Years ago I bought factory wax composition 357 bullets. They
we're red hard wax. Does anyone know if there are still wax
bullets available. They worked wonders for stinging pests that
you didn't want to kill.

Google is your friend.
Spitfire Wax Bullets

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an actual conservative

I always made them myself.

My 45 Long Colt wax bullets had the primer holes drilled larger to avoid setback

I would melt blocks of paraffin and pour into a baking pan. Once it cooled enough to solidify (not room temp yet) I would use primed brass like a cookie cutter. Then you remelt the leftover wax and recovered bullets on your next go around

This was a great basement round

Absolutely. Make your own with canning parrafin, as above. I have done it for many years, mainly .38 Special. Use unsized brass. I find that standard primers work better than magnum primers.

Similar but not at all the same!

I had a friend that was tired of the fouling build up, when shooting Black Powder at Cowboy shoots. SASS rules require a minimum of 15 grains for Black Powder classes, so that all shooters have a cloud of smoke to contend with! My friend would use WSP (primers) 15 grains of FFFg the put the 1/4" thick block of paraffin over the case, and seat or crush a plug of wax into a case. Then seat a 158 gr RBFP bullet. Without the wax that is a very standard 38 special load, but with the wax it needs a 357 case to hold everything.

With SASS rules, you only load 5 in a revolver, so after a string of 5 shots, he would have paraffin dripping out of the barrel, often for 10 or 15 seconds, The inside of that pair of holsters were a mess too!

He always used the "Gun soup" method of cleaning, take the grips off and place your revolver(s) in a pail of boiling water. This removed the wax and Black Powder residue very well.

Ivan

You can use the standard blocks of canning wax and make your own bullets, but remember to drill out the primer holes to improve performance and prevent primers from backing out. They do work but I found out that they do create a messy gun to clean.

A better solution is just to purchase these from Speer, and you won't have to remember to keep your special cases separate while reloading.

Speer Bullets - Plastic Training Bullets

We used to do that in the back room of the shop all the time. a .45 colt Blackhawk and a rack of old beer cans at about 25 feet was an excellent way to spend the afternoon.

One of our friends was a bee keeper and we found that adding some real bees wax to the paraffin while melting made the bullets harder. We used a patch from an old burlap bag with a string tied to it and pulled it through the barrel every so often to remove the wax. Kind of like the modern day bore snakes.

Surprisingly accurate at close range.

If they are still available, the Speer reusable plastic bullets and cases work very well.

They might have been from Speer, red plastic bullet , black plastic case and reloaded with just a primer. I used them for shooting in the garage into a newspaper filled cardboard box bullet trap.

Could make your own with paraffin wax and a primed brass case but the Speer ready made works so much better.
Gary

Oh yes! It would be wonderful.

I remember as a kid a couple of times taking .22 bullets out, dumping the powder and cramming a piece of crayon in the shell. That worked ok, up close, shooting bugs in the yard.
I think I read about that in some shooting or outdoors magazine back then.
Steve W

I too made my own, for the first gun I ever owned, a S&W Model 4 in .38 S&W.

Fun to shoot and much cheaper than live ammo (I was maybe 15 at the time).

I never drilled out the flash hole but never had any trouble with the primers.

The only down side was it was kind of messy, but I loved playing with that old Smith so cleaning it was never a chore.

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Richard

One brand of those wax bullets was Red Jet, I found a lot of them on eBay a few years ago.

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Old paratrooper in NC

x2........Me too!

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S&W Accumulator

I have a few thousand of the red wax wadcutter bullets and made some "special" 357 cases for them. I drilled out the primer with a 6mm drill bit and then countersunk the hole a little so that I could seat a standard 209 shotgun primer in them. This worked quite well and gives them a lot more POP!

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Very interesting. I might try that with my carpenter bee loads. Would be impossible to get the modified brass mixed up with regular casings.

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Do it outdoors

For .38 Special, I drill out the primer flash hole with a 1/8" drill. I color the bases with a Magic Marker, any color. I just use canning parrafin. press cases into a block of it, and prime after the wax bullet is in place. My 8-YO grandson loves to shoot beer cans in the back yard using them in my Model 15.

I started doing that in the mid-1960s when I lived in Cleveland. I had a pretty large basement, and in the winter it was too cold to go outside for shooting. I must have fired thousands of rounds of those parrafin loads in the basement.

If you have to use a filler. Use cornmeal. It's a whole lot less messier.

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Expect the unexpected

I have done some black powder cartridge rifle shooting, 45/70 In addition to lubricating the bullet, I would usually place a "grease" wad behind the bullet, made from beeswax, neatsfoot oil and if I remember correctly Murphys oil soap. A thin card wad went between it and the powder. It did a good job of keeping powder fouling very soft.

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Jeff

Before you load up, put them tip down in a try of icy water?

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"He was kinda funny lookin'"

So much good info here - Thanks Gents! I tawt I taw somewhere that some company was offering both .38 and .45LC cases pre-drilled for 209 primers. That would be pretty handy if my (senile) recollection is correct. And, I thought I saw in this thread, but I can't find it - that it's best to use once-fired or unsized cases?

Hot glue guns and bullet molds work also.

That's an interesting idea.

"I drilled out the primer with a 6mm drill bit and then countersunk the hole a little so that I could seat a standard 209 shotgun primer in them."

I have done the same thing with some Berdan-primed oddball cases. In particular, I had some 8mm Kropatschek Berdan-primed cases I did that to, and used light charges of pistol powders behind cast bullets.

I still have some from the 70s. You only need a magnum primer.

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Wow..what an idea. I have a few thousand Number 57 primers that are not much good for anything.. I could use them drilling the cases with a smaller hole. Never thunk of this idea.

The Speer plastic case takes a cci300 primer..........

For those that practice inside........
I use a blanket or sheet, to catch the wax bullets, for collection,
that also keeps sand, dirt etc. off of them that can damage the barrel, since it is usually harder than copper.

209 primer......... interesting idea.

Just this afternoon my daughter-in-law fired 50 rounds of my wax bullet .38 Special loads through my Model 15 in my back yard. It is the first time she ever fired (or even held) a gun of any kind, even a BB gun. She did fairly well at about 20 feet and really enjoyed shooting it. She is an MD anesthesiologist in Wisconsin and sees shooting victims in the operating room all the time but previously had no gun knowledge at all. She has the most boring job in the world - she puts her patients to sleep every day.

Wax Bullets, Shells, & Accessories

limited calibers, but looks like fun...

Anesthesiology - hours of boredom punctuated by seconds of sheer terror...

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Alan
SWCA LM 2023, SWHF 220

I think that website may be where I got the idea for making mine. I actually bought two drill bits - a 6mm and a 6.1mm based on the dimensions from the 209 shotgun primer specs.

The 6.1mm allowed the primers to slip in a little too easily for my taste. I was afraid they would back out and bind up the cylinder - though I never actually tried it.

I made up a box of 50 using the 6mm bit. I also made up some special tools for use with my Lee hand press to be able to seat primers and to punch them out.

I also made wax.45 Colt ammo by drilling out the primer pocket in several cases, priming the cases, then pressing the open end of the case into softened canning paraffin. Worked great. Only I took a file and scored the base of the cases with the drilled out primer holes to mark them. That way I would not mistakenly use the drilled out case with a regular reload

I don't like the way they shoot way below POA. Anybody have a clever idea for raising your rear sight a whole bunch?

I drill out aluminum empty cartridges. Cant see wasting brass ones.