Make Your Own Free Bullets
 

It's incredibly easy. Granted, one needs to purchase the equipment first, but once we have it, it never wears out. And free lead or lead alloys are still readily available. Discarded wheel weights from your local tire store are a great source for bullet lead, for example. Most tire stores would rather have you "dispose" of it for free than pay to have it disposed of. Take advantage of that.

Here's a quick rundown on the process:

Here is the bullet mold (with the lead pot in the background). It's in three pieces, the two halves that represent the bullet and a sprue plate over the base of the bullet. The mold halves are held in a set of handles with wood grips to help keep the handles cooler. These handles are universal and molds can be interchanged in them. In other words, one set of handles will be able to be used for all of your molds. We pour the lead in through the holes in the sprue plate.

Mold open, showing the two halves with the sprue plate swung out of the way:

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Mold closed, sprue plate swung over the cavities, ready to pour lead:

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Mold filled with lead (both cavities), showing large puddle left on sprue plate. We do this so when the lead shrinks upon cooling, we don't get a hole in the base of the bullet. I use the dipper resting in the lead pot in the background:

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Here is the dipper I like, from RCBS. It pours out of the spud on the bottom, so the slag floats on top and doesn't go into the mold. The bevel on the spud matches that of the holes in the sprue plate on the mold:

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Once the lead cools and hardens, we open the sprue plate, cutting the sprues off of the bullet bases in the process. I use a small dead blow hammer to strike that tab on the sprue plate. Those countersunk holes have a knife edge at the bottom to facilitate this. You can see the bullet bases in the top of the mold:

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Mold open, showing bullets ready to drop out:

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Once we drop the bullets out and remove the sprue plate puddle, we close it up and do it again.

Once the bullets are cast, we simply add lube to the lube groove(s), which is normally done while sizing them in a dedicated "lubri-sizer" press, like this one. The ram on the left pushes the bullet down when we pull down on the handle sticking up to the left. The bullet is forced into a die mounted in the portion of the press directly under the ram. We have our choice in sizing diameters, i.e. these .45 Colt bullets can be sized .451", .452", .454", etc., depending on our needs. This sizing die has lube ports all round it. While the bullet is in the die, we turn a screw atop the lube reservoir on the right. This drives a plunger down on top of lubricant stored within, forcing it through the holes in the die and into the lube groove on the bullet. Raising the handle back up pops the bullet back up out of the die.

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Here is a variety of .45 Colt bullets, including the one shown above (on the left). The ones on the left and right have had lubricant applied to their lube grooves, the center one has not (but it will before it's loaded). The upper, beveled grooves are the crimp grooves, into which we crimp the mouth of the case to help hold the bullets in place:

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That's really all there is to it. I find the whole process to be a relaxing way to while away our rainy Pacific Northwest winters. I managed to cast just over 300 bullets in just a couple of hours today. And, honestly, they are far better bullets than we can buy commercially. Much more accurate (since we can tailor their diameter to a specific gun) and vastly superior as hunting bullets on big game. Oh, and did I mention that they are free?

I remember my dad doing reloads back in the early/mid 80s. I think he did a lot of wad cutters and semi-wad-cutters. He used jhp for "home defense."

How is cleaning lead out of barrels compared to cleaning aften shooting jacketed rounds?

I think I've seen that some ranges don't allow exposed lead rounds. I assume you have someplace that you can shoot where that's not an issue, and I don't think anyone has ever checked rounds that I fired.

And what's the difference in those 3 rounds (other than what's obvious)?

Make sure to have a VERY well ventilated place for doing this.
And/or a good respirator/filter.

and if shooting a lot of handgun ammo, you'de probably want the same ventilation when shooting it indoors. they can produce a lot of smoke dust

Hell , I've set off fire alarm once with 45ACP wadcutters.

Lead (g) is not an issue. Too high of a temp for it to be possible just melting. If anything lead dust but is a high particulate and the casting should be a very minimal if any exposure.


Looks fun either way. I've been trying to get away from buying my bullets and going to molds and coat them in the plastic coatings....

I cast in my garage with both doors open and a big fan blowing across my work bench. 40 years and counting, tested for lead exposure as a part of my yearly physical, never a problem. But, yes - be careful... nothing to mess with...

Properly sized and lubricated bullets of the correct alloy for the application will never lead a barrel. Most commercial cast lead bullets are far too hard of an alloy, with far too hard of a lube, and lead terribly. They have to use hard alloys and lubricants due to handling and shipping concerns. Home bullet casters can use properly soft bullets and lubes, so we don't have leading issues. Counter intuitive, I know... soft bullets obturate upon firing and seal the barrel better, preventing leading. Hard bullets don't obturate, don't fill the barrel, and lead like hell.

My club range is all outdoors, so lead bullets are not a problem. No indoor ranges in my area allow lead bullets. Honestly, the lead styphanate found in primers is the bigger issue concerning airborne lead contaminants. Interestingly, most ranges allow ammo with any old primer, even though "lead free" primers are available.

Those are all three .45 Colt rounds. On the left is my "black powder" bullet, weighing about 250 grains, imitating the original Colt bullet (but with a wider meplat). It holds a lot of lube, which is important when shooting black powder. Not so much to lube the bullet, but to keep the powder fouling soft. I also use it for standard velocity smokeless loads, since it's of standard weight and shoots to the sights on my fixed sight Colts. I get about 900 fps with either black or smokeless (usually Unique).

The center one is Dave Scovill's .45-270 SAA, a 270 grain Keith semi-wadcutter. It's the heaviest bullet that will still shoot close enough to the sights on a Colt to be useful. I load it with 2400 for a "+P" kind of load that is still safe in Colts, but I mainly use it in my Ruger Blackhawks. I can top 1,000 fps with it safely out of a Colt. It's my normal "woods bumming" load for either gun. It's also the load I use if I'm hunting with one of the Colts. Very effective on mulies...

On the right is a 300 grain bullet from a Lead Bullet Technologies (LBT) mold. Veral Smith came up with this one. These are definitely "Ruger only" loads, unsafe in any Colt. Using W-W 296 or H110 (the same powder, actually), I can drive these to 1,300 fps out of my Rugers. That's what a .44 mag will do with a 240 grain bullet. This is my dedicated big game hunting load, which has taken a pretty good variety of game. Notice the overall length is longer than the other two - Veral places the crimp groove in such a way that these come out too long to fit in a Colt cylinder (which is shorter than the full sized Blackhawk), so there is no way one will ever wind up in a Colt. That would be disastrous, it would simply blow it up.

So, three different loads for three different purposes. The versatility of hand loading and bullet casting exemplified.

i've seen an old timer pour lead bullets with his head over the molten lead pot.. in a little basement room with no frigging windows.
And he had been doing it like that for many , many years, and quite frankly he sounded like the brain damage was quit real.

Interesting.

Sounds like a bunch of self-education, research, and testing would be required. Granted, I wouldn't be hunting so that probably saves me a lot of education/research/testing. I'd likely have "plinking" rounds and defense rounds. Presumably, a semi-wc would be good for both, but one would be loaded hotter than the other. I seem to remember my dad talking about some rounds having 4 grains and some having 6, but I think I was 12 or 13 and that was a LONG time ago.

My wife would be so excited "another hobby that's going to require you to spend a bunch of money up front...."

It's definitely a hobby unto itself, this hand loading and bullet casting. It can be pretty darn simple if you want it to be, or it can be completely engaging as a lifetime learning experience. There are literally hundreds of different smokeless powders available to the hand loader, with a couple dozen of them suitable to any given caliber. There are countless bullet designs, weights, and constructions to further complicate matters.

Some will see all of this and be overwhelmed, seeing a hopelessly confusing situation, with no idea where to start. Fortunately, the various component manufacturers publish very comprehensive manuals that outline not only the process for reloading, but have suggestions for suitable loads for any caliber you can imagine. These loads have all been pressure tested in ballistics laboratories, so if we follow their recommendations, we are always safe.

I think I hand load for about 25 different calibers right now. Some of them leave me no choice, being "obsolete" 19th century calibers, or obscure calibers that no one really supports. Even my garden variety, "mainstream" calibers are all hand loaded, because I find it both interesting and beneficial, in that I can gain better performance in a specific gun. I would like to say I "save money", but that turns into a bit of a lark - we shoot so much more that it actually gets more expensive to be a hand loader. Funny, too, in that most guys hand load so they can shoot. Dedicated hand loaders shoot so they can hand load...

Why doncha cast me up some 577 shallow base Minnies for my PH..

Or some 11MM Mauser.

Why I jis gots me a Dave MOS 25 cal for my 25 20 SS

And battery posts, for now.
The ones changed every few years by everyone.
I'd nightmare entire industries will soon be sabotaged for the worst by this post because it become the foremost destruction of the planet.

The old-school days of lead filler on custom steel (aka led sled) are also as vulnerable to extinction as the Japanese lacquer art of maki-e.
Idiots should not apply and artisans are scarce.

That was a cool write up . I have always wondered how it was done . I may delve into this a little more as I age out . Seems it could be a fun hobby .
Lots of people have been sniffing around in the last year or so, asking for my discarded wheel weights . I assume the cost of ammo is driving a lot more reloading .

My uncle used to make his fishing weights out of old car batteries.

Jeff, that's pure lead? No alloying at all?

Today, here in the PNW, is a good day for making bullets and chili. A river is moving over us. Glad I live indoors.

Chili? While locked indoors? ;)

I use wheel weights for my handgun bullets, and for my hunting bullets out of various rifles. It's somewhere around 95% lead, .5% tin, and 4.5% antimony, for a Brinell hardness (BHN) of about 9. I shoot them as cast, but lots of folks like to heat treat them, particularly for high velocity rifle loads. They can get them as hard as a BHN of 30 by heat treating.

Pure lead is softer, at about BHN 5. We use pure lead for muzzle loader projectiles, either round balls or conical bullets. These are, by necessity, undersized for ease of loading. They need to be as soft as possible so they obturate a good deal upon firing, so they engage the rifling. Hard bullets just don't work in muzzle loaders.

I use 20:1 lead/tin for my black powder cartridge rifle match bullets, which has a BHN of about 10. The tin content helps this alloy fill out really long bullets, making the lead flow in the mold much better.

Commercially cast bullets are usually Lyman #2 alloy, 90% lead, 5% tin, and 5% antimony for a BHN of about 15. Either that or Linotype, 84% lead, 4% tin, and 12% antimony. This stuff is pretty hard, at a BHN of 22. These very high Brinell hardnesses are what, in my opinion, make commercially cast bullets perform so poorly, leading barrels and generally being a bit inaccurate.

That's got to be more hazardous than lead fumes.

Making the chili isn't the cause of the hazard, eating it is.

One of the other really cool advantages of casting your own bullets is the ability to shoot older firearms for which ammo is no longer available. Here is but one example, my first year 1885 Winchester Highwall. It's chambered in a real oddball, the .40-70 Sharps Straight. No one makes bullets of the proper diameter and weight, no one makes brass. The round is shown with a .30-'06 for comparison. This one is loaded with a 300 grain spitzer for general plinking and target work:

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Here it is (on the right) loaded with a 400 grain flat point hunting bullet. It's shown with a .45-90 (aka .45-2.4" Sharps straight), also no longer available. Thankfully Starline now makes .45-90 brass, and the bullet is a mainstream, modern .45 caliber rifle diameter (.458"), so I can use off the shelf molds. The .40-70 Sharps Straight, however, requires custom bullet molds and brass reformed from something else. Thankfully, my friend Dave Gullo of Buffalo Arms makes both the bullet molds and the brass. He reforms it from .30-40 Krag, which just happens to have a "close enough" rim diameter:

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So, beyond "free bullets", we also get to shoot some really cool old stuff that would otherwise just sit silent.

So what do you do for brass for those? You can't reuse brass forever, right?