Far fetched or not?

If this story is true, you met a fool that day, and he thinks you one.

Hello, bullseye308!

Fancy meeting you here on thehighroad.org!

Kidding.

You better roll up your pants legs quickly if you run into this guy again!

bullseye308 said:

We all have heard stories that may or may not have had some basis in truth. We all have heard some that were stretching the bounds of plausibility but could have been true. Just how do you know where to draw the line between yup, that’s cool and just calling bs on it? What stories have you been told that may or may not be true? I’ll relate one:

I talked with a much older reloader and he said when he started out he had to mine the copper and nickel and form it into the cartridge casing with an attachment on his grist mill. Bullets were made over a campfire with lead he also mined. Of course he also made his own powder with collected materials. He said it all with a straight face and I could believe 2 out of 3. Apparently the cases were cleaned with bear fat and polished with buffalo hide.

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Yep, One winter day when I was outside melting lead for casting it got so cold the flames in my fire froze......

Save the watch. It's too late for the shoes.

One week last winter the entire state of Texas froze over. It was 2 degrees one morning in central Texas. Lead wouldn’t melt (because there was no electricity)


I wish the above was a tall tale!

Bear fat make terrible case lube.

Back in 1969 I was working on a ranch way up in the Big Horn Mountains in Montana. One of the other cowboys got me in to reloading 30-30 with a Lee whack a mole and casting our own bullets. We tried a lube of 50/50 Bear grease and Bees wax. Scooping powder with the Lee scoop and if I remember right it was 4895. We bought our loading tools primers and powder from an Indian trading post just off of the Crow reservation. I also bought several firearms there.
The bunkhouse heat was a wood stove and with a good wood/coal fire we could take a stove lid off and the melting pot fit perfect. We were 18 years old and thought we were Danial Boone and Davy Crockett.

Hahahaha, sounds like he was having a bit of fun at your expense. If you must know.....you don't "mine" copper and nickel in ready to go pieces....you have to smelt it. Same with the lead.......but all of those have been readily available for quite a few.....centuries now, lol. And he didn't smelt that over a campfire. And he didn't work brass on a grist mill. He certainly could have cast lead over a campfire with a simple bellows, and he certainly could have made black powder with materials at hand.......but again, black powder was readily available for centuries. I think was either a case of an old timer having fun, or a case of Alzheimer with a touch of bi-polar disorder thrown in for good measure.

When I was a kid, I had to walk 5 miles barefoot in the snow, uphill both ways, in the sweltering dog days of Texas summers, to fetch my uncle some copper and zinc from our LGS so he could make brass to reload with gunpowder and primers that he grew in his garden. I’m not sure why he kept going to the outhouse to get bullets, but he did eat a lot of lead. True story.

bullseye308 said:

I could see casting over a campfire and making your own powder and was kinda wondering about cleaning the cases with bear fat and buffalo hide, but I didn’t believe for a minute the mining copper and nickel and mailing cases on a grist mill. I’m familiar with how casings are made and knew that was a lot of hot air. I’ll not deflate an old man’ sails just because he strayed from reality for a while. He did and does have lots of old tales, but like many, you have to pick out the gems from the rough.

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What you should do is tell him about the USB bullet loader you bought for your computer. You just plug it in, set the components next to it, and pour some powder into the fan. He'd probably laugh his ass off.

I have mined the copper for making bullet jackets and cartridge cases but my part ended when it went out the gate on a flatbed truck from the Freeport McMoran Morenci Az mine in a big ingot.

bullseye308 said:

We all have heard stories that may or may not have had some basis in truth. We all have heard some that were stretching the bounds of plausibility but could have been true. Just how do you know where to draw the line between yup, that’s cool and just calling bs on it? What stories have you been told that may or may not be true? I’ll relate one:

I talked with a much older reloader and he said when he started out he had to mine the copper and nickel and form it into the cartridge casing with an attachment on his grist mill. Bullets were made over a campfire with lead he also mined. Of course he also made his own powder with collected materials. He said it all with a straight face and I could believe 2 out of 3. Apparently the cases were cleaned with bear fat and polished with buffalo hide.

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You weren't talking to one of our politicians by any chance?
I just learned to say that's cool and kill the conversation.

I’ve picked up copper nuggets off the ground in Arizona. But smelting it, alloying it with zinc and a few trace minerals, then coming up with a way to create 40 tons of pressure to draw it into a case…. Nah

Blackrock said:

I have mined the copper for making bullet jackets and cartridge cases but my part ended when it went out the gate on a flatbed truck from the Freeport McMoran Morenci Az mine in a big ingot.

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Hey, I grew up in Morenci! Back then it was Phelps Dodge.

Making black powder and melting lead? Totally possible. Even reasonable depending on the guy. But the black powder part was not as likely back in the day -and if so it was probably not so great. The Internet has done a lot to allow reloaders and home chemists to perfect their craft.

Making brass cases? Never. Unless you are using a lathe, in which case you’re probably a passably good machinist, and as a man of civilization, also perfectly capable of ordering up a box of specialty ammo.

If the BS doesn't affect me, I smile and nod. Then make a mental note never to trust a word from the lying SOB.

if a story isn't completely true, might as well go all in and have fun with the tall tale. always did like a good story ... makes the world a little more fun.

This one time - I hitchiked cross country starting out with nothing more than the clothes on my back and nickel, cause I lost a bet. I don't know the whole story, but the real question would be what was the bet ... lol

I think you met this guy

Always willing to let an old timer tell me a story for the entertainment value. Usually about hunting or fishing so I can build my tall tale telling skills. Feel free to take interesting points to incorporate into your own interpretation of reality.

Just where are these mines, or was he lucky enough to find copper nickel & lead all in the same mine

Mining and refining ore into metal is one thing. But anyone who has witnessed case forming and bullet forming machines would instantly realize an old fool lying about doing either in their garage is exactly that.

Would love to see a case-former on a grist mill.

However...I am 80 and when I started reloading in about 1960 we bought everything ready made. With reloading manuals. As was done in the 30's. I really can not tell any difference at all in reloading in 1960 and now. Same companies. Same powders. 4350 was good then too. Same manuals. Same bullets. I am still using a Redding powder measure that dates back to the late 40's. I did buy a new press because I loaned out my Pacific press somewhere along the way and it did not come home. And a new digital scale.

So his age is not a real factor in this story. Unless maybe he is 160 years old or so.

I have been to Cody and Colonial Williamsburg and Stubenville village and Applacian museum and they do not do the things he mentioned there.

I do know people who have mined their own coal and people who have made black powder but that is about it.