Simple casting kit!

[1shot]

Well on new years day I thought what better to do than fire up to propane burner and cast some boolits!
The purpose of this post is to show those of you who may have considered the art of casting your own but shyed away at the idea of hundreds of dollars of equipment- how cheaply it can actually be accomplished.
Through trial and error I have found this hobby thoroughly interesting journey and can now cast and load some very nice, accurate boolits at a mere fraction of the cost of jacketed.

In the picture below, this is as simple as it gets!
My burner is an old BBQ sideburner, screwed to an old plastic step which doubles as storage for moulds etc.
The melting pot.. you'll love this, is an old tuna tin! I drilled a couple of holes in the side and made the handle from a coat hanger with a big heavy bolt to counterbalance the opposite side.
Wrapped in duct tape, of course.
Pouring ladle?? What pouring ladle? Notice the "V" shaped pouring spout- I pour directly into the mould and reset onto the burner, knock the sprue off and drop the boolit into a bucket of water, done!

All you have to actually purchase are your moulds, a Lee push-thru sizer and lube, load her up!
Here's a hint.. Cast them big! Your barrel is the final sizer..
Enjoy!
1Shot

 

[Amanda]

What would you say the total cost of the hardware is?

 

[1shot]

Of everything you see there, maybe $30 for the mould.
Everything else was laying around and/or going to be trashed.

 

[hk33ka1]

Awesome setup 1shot! Even more frugal than some of my casting gear.

 

[kjohn]

But...but...but... You can't possibly cast bullets with a Lee mould...can you? Or size bullets with a Lee push through sizer? {Sarcasm off}

Good for you to post this simple setup. As I have stated on here before, I always steered clear of even thinking about casting my own bullets because of the perception that it was a complicated, exact science, to be used only by those who are smarter and more deft than I. What with heated bullet sizers, expensive moulds, finding virgins to be sacrificed at the full moon - oh man, just too much for my realm of thinking.....

That is - until I read an article written by Dean Grennell on the topic of tumble lube bullets. I was hooked. I couldn't get my order for a LEE melting furnace, some LEE tumble lube moulds, and some LEE Liquid Alox. The rest is history. I have cast thousands upon thousands of Tumble lube and ordinary bullets, and plan to cast many thousands more.

Newbies to casting - take note - You may or may not end up a hopeless caster like me and many others, BUT you can have a taste for very little investment, as the OP has very clearly shown us.

 

[blacksmithden]

Well done 1shot. Just goes to show you, things don't have to be that complicated. Just about anything that will melt lead, a little time, a little in ingeneuity, and you're in business.

 

[PerversPépère]

And above all, casting is FUN!
The Tumblelube bullets are really the best invention since sliced bread. I have many moulds, Lyman, RCBS and Lee. I have a few 6 cavity Lee moulds and these are really good when you need many bullets to go plinking.
These are large aluminum moulds and can cool off very fast so, to keep them warm, I have a small hot plate on the side with an old stove cast iron ring on it and I let it heat just enough to melt soft solder.
When I cast, I put the Lee 6-cavity mould on it to warm up a bit or to keep warm between sessions while I replenish and flux the mix. That way, it doesn't take many fillings to get it up to proper temperature.
I use Marvelux, it's a clean and fumeless way to flux.
I mostly cast .44Mag and .45 Auto bullets with my setup. The .45s are plain-base tumble lube ones and shot as cast.
The .44s are tumble-lubed then sized with a Lee sizing die or, in the case of gas-checked hard cast ones, I first tumble-lube them with a dilute solution of Lee Liquid Alox then I seat and crimp gas checks and lube the works on my RCBS Lubamatic.
PP.