Casting 1800 bullets

blacksmithden

blacksmithden

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I live among the creatures of the night (Edmonton)
Ever wonder what exactly 1800, home cast, 44 mag bullets looked like, all nicely sized to 0.430, all lined up, lubed and ready to go ???....well, all except the drying :D This all works out to about 61.5 lbs of lead. Man, my arms are tired LOL!!


Should be ready tomorrow, but I'll give them an extra day to dry.

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Think of how sore your arms will be after loading them.

On the upside, I'd say thats good for a day or two of shooting :p
 
I just purified a bunch of buckets of tire weights and poured them into 300 lbs of ingets. 3 buckets of weights = 1 bucket of ingets(5 gal). 1 bucket of lead bars = 300 lbs! Next week I will be making .458- 500 grainers, .458-400 grainers and .454 400 grainers for the Casull! well, actually they are more like 390 by the time they are resized. Won't be making 1800 of them though.
 
domino's!


poke



thats alot of work, i just finished 500x 300WM brass: tumbled, deprimed/sized, trimmed and chamfered inand out, and primed again.
 
I don't want to rain on anybody's parade but, i think you should invest in something to lube and size them, you went through alot of work to make them and the lube looks very inconsistent, some bullets look like they have little or no lube on them. Cast bullets do not require lead anywhere but in the lube grooves(that's why the grooves are there), lube on the tops of bullets will accumulate in your dies causing inconsistencies in seating depth, lube on bottom of bullet can cause powder contamination. I usually size and lube in batches of 1000 or 2000 bullets and 2k bullets takes about one hr. and a half. I don't like to sound negative and I hope you don't take it that way but if you have the patience to cast so many bullets, you probably will want the best product possible, I calls 'em as I see 'em!
 
I have to go with Ben on this you should really get a magma sizer... I use them and they are fast and turn out a good product... especially if you going to be making thousands of bullets at a time... two days ago I ran my casting operation for 40 cal I still have a bucket of bullets sitting by my sizer because my hand is raw from pumping the handle... looks like it might be time to upgrade to a automatic one.
 
Sorry guys. I've been so busy with this reclassificaton/C-301/S-5 business I haven't had time to come back to the thread. I have a meeting with the minister of natural resouces set up for Monday. Wish me luck :D


Ok.....let's see.

It took me 2 days to cast them, working off and on,. One day to lube and size. I honestly don't know how many hours. I do a few hundred, go have a smoke, eat lunch, watch TV, do a few hundred more, go pick up the kids....you get the picture. I use pure wheel weights for my lead. The stick on wheel weights are the ones I pulled out the the last batch of weights I got. I don't have a lubrisizer...or whatever you call them. The last time I looked, they were $210 bucks at Epps, plus dies, plus top punches, plus lube. I've used Lee's liquid alox since I started casting. I can lube about 2000 bullets with a single bottle. I've never had a leading/lube problem using it. Just take an old coffee can, dump in about 300 bullets, dump on some lube and shake...dump them on my reloading bench and start sizing. Then I throw them back in the can, add a little more lube, shake and stand them up to dry.

Yea, it's a little messy, but that's life. For the cost of a lubrisizer, I can lube aproximately 120,000 bullets or about 2 decades worth :D

To cast these particular bullets, I used my new RCBS Promelt furnace. Nice bit of kit. Also, a Lee 2 cavity mould. I have a six cavity around here somewhere, but I couldn't find it. I dropped them all into a 5 gallon bucket of cold water to harden them up like I do with all my bullets. I think that covers everybody's questions.

Cheers guys. I'm off to the range for a bit of shooting.
 
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500grhollowpoint said:
yea I use wheel weights too. Don't use the stick on ones though... I melt them down into ingits first in a huge pot with a tiger torch and then use the litlle lee electric pot for the casting.
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I do the same thing with my weights. The last batch I did, I did with a metal 5 gallon can and a tiger torch. Since then, I cut a steel 30lb propane tank in half for a pot and bought one of those outdoor cooking burners. I made up a metal cross to go across the burner with little tabs on it to keep it from sliding off. The cross is getting welded to the bottom of the tank. I can't wait until I've got enough weights together to make it worth while doing a big smelt.

For those of you who are just getting into this, I'll take a bunch of pictures and give step by step instructions on how to melt down your wheel weights into ingots.
 
blacksmithden said:
I do the same thing with my weights. The last batch I did, I did with a metal 5 gallon can and a tiger torch. Since then, I cut a steel 30lb propane tank in half for a pot and bought one of those outdoor cooking burners. I made up a metal cross to go across the burner with little tabs on it to keep it from sliding off. The cross is getting welded to the bottom of the tank. I can't wait until I've got enough weights together to make it worth while doing a big smelt.

For those of you who are just getting into this, I'll take a bunch of pictures and give step by step instructions on how to melt down your wheel weights into ingots.
Click to expand...


I would show you my rig but then I would give away my trade secretes which include my pour valve...

I use a stainless steel 5 gallon pot... and propane burner.

I wouldn't recommend a big rig like this for people who live in the city even a little 10 lb melter can generate enough smoke to get your neighbours wondering what your doing...

I just dump about 100 lbs of wheel weights or reclaimed lead and go away 30 min later I can come back and scoop all the slag and clips off the top... get all my ingot molds ready and start to pour ingots...
 
I like to be around when they're about midway through melted. Can fish out the zinc ones before it gets hot enough to melt em.

I melt my WW with a bit more of a frugal setup; I use a big cheap cast iron pot on 2 rods driven through a burn barrel. Scrap wood to burn.

1800 rounds with a 2 cavity mold? Not my idea of fun, especially when the 6 cavity Lee molds are just $50. That being said, been there done that.
 
blacksmithden said:
For those of you who are just getting into this, I'll take a bunch of pictures and give step by step instructions on how to melt down your wheel weights into ingots.
Click to expand...

...I look forward to this, and appreciate you taking the time. I want to start casting next winter and need all the info I can get my eyes on.

Mad Mikey :)
 
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