The Finances Of Casting Boolets....

[Blaine]

Aside from the enjoyment of your chosen hobby, is it cheaper to buy the lead, tin, whatever than to just buy ready made boolets? I see 5# ingots for casting hardcast for 13 to 14 bucks.....

[rjohns94]

Wheel weights are much cheaper.

[jeepnik]

Never thought about that. But, I suspect you can do it a bit cheaper yourself, plus you have many more bullet profiles to choose from. For a while I had a guy in town who was casting bullets, fishing weights, etc. as a business.

He was all set up in a light industrial area. He had all the permits, licenses and such. He'd been in business 4 or 5 years then the PC police "discovered" him. They thought it was terrible that some one was making bullets. The went after the owner of the light industry park and made it clear they would continue to harass him until the caster was gone. They won.

The only good thing was some of us who cast our own and still bought from him to keep him in business ended up with materials at a pretty good discount. I'm still using some of the stuff, but my stock is getting low.

[rjohns94]

If I remember correctly, the price of lead went up after Sixgun started hoarding it

[ollogger]

Trust me its cheaper to buy cast bullets!! if you only shoot a few hundred a year or a thousand
it all adds up like anything else you do to save money, I started casting modestly & that soon
went south!


ollogger

[Chuck 100 yd]

Casting bullets,like reloading,can be/is a hobby of it's own. The ability to experiment and custom Taylor a bullet to fit your needs is my main reason to cast my own. Most commercial cast bullets can only be
a bargain if you buy large batches.

[Griff]

@ approx. $1/lb for scrap lead it's cheaper for me to cast than to buy. That's about 3.22¢/ea or $16.12/500. Not lubed. A stick of lube runs about 4/ea and I get about 500 rounds lubed for that, so call it 20 bucks for 500 rounds, not calculating my time. It costs me $45/500 bullet to buy cast lead bullets from the local guy, which is a high volume caster. But he has a store front, plus a separate facility where he runs the casting business.

But, he doesn't make two of my favorite, most accurate bullets. So it kinda doesn't matter what my cost to make is.

[rbertalotto]

I did the math and for my Cowboy Action bullets (38-40=180g) the math works out as such

7000 g in a pound of lead

I'm paying $1.45 for a pound of WW including shipping

7000g / 180g = 38 bullets per pound

$1.45 / 38 = 3.8 cents a bullet

I can buy cast 180 grain 38-40 bullets for $42/500 shipped = 8.4 cents a bullet

I average 500 bullets a month for 10 months in practice and competition

500 X 10 = 5000

Self Cast = $190 per year
Pre Cast = $420 per year

I can cast about 400 bullets an hour with a six cavity mold which = 12.5 hours per 5000 bullets (And this isn't factoring in the time and cost for lubing. Tumble lubing is near $0 per bullet and takes very little time. But buy a good lube machine, heated base, lube and the cost per bullet and time increase dramatically)

Total investment in molds, melting pots, PID, gloves, etc is about $300. But this expense is spread out over many, many years.

Sooooo....Is it worth 12.5 hours of your time to save $230.00?

In my case, I buy AND Cast. During the summer when I'm real busy, I run low on bullets without the time to cast so I buy a couple thousand to get through the season. Rim Rock Bullets) During the winter I like to cast a few thousand as a great way to relax and spend some time in the garage listening to music or a football game and casting away!

But this is all for "non-critical" Cowboy bullets......

When we start talking rifle bullets for my various Black Powder Cartridge "Buffalo Rifles"....You MUST cast your own bullets for the best accuracy. The bullet must fit your barrel bore and chamber perfectly. In this sport, it is ALL about barrels and bullets. Custom (read expensive) molds are ordered. Assayed lead at $4-$5 a pound is used. and ladle pouring and extreme slow production is the order of the day..... Cost per bullet per hour rises dramatically! Thank God we are talking a single shot rifle that in a typical match you might shoot only 50-75 rounds a day. if that many.

Most of the time I do stuff because I like doing it, not to save money. In fact, EVERY hobby is a testament to this fact.......

[mikld]

In my opinion, it's not so much cost of commercial cast, but the sizes and alloy available. Many commercial casters offer one diameter of bullets per caliber and if that ain't right fer your gun, oh well. Another factor is alloy; BHN. A bunch of folks think "harder is better" and only offer "hard' bullets (BHN of 18 on up). But, I haven't purchased a commercial cast bullet in mebbe 15 years (even though I'll occasionally drop by one's website) and hopefully some have changed these "errors"...

I cast my own and I have 8 guns that have not fired a jacketed bullet in at least 15 years and 5 that have only shot lead bullets since they have been in my possession...

[765x53]

Casting lead is just plane fun.
Part of the fun is scrounging through the lead scrap barrel at the salvage yard.
At fifty cents-$1.00 /pound, I have accumulated both soft and hard lead as well as buckets of pre-cast fishing sinkers of all sizes and styles, which I count as wheel weight metal.
In addition, I have a collection of soft lead decoy weights, some of which are too unusual or unique to melt down.

[flatnose]

I cast bullets for the 45-70. and save around $100 per thousand over store bought cast bullets if I purchase lead at $1 per lb.
My casting averages about 200 to 250 bullets per hour, so that means an initial saving of $20 to $25 per hour.
I pan lube with my own lube which takes about 20min per 200, then depending on bullet type, I may fit gas checks as I size.
If you figure in the cost of the mould, pot, pid and a couple of other odds and ends, the first 2500 bullets cover everything, but you will not be paying yourself for the 14 or more hours making them.
I still buy my bullets for the smaller and lighter calibers, as that seems more cost effective.

[Chuck 100 yd]

I once offered the Boy Scout troop ,that uses our gun club grounds, .50 cents a pound for all the range scrap lead they could recover from the range without digging up the burms. On their next camp out they collected $150 worth to build up their activity fund. Most of it was just laying on top of the ground from us Cowboy Action shooters. I am sure that other scout troops would be happy to do the same thing for you and in turn give you a supply of bullet alloy as well as cleaning up the range.
Many ranges are being closed due to the supposed contamination from lead bullets contaminating the ground water. A theory I totally disagree with. Bullets found today on Civil War battle fields weigh the same as when dropped in the 1860's. They have not dissolved into the ground.

[Sixgun]

If I remember correctly, the price of lead went up after Sixgun started hoarding it

Mike might have a point here. I started casting back in '73 and I have been hoarding this stuff, along with all of the tin I've been able to get my dirty hands on.

On to Blaine's question.....unless a guy shoots a lot or shoots guns that bullets cannot be bought or bought in non standard diameters, I'd say it's easier to just buy 'em.......but.......your very limited in your needs. Common calibers in standard diameters are easy to find and are usually priced decently and while gas checked bullets in common rifle calibers can be found, they are not cheap, often rivaling the cost of jacketed bullets.

No brag, just stating the truth.....I don't believe there are many guns out there that I cannot load for and by "loading", any load from squib loads for squirrels, target loads, long range loads, big game loads, self defense, "silent loads" or whatever. The only handicap with cast bullets are loads that require high velocity for small caliber guns such as the need to push a .22 center fire round 3500 fps for busting varmints at 500 yards. I hear there are guys who can do this but it's over my head as to the specialized techniques required for casting this stuff.

Some guys get all excited to shoot a $75 dollar box of 20 rounds of custom loaded ammo for some obsolete Winchester caliber and spend a whole afternoon doing it, making sure every round counts. It ain't nothing for me to grab 3 or 400 rounds of 40-65, 40-82, 35 Win., 45-70, 45-90, or the other multitudes of weird ammo I shoot and just blast the bullets at rocks, steel, clay birds on the bank, illegal immigrants, or anything else I care to put the front sight on.

It does not cost a lot to get set up for a couple of common handgun calibers especially with the low priced but good quality casting equipment that Lee Precision makes.

As for buying lead and tin, knowledge is power. No serious caster I have ever known does not buy lead. Sometimes tin, but never lead. First, you MUST be devoted and always keep your needs in mind 24/7 and you will be surprised how often lead shows up. Visit junk yards and scrap dealers. Many times these people will sell wheelweights for a few cents more than the guy who just dropped them off. My buddy Gunny got 500 pounds of wheelweights last year at a junk yard for something like 10 cents a pound.

I never call.....I always go to the scrap yard and with a wad of bucks in my hand, always with the c-notes on the outside, I ask, "Got any tin for sale?" It shows you mean business. People who use the telephone usually get blown off as the owner of the yard usually thinks the guy is just calling to get the cheapest price from different yards.

I've been very lucky in obtaining wheelweights but I made my luck. I always tell fellow shooters that wheelweights and tin are on my "need list" and am willing to part with "green" or can load ammo in exchange. More than once I have come home from work and found several 5 gallon buckets of wheelweights outside of the garage.

I have well over a hundred moulds, many custom made and hard to get and between the moulds and other casting equipment I probably have 7-10 g's invested but it's over a 40+ year period and if I ever get diseased in the head and decide to sell it, I'm sure I can get most of my invested back. Sure beats the return you get paying an insurance bill, real estate taxes. Hell, for the money you lose when you drive that new car off the lot, you can be set for life in casting equipment and with that stuff, you can shoot any gun you want and until the cows come home. (For those that wonder about the cows, well, if you know anything about dairy farming, when the cows get out of the fenced pasture, they never come home.)-------6

[Canuck Bob]

I'm hoping to payoff my moneysaving reloading gear with all the savings from my new casting hobby. Sometimes I think Weatherby Factory ammo would be cheaper!!

[Griff]

I'm hoping to payoff my moneysaving reloading gear with all the savings from my new casting hobby. Sometimes I think Weatherby Factory ammo would be cheaper!!

All my savings in both reloading and casting seem to redirected into shooting MORE! No much of a real savings... but so much more fun!!

[Chuck 100 yd]

What Griff and Canuck Bob said +1 . I began casting to feed an Italian made Colt Navy .36 C&B
Revolver I bought new from Dixie Gun Works in the early 60's. The gun had a silver plated frame and was fully engraved. I paid $39.00 for it new and another $6.00 for the bullet mold.

Since then I have cast untold thousands of bullets and now own over 75 molds. I have never considered the cost per bullet or economy as a reason to cast my own bullets. It is just something a serious cast bullet shooter does !

Now heat that pot and get to castin!!!

[Sixgun]

What Griff and Canuck Bob said +1 .

Since then I have cast untold thousands of bullets and now own over 75 molds. I have never considered the cost per bullet or economy as a reason to cast my own bullets. It is just something a serious cast bullet shooter does !

Now heat that pot and get to castin!!!

Yep! What's really great about casting and hand loading is that you can take just about any gun in any caliber ever made and make it go bang as much as you want.....accurately........on a working man's salary.-----6

[boolitshooter]

It seems like everyone is not taking into account the propane cost to cast their bullets, or the electricity to do so.
What say you?

[Griff]

It seems like everyone is not taking into account the propane cost to cast their bullets, or the electricity to do so.
What say you?

"HK". That's short for "who cares"... I'm going to use the propane or electricity somewhere... this puts it to good use. (Actually, it's why my wife sez she keeps the thermostat @ 65 during the winter day, and drops the heat to 50 during the night... and summers she only cools to 75 during the day, and then down to 65 @ nite! Sez it's to make up for the electricity I use running the workshop)!!!

[Sixgun]

HK". That's short for "who cares"... I'm going to use the propane or electricity somewhere... this puts it to good use. (Actually, it's why my wife sez she keeps the thermostat @ 65 during the winter day, and drops the heat to 50 during the night... and summers she only cools to 75 during the day, and then down to 65 @ nite! Sez it's to make up for the electricity I use running the workshop)!!!

Now, that's thinking like a white guy......ain't many of us left, so we have to stick together.

I agree with Griff but I'd like to add that probably 90% of our pay goes to things that we can't brag about...you know, "hey guys, guess what I got, a brand new $2500 transmission for the wife's car".

Life is short and I'm not selling myself "short".-----6

[Griff]

...probably 90% of our pay goes to things that we can't brag about...you know, "hey guys, guess what I got, a brand new $2500 transmission for the wife's car".

No, but I'd brag about the time I saved over ¾ that by rebuilding it myself!!!