Wax Bullets?

[Drm50]

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.

 

[franzas]

Google is your friend.
Spitfire Wax Bullets

 

[colt_saa]

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

 

[DWalt]

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.

 

[Ivan the Butcher]

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

 

[springer99]

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

 

[stykshooter]

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.

 

[rockquarry]

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

 

[gwpercle]

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

 

[JannaMorrison]

Oh yes! It would be wonderful.

 

[Stevens]

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

 

[RMFnLA]

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.

 

[Trooperdan]

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

 

[Mike SC Hunter]

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

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

 

[BC38]

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!

 

[292]

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!

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

 

[DWalt]

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.

 

[Kurusu]

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

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

 

[jkingrph]

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

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.

 

[rwsmith]

Keep them cold..

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