Casting

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Okcafe86

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So I finally made the plunge and I bought some casting gear from midway. Wish me luck.
I also grabbed some ww ingots off ebay.
 
Wear long sleeved shirts and pants. Welding gloves are a good idea and safety glasses.

I use a cut off hockey stick for a sprue plate 'whacker'. Make sure to heat up the mold in the melt for a minute or so as you'll get wrinkled bullets until it does.

I also water drop my 9mm's to harden them a bit. 45's don't need this step.
 
Learn to shake-n-bake powder coat.


Cast 400 rounds and "coated" 100 of them this evening right taking the kids fishing. Run them thru the sizer in about 5 minutes and will load them tomorrow.
 
I made a batch of barry dar lube last night. Hopefully that works well. Would it be a good idea to add some buckshot to my ww lead to harden it?
 
Wheel weights are generally hard enough for most
pistol applications from the very start. It you want
even harder, just drop them hot from the mold into
water and age two weeks. (But quite frankly, that
can make them "too hard.")

What cartridges are you planning to cast for ?
 
9mm and 45 ACP...
Go with straight wheelweight hardness (10-12BHN). With correct
sizing, that hardness range is ideal for those cartridges.
 
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I can't overstate the importance of safety when casting lead. I started casting with double denim shirts, double jeans, full face mask and leather gloves. I've since gone to single shirt and pants but still wear full body protection year round. These days (summer), I do my casting between 6-10 AM and sometimes after sunset. I can't tell you the number of times I've removed the protective gear and saw little splashes of lead stuck to the face shield, glove or clothing. While it wouldn't have been catastrophic, it certainly would have been painful to have even those little splashes hit bare skin (or my eyes).
Yes it can be a little cumbersome and sometimes uncomfortable, but once you get used to it, wearing the protective gear isn't too bad. You may never really need it, but if you ever get a visit from the tinsel fairy, you'll be glad you had the stuff on.
 
Good Lord... How have I lived so long ?
God protects fools, drunks, little chilldren, my USMA roomate...

... and my lead casting career. :rolleyes:
 
My first time casting. I thought it went well.
 

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Great!
Now load them up and shoot them and you will achieve total satisfaction.

So long as you have lead, powder and primers, you can now make as much ammo as you need and don't need to go to the stores for it.
 
Pan lubed and sized...the lube turned out pink. I'm pretty proud tho. Can't wait to load em up.
 

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On the matter of protective gear for casting;

Common sense should dictate the gear. Sadly, common zense is no longer so common.

Therefore:

-safety glasses, especially those industrial types with side shields

-gloves .... welder's gloves are too heavy and bulky for fine work, and casting CAN be "fine work" Good leather work gloves that allow some dexterity will serve much better.

-long sleeves on shirts, full-length pants of natural materials.... jeans are a good example

-NO open-top boots, flip-flops, Crocs or anything else that would allow molten alloy a clear shot at your feet

The leather apron is a VERY good idea, available cheaply from HarborFfreight etc.... maybe the best and cheapest insurance you will ever buy.

These points are based on fifty years and hundreds of thousands bullets cast from my moulds. Some recommendations come from hard experience. Go to

www.castboolits.gunloads.com

and do a search for "tsunami" to learn what leather "armor" can do for a bullet-caster. It paid off for me, BIG time.
 
-safety glasses, especially those industrial types with side shields

-gloves .... welder's gloves are too heavy and bulky for fine work, and casting CAN be "fine work" Good leather work gloves that allow some dexterity will serve much better.

-long sleeves on shirts, full-length pants of natural materials.... jeans are a good example

-NO open-top boots, flip-flops, Crocs or anything else that would allow molten alloy a clear shot at your feet

The leather apron is a VERY good idea, available cheaply from HarborFreight etc.... maybe the best and cheapest insurance you will ever buy.

These points are based on (ONLY FORTY FOR ME :)) years and hundreds of thousands bullets cast from my moulds. Some recommendations come from hard experience.

Haven't got the leather shop apron yet (Great idea) but I do lay a towel over my lap when I'm casting. (I sit to cast.)
 
Advice from a short time caster but long time welder (my trade is molten metal and managing heat)

Never never never never never
never never EVER

Mix relatively cold things with relatively hot things.

That's how 99% of undesirable consequences begin. The lower you can keep temperature differentials the more skin you get to keep over time.
 
Hey Okcafe, great job there. I hope they shoot as good as they look.

Just be sure to pull that barrel so you can set your seater up to fit the chamber, before you load up a bunch that are just a touch too long.

I found that out years ago when I first got my 10mm, but then after I started casting for my 45 aCP I also picked up a case gauge. Luckily for me, my chamber is a bit more forgiving than the gauge, so anything that fits the gauge will fit my pistol. The biggest issue I have had was when I decided to try out the Lee FCD and found it sized my bullets down inside the cases. It only took one trip to the range to decide that while it might be fine set to only catch the very end of the lip of the case it wasn't worth a hoot running them all the way up.

What i actually found out was that some of the lube would squeeze up and when I crimped it would give me a very slight bulge right under the lip of the case which was causing the rounds to be tight in the gauge and my chamber. Just using the carbide ring to catch that first 1/16" of the case would squeeze it all down nice and not mess up anything else. This also usually only happened when I was using a tumble lube like Alox or 45/45/10, and hasn't presented any issues using the other standard type lube through my 4500 lube/sizer.

Good Shooting.
 
Finished product. Feels awesome to turned scrap lead into high quality ammo. Yes...I've joined castboolits and I've asked some questions. I just like it here better.
 

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