I am just getting started too. So far I have cast about 1500 bullets, and am a LONG way from being an expert. I bought a mold at a gunshow for more than I should have paid and went nuts basically. I did not have any wheel weights or any lead laying around so I pirated some decoy anchors, a stainless bowl from the wife when she was not looking along with a large spoon and headed for the stove. I cranked the burner way up, melted some lead, and began casting bullets and dropping them into the sink full of water. The wife discovered this happening and was NOT impressed
Anyway, I cast about 40 bullets of pure lead just to see if I could, and they were really nicely made. I have since progressed to the side burner on the BBQ grill, but still with my stainless bowl and spoon. I cast about 750 this afternoon from 2 different lead sources and hope to test them out soon. Using a 2 cavity mold 750 took almost 2 hours to cast, I am developing a system that has little wasted motion.
I add 2% tin, everything I can find says 2% tin makes casting easy, bullets nicely filled out and anything over 2% tin is a waste, so 2% it is. I am using candles to flux the mix, and scraping the nasties off the top of the melt before adding the tin, in hopes of losing less tin. I have no idea what the temp of my melt is, but if cold it will get "slushy", and when too hot it will start to turn blue or goldish blue on the top. Keep it molten and shiny and all is good for me. I have been playing with it for a while and have found what temp ranges work best. No way would I piddle around with a single cavity mold, not unless I was doing huge rifle bullets, shotgun slugs or something like that. I am buying a 4 cavity next, casting is kinda fun but production is the goal.
For sizing there are basically 3 options: 1) shoot them as is with a little lube applied manually, 2) size them in a Lee sizer and then ad lube manually, or 3) size them in a Lubricator/Sizer combination too. There are plenty of opinions on this, I am experimenting with Alox lube right now and am thinking a lubrisizer press is in my near future. I have not figured out how much alox is needed to keep the leading away.
Slugging the barrel is not a bad idea, but I have never done it and have shot many tens of thousands of lead bullets with no problems.
I can tell you that it is NOT HARD at all!! You do not need a whole bunch of equipment to start, or spend much money at all. I have the cost of the mold, and a couple items I scraped up around the house and my bullets are as uniform as anything I have bought. I have done a ton of searching on the net and found plenty of reading on the subject, and am armed with just enough knowledge to be dangerous now. I am looking for some casting books myself so I can't recommend any.
Getting mighty long for someone that doesn't know much, but I took a shot at it. Hope it helps.