I am 69. Started casting bullets in 1973. Since then I make a point of adding reloading dies and a bullet mold every time I add a new caliber to the gun safe. I think that the last count showed 21 bullet molds on hand, 8 lubri-sizer dies and about 16 top punches. Two bottom-pour lead furnaces.
I can't even estimate how many cast bullets I have produced over the years. Must be 50,000 or more by now, maybe triple that number.
I was a very good scrounger for years! Wheel weights, printers' type metals, old lead plumbing pipes, and digging up shooting ranges to reclaim fired bullets. Two old cast iron pots (purchased for little or nothing from Salvation Army or Goodwill stores) that I used for melting, cleaning, fluxing, and mixing my metals, usually over a propane camping stove in the back yard. Welder's gloves, leather apron, industrial face shield.
I can't recall purchasing factory ammo (other than .22LR) for the last 10 years, and probably less than a dozen times over the past 40 years.
I still produce most handgun calibers for little more than the cost of primers and powder (maybe 5 or 6 cents per round). When I started all of this I figured .38 Special and 9X19 cost me about 70 cents per box of 50 to produce.
It will be a difficult habit to break!
