Well I cast a bunch of bullets today. Casting is certainly cheaper than buying bullets and much cheaper than buying ammo. But like all things in life there are tradeoffs.
1. Time. I cast a batch this afternoon. I started the melting pot at 1:30 pm. I shut it down after casting a full load of lead at 2:45. Then I lubed all the bullets and sized them while they were still wet. It's messier that way, but I hate waiting. They all went in the dryer at 3:40 pm. I haven't counted this batch but I expect it's somewhere between 3 and 4 hundred bullets. That may seem like a lot but I'll have to do it all again before the end of July.
2. Consistency. I use scrap lead. Now the mold I'm using supposedly drops 124gr bullets with pure lead. This latest batch I cast dropped them at 118gr. The load before that was 115gr. The one before that 113gr. These weights tell me I'm proabably getting closer to a pure lead alloy. That also means the bullets will be softer. There are a couple of ways I can deal with this. I could stop using scrape lead and buy or make good alloys. Expensive. I could buy ready made bullets. Also expensive.
I choose to deal with it by being very careful in my load development. First I test the hardness. Even at 118gr they should be plenty hard enough for any minor load I care to use. First I'll try my last load, 4.2gr of titegroup seated out pretty long. This is under the max load for 124gr rounds and the worst thing it will do is lead up the barrel. Accuracy is the next problem. If the load is too hot, it'll strip off in the rifling and tumble. If the load is to light it will fail to fully expand into the grooves and cause the same problem. Titegroup has a narrow range of acceptable pressures so it's doubly hard to control. Changes as small as .2 grains will seperate the upper limit from the lower with a given lead bullet.
Off to the test bench.
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