Over the years I've considered casting. Now I'm actually more than 50% convinced I should start. First why I might consider it.

1. Plenty of free range lead just there for the picking.

2. I could start with 9mm and eventually maybe do .223, 10mm, 8mm then some odd stuff like my 7.5x55 swiss (maybe custom die to exactly immolate the g11 round profile?), 7.62x54r, and so on.

3. Price...$60.00 for a decent lee pot, $20-60 for 9mm die (Lee seems decent), misc gloves, apron, etc for $100. So basically $220 startup. Now just doing 9mm will take me awhile as 3k lead from Acme run me $183 shipped. So it's not going to be recovered soon.

4. never worry about bullets for plinking and practice.

Why I'm still not convinced.

1. putting the casting wax on the bullet seems to take yet another press on my bench. $175ish (Longer ROI).

2. to put the wax ring I have to now place each one at a time with or without the gas plug and run them through. (Time consuming)


Thoughts? Advice? quicker methods but get same / better results?

-thanks

1. Mining range lead is harder than you would think, cleaning it, is even harder, especially if you mine 100's of pounds.
2. Rifle casting is different, while .223 is becoming more popular to cast with, don't expect to get a gun to cycle on your first loading, or 5th, or 10th. A Semi-loader for lead has long been thought to be next to impossible to load for, today, people do manage it, but it's not easy. Also, you will likely need a custom mold ($$$$)
3. If you are looking at it from a ROI view, it is a lot like reloading, you won't really save money, but you will shoot more.
4. You will have to worry about casting, sizing, lubing, and loading them. They don't just drop from the mold ready.


Cons:
1. Lubing and sizing can be done with a 20 dollar Lee sizing die. I personally HATE the tumble lube, so I did buy a Luber-sizer.
2. Lubing and sizing is time consuming, unless you have a more expensive unit. The Lee is slow because you have to lube (and then let dry) twice. The Luber-sizer is a little faster, but you are still putting 1 bullet in at a time.

im·mo·late
/'im??lat/
verb
verb: immolate; 3rd person present: immolates; past tense: immolated; past participle: immolated; gerund or present participle: immolating
kill or offer as a sacrifice, especially by burning.

Free alloy is great. Mining is not fun, wheel weight much better.  Then you need the time to do it.

Start casting.  It's satisfying.   And I tumble lube, and size with Lee's push through dies.  Dive in.  The beauty of casting is that you can melt anything that doesn't come out perfect.

And I took the challenge of reloading 223 with bullets I cast.  Joy.  Nice knowing I have a near endless supply of AR bullets.

Ray

I love casting it's a great hobby.
Looking to powder coating super easy and cheap.

The 223 is pretty complicated to cast for in ar15.
This is the main reason I went to 300 blackout.

I've cast and shot thousands and thousands of bullets and haven't messed with a lubrisizer yet.

Lee push through dies combined with pan lubing or tumble lubing are good enough for me.

OP here is an alternative to using lubes on cast bullets. It works great.

if I was starting over I'd setup for HiTek coating , as to sizing only one way to beat the Star/Magma sizer and thats north of 8K. Hated the Lyman lube sizer,really like the Star/Magma and love my Lube Master

Well you do have to get your molds up to temp.


You can get certain molds to use as cast and then pan lube them.  That way you skip the sizing step with the dedicated sizer.  You could also do it on a lee sizing die that goes in your regular press.  Not as handy as a lubesizer like the lyman or rcbs.

Read all you can before whipping out your CC.

No need to write my own comment when this guy says it so well. :)

I use lead and linotype to make my alloy. Linotype is still pretty easy to get and works well with soft range lead.

I cast both rifle and pistol bullets.

I do suggest you visit castboolits.com  The name says it all.

You will save a lot more on rifle boolits than you will on 9mm.  

FYI, I use the "airsoft bb tumbling" method of powder coating my rifle boolits, as discussed at CastBoolits linked above.  (Boolits is what casters call bullets, to differentiate from commercial bullets.)  Total costs to start powder coating were:
-$25 for a really nice toaster oven at the thrift store
-$14 for black airsoft bbs.   Had to buy a big jug cuz the store was out of small jugs.
-$5.95 for red powder coat.  

And that will probably last many years.  Powder coating allows you to load rifle bullets to pretty high velocities without leading.  And they're pretty.

Happy2shoot, there is no need for this in this forum. Take that nit picking back to GD. dryflash3




oh there's one in everyone crowd





emulate or imitate. Take your pick, spell check killed me on the iphone.
 

I'm not a high volume caster, nor am I any type of authority on the the subject, but I found it easy when I started.



I bought a couple of inexpensive Lee molds in .357 and .45 ACP, a ladle, an ingot mold, and a couple casting pots for about $100, and I was making good bullets in no time.