Got the Lee 2 bullet mold, 158 grain, .358 diameter. Plus have 25 lbs of lead wheel weights. Original objective was to just pour clean lead ingots today but decided to try pouring bullets on the last run. After the first 20, things lined out and it went great. That mold makes good looking bullets! I had about 20 rejects but those were mostly in the beginning. It's been over 40 years since I melted lead. I used my propane crawfish burner and a small cast iron Dutch oven and poured with a ladle.

The bullets were .358 diam and averaged 161 grains +/- 2 grains. I measured the diam with a mic.

Now......You will never run out of bullets again...........

__________________
S&W Accumulator

You said you needed bullets..........

Guess you fixed that little problem.
Got to love being able to make them if you need them.
Way to go.

The Lee molds work well. I like their new 2 hole mold design but do prefer the 6 hole molds to produce a big pile of bullets quickly.

if you will preheat your mold by dipping the corner of the mold in the melted lead for about 10 seconds and then smoke the mold with a wooden match, most time the first bullets will be perfect.

I had all the stuff to make, size, and lube bullets. I friend borrowed it, I moved away, never to see any of that stuff again. I wish I still had it.

Congratulations on being one step closer to self suffiency. I currently cast for every handgun caliber that I reload. I am prepared for the next handgun bullet shortage!

__________________
Judge control not gun control!

Way To Go!
Like riding a bicycle , you never forget how.
Gary

Here in Kalifornistan reloading components are their next step in disarming us.

My buddy & I are working towards the goal of casting for every caliber we load and wearing out our Fedex guys delivering cases of rimfire ammo, powder & primers.

We have progressed to powdercoating our own bullets which I really believe is the future.

Most of our gear is from Lee and Harbor Freight.

I applaud your industrious bullet-making. If you used pure wheel weights the bullets will be pretty soft. Soft bullets shoot great at about 750 fps. Over that they tend to lead the barrel and cause bullets to tumble in flight. I know this because two shooting buddies do it all the time. When I show them the funny holes in targets they laugh and claim it helps raise their scores.

Wheel weights are going the way of the dodo bird as tire installers use non-lead weights. You can harden your lead with small amounts of antimony.

__________________
Bob.
SWCA 1821

Well sort of. If the ww are clip on, plenty hard @ 11-12bhn for 1200fps loads. Most tumbling issue are undersized bullets, not too soft a bullet. Your buddies need to open their sizing dies 0.001" for better accuracy. It's ALWAYS about bullet fit, more than alloy or bullet lubes.
FWIW, sort your ww into clip on & stick on. Stick on are almost pure lead. The clip on have antimony in them & are quite a bit harder & also harden with water dropping. Pure lead stick on I would hold to under 900fps.

__________________
NRA Cert. Inst. IDPA CSO

There are two things that you can do in order to cast bullets for higher velocity:
1) drop the bullets from the mold into water, known as quench casting, or
2) cast bullets that use gas checks, so you can push Magnum velocities.

Gas checks are getting expensive, but well worth the money. They can be installed using your lubri-sizer, as you size and lube the bullets. Just make sure that you have the proper H & I dies.

__________________
Judge control not gun control!

Or run a harder alloy like lino. Still about bullet fit for any reasonable vel, especially handgun. I run 25-1 lea-tin alloy in my LHP for hunting @ 1250fps with little to no leading, using conventional lubes. BTW ALox is not my choice for higher pressures/vel either. Seems to run out much over 1100fps or so.

__________________
NRA Cert. Inst. IDPA CSO

I got tired of using my cast iron ladle. To heavy and unwieldy for a 2 bullet mold. So I made one using the bottom 1.5" of a 300 win mag case. Put an "L" on the end of a 1/8th steel rod and used a heater hose clamp to fix it on. Then I put a wood dowel on the other end by drilling a 1/8th hole and epoxying it in. The rod was about 12" long. I do two dips for 2 holes but it is surprisingly fast. And much easier to control. And it allows you to get almost all of the lead out of the bottom of the pot.

This mold is .358 but I will resize to that dimension then powder coat the bullets. I don't know yet if resizing them again will be necesssry or not.

300 bullets so far. I should get over 900 from 25 lbs of wheel weights.

Forgot to say that I'm water quenching these. Don't know what the hardness is, but it's more than 12. I expect they will reach 18 in a couple of weeks. I intend to shoot these in my Henry at around 1700 fps.