M14 Forum

TheTinMan · February 10th, 2012, 07:10 AM

One fact jumped out at me from reading TheHighRoad thread that 1KperDay linked to. It had never occurred to me that there's all kinds of nasty stuff in the dust from our tumblers. I frequently start a reloading or gun cleaning session figuring out what batch of empties needs to be polished and start up the tumbler on the floor right next to my bench. Then I just dump everything through the sieve on my bench -> LOTS of dust everywhere. Eh, it's just corncob and walnut right?

The tumbler is going into the garage and I'll sift outside from now on.

BTW there's a theory that one of the causes of the downfall of the Roman Empire was their prolific use of lead plumbing.

stoky · February 10th, 2012, 07:56 AM

If he would be interested in a .38/.357 or .44 revolver, they are much more forgiving of reload variables than 9mm. The 9mm's taper, high operating pressure and cycling nuances make it a tricky cartridge to reload for.
Casting can be very interesting, adding bullet hardness to the load puzzle matrix.
The economic attraction of free lead has the trade off of the possibility of stumbling across some very nasty substances used in alloys; antimony, arsenic and other heavy metals, especially in older scrap vintages.
Cast Bullets by Col. E.H. Harrison is a good reference, IMO.

Blademaker · February 10th, 2012, 10:06 AM

I'd like to add that I don't spend a lot of time casting, love 6 cavity moulds. I normally cast several thousand bullets at a time, then I'm good for 6 months or more. I keep hopping Big Lube will hurry up and come out with 6 cavity round ball moulds, the little two bangers take too long.

The only auto loader I cast for is 45 acp, everything else is either revolver or rifle. I will say my cast loads for the 45 auto are a lot more accurate than winchester white box FMJ.

Nothing wrong with tumble lubing, I like to thin it just a bit with mineral spirits and then let it completely dry before loading. For big lube bullets, those designed for extended shooting with black powder, I use a star sizer, it really speeds the process up.

As for savings, there's no way I could shoot as much big bore as I do if it weren't for casting and reloading my own. Granted I don't save any money, but I get to shoot a whole lot more.

Ivan1GFP · February 10th, 2012, 02:09 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Blademaker

I'd like to add that I don't spend a lot of time casting, love 6 cavity moulds. I normally cast several thousand bullets at a time, then I'm good for 6 months or more. I keep hopping Big Lube will hurry up and come out with 6 cavity round ball moulds, the little two bangers take too long.

.....

Nothing wrong with tumble lubing, I like to thin it just a bit with mineral spirits and then let it completely dry before loading. For big lube bullets, those designed for extended shooting with black powder, I use a star sizer, it really speeds the process up.

How much time do you take to process the lead into a useable form for your furnace / pot?

In my experience, the tumble lube never really "dries" and will stain or pick up crud whenever it touches something. Do you coat the bullets with Mica or some kind of dry lube?

- Ivan.

M14 · February 10th, 2012, 03:33 PM

I reload for a 9mm, but I don't cast my own. Lyman used to have a reloading manual that had a section on bullet casting. As I recall, it provided bullet cast mold numbers and provided instructions on how to cast. My father was looking into casting his own about 30 years ago, and I recall as a kid he had a 5 gallon bucket of old wheel weights in the garage. After looking into it, he determined it was more trouble than it was worth. One of the problems is wheel weights tend to be dirty and debris is embeded in the lead. He could not figure a way to "clean" the lead enough to where he'd be happy about using it. The second issue is I believe the lead is too soft, and you need to mix in an alloy. This is where the Lyman or other manual is needed.

nicholst55 · February 10th, 2012, 05:07 PM

Here is another truly excellent source of info on bullet casting aimed strictly at the handgunner, that pretty much covers the entire spectrum: From Ingot to Target

stoky · February 11th, 2012, 10:02 AM

I don't know whether too apologize at beginning or end of this for the thread drift, but...........
When I was a kid, my best buddy's dad worked for the Denver Post when they converted from lino-type to whatever the next technology was (ink jet?). This was before Nixon had blessed us with the EPA, but I gathered it was an onerous concern how they were going to dispose of the obsolete tonnage.
So, every Friday dad came home with an F250 sagging pitifully with a bed full of lino type. If he was on time, we would dutifully lug the ingots of new, or canvas bags of used "scrap" out of the truck and around to the back stairs into the basement. The ventilation where he did his casting was dubious, even back in the day, and I'm sure would run contrary to reams of federal regs today.
If he was late, it meant he'd been to the bar. Straight vodka being his wont, we would make ourselves scarce, the unloading to be undertaken not too early the following day.