooting indoors. I'm certainly no great shot but with these cast bullets I've averaged 472/480 in PPC service (CZ semi-auto) and 568/600 in PPC (S&W revolver) so the bullets certainly don't handicap me. If you have the time (luckily I'm retired so I do) it can make shooting a lot more affordable and it's always more rewarding to do well with bullets you've created.
 
Casting is something you do because you want to. It may be cheap, but my time is also worth money For the time it takes and the equipment you need not to mention the learning curve and sourcing the right supply of lead. You also need the space, it isn't something you do in the basement. I would much rather devote the effort involved to shooting. One Saturdays overtime can buy me several thousand projectiles. I've been reloading for 40 years now and if I didn't have to, I wouldn't, but my ammo locker won't fill itself. Casting is time I would rather not spend time doing especially with the lead fumes, and at my age I need every last one of the few brain cells I have left
 
A lot of really good points here so far. I think I might start going around and seeing what I can find for lead loca to me and if I can find a decent supply of lead I think I will take the plunge. Talked to a tire guy that was at the shop yesterday and he said they will sell off the pails of wheel weights for $5 ish, you have to take them all though so no idea how much of that will be lead or not. If I do start into this it won’t be until after Christmas so maybe I will see what I can find for lead in a mo th and if it is a decent amount then away we go, if not then maybe I will stick with bought projectiles for now. This hobby is truest a worm hole. Love to shoot, buy ammo, shoot all ammo so spend more money on ammo, wife won’t let you spend more money on ammo so you save up and get into reloading so you can shoot more for the same price, reloading goes well but boolits are the most expensive part, look into casting, start to see the dark hole that never ends and you just want to follow it forever.....
 
dogzilla said:
Casting is something you do because you want to. It may be cheap, but my time is also worth money For the time it takes and the equipment you need not to mention the learning curve and sourcing the right supply of lead. You also need the space, it isn't something you do in the basement. I would much rather devote the effort involved to shooting. One Saturdays overtime can buy me several thousand projectiles. I've been reloading for 40 years now and if I didn't have to, I wouldn't, but my ammo locker won't fill itself. Casting is time I would rather not spend time doing especially with the lead fumes, and at my age I need every last one of the few brain cells I have left
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Let me get this straight. You won't cast bullets because it takes up time you can be working overtime but you've spent 40 years reloading ammo even though you don't like to. If that's the case why not work even more overtime and just buy everything and not have to reload at all?

Personally I'm much happier spending my time casting, reloading and shooting and none of it working. Guess I'm weird that way.
 
JDMLandscaping said:
A lot of really good points here so far. I think I might start going around and seeing what I can find for lead loca to me and if I can find a decent supply of lead I think I will take the plunge. Talked to a tire guy that was at the shop yesterday and he said they will sell off the pails of wheel weights for $5 ish, you have to take them all though so no idea how much of that will be lead or not. If I do start into this it won’t be until after Christmas so maybe I will see what I can find for lead in a mo th and if it is a decent amount then away we go, if not then maybe I will stick with bought projectiles for now. This hobby is truest a worm hole. Love to shoot, buy ammo, shoot all ammo so spend more money on ammo, wife won’t let you spend more money on ammo so you save up and get into reloading so you can shoot more for the same price, reloading goes well but boolits are the most expensive part, look into casting, start to see the dark hole that never ends and you just want to follow it forever.....
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Unless they're really small if you're getting the wheelweight buckets for $5 each you're laughing even if there is a lot of steel & zinc in them.

If you sort them you can keep the lead WW and probably sell the zinc to a scrap yard & defray your costs even more.
 
JDMLandscaping said:
They use the tire lube buckets so they are the 3 or 3.5 gallon buckets. I am going to check things out on Monday and see what I can find.
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For 5 bucks each buy as many as you can!!
A 5 gallon pail full is easily 100+ lbs.
Like Ted mentioned you can sell the "junk" zinc and steel weights to the scrap metal yard and might have your lead for free after doing some sorting.
Lead will never go bad so as long as you can get it cheap and ist not in your way you can't go wrong.
 
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