I’ve been reloading for almost 20 years now. I’m thinking about casting my own bullets but know absolutely nothing about it. Any information about the process would be helpful.

Buy from MP Molds and Lee. Get the big 6 and 8 cavity molds unless you want a hollowpoint design, and if you want a hollowpoint you cannot beat mp molds. Degrease them and preheat them. Buy a bottom pour pot. Lubricate the alignment pins and sprue plate on your molds every use. Read up on powder coating or tumble lube with thinned Lee liquid alox depending on your smokiness tolerance level. Avoid gas checks unless you need them. Buy a range of sizing dies and try them to get a proper fit for particular guns, but 0.001 over the nominal diameter is probably best. Find a good source for lead. The classic bullet designs are tried and true. Be light with crimping when seating and crimping until you're comfortable. Harder lead isn't always better and will cost more but it's pretty much never going to hurt. Muzzleloaders and BP guns probably do want pure lead.

https://castboolits.gunloads.com/

Rifle, pistol or both?  Stick with proven designs and loads at first and get a solid understanding before venturing into experimenting. But experimenting is the best part about casting bullets.  I love casting super heavy for caliber like 260gr 357, 400gr 44 mag, 600gr 45-70, etc.

I am reluctant to do so in fear of blowing myself up however, my plan is to start with some 38 special shot out of a gp-100.

We've got a reloading sub-forum with lots of members, who cast, willing to help.

It’s a fun hobby.

Or it was in the past, when my kids were young and took frequent naps that put me wanting something to do for an hour or so at a time on rainy days and weekends.

Now?

I cast mainly for .45 Colt and .45-70. I shoot bulk blasting ammo in 9mm and 5.56 and load quality jacketed bullets in everything thing else.

I’ll shoot a *small* number of cast bullets in .45acp, .350 legend, and .38/.357 every year.

Is it still worth it? Not really. Doubly not so if you don’t already have hundreds of pounds of base metals on hand.

But it’s great fun if you have the slow pace of life that goes with it.

NOE and Arsenal make good molds, too.

I prefer NOE to MP simply because I prefer Aluminum to Brass.

Both make great stuff. MP is work-of-art level stuff, but brass gets heavy after a while.

No specific advice, since someone already posted a link to castboolits, but I will say, that reloading bullets I cast myself, and having them shoot accurately, is one of the most satisfying things I've ever done!

MP makes 8 cav aluminum molds now. They are awesome in the calibers they are available in. They have a Lee style cam for cutting the sprue.

I have several NOE and they are all good performers, but on a price basis an MP brass mold costs the same as a NOE aluminum and that's silly. The NOE style tilting pin hollowpoint system is also far inferior to the Cramer style MP system. That said if you prefer aluminum then that's fine too.

Also Miha wraps his molds in Slovenian newspaper and it's often got titties on it.

Do you shoot .45-70? Because casting .45-70 gets the price from $2 per round to not much more than CCI Stinger .22LR.

Make sure you have a source of lead to cast.  Its geting rarer to go to a tire store and be able to buy wheel weights.

If you've got lead, its way fun.  I cast for .9mm, .38/.357 mag (same bullet for all 3) .45 colt and .45 acp, .40 s&w and .300 Blackout.  

If you cast, you should probably get into powder coating your boolits, instead of using any other form of lube.  Powder coat leaves a very clean bore, and is easy and satisfying.  CastBoolits.com will tell you everything you need to know about powder coating.  I just shake the bullets in a tupperware container with airsoft bbs and the powder.  Then bake the boolits in a toaster oven I bought from the thrift store specifically for powder coating.  My wife appreciates that.  

Given that 80-90% of the cost of a reloaded cartridge is the bullet, driving that cost down by casting really lowers your overall cost per round.

I started out casting .38 bullets, then like all reloading, it became a crack-like habit. I now cast .38, .45 ACP, .40/10mm, .458 and was casting .308 and .243 but sold those molds.

I took a 15 year hiatus and am back into now. Powder coating as posted above beats lubing hands-down and I just got into that.

Castboolits.com and the Reloading forum here are your friends. Moderation of the ARF forum can be a bit stiff-necked at times, but it keeps things on the QT.

That’s a great place to start.  I probably have close to 50 different molds for 38/357.  If you do end up getting into casting let me know I can send you a mold or two for you to try out but you have to send them back lol.  I have to have somewhere between 300-400 molds.

I cast for uncommon or unusual bullets.  Common ones such as 38/357 I just buy in bulk.

I haven't cast in many years although I used to a lot.
The family were licensed reloader's starting 55+ years ago so I grew up with it.
Mom made Dad run us kids out of the house when he was casting in the basement. (I'm positive his exposure to lead fumes over the years didn't do him any favors in the later years of his life).
I still have a literal Ton of Linotype and probably a half a ton or more of pure plumbers lead (neighbor was a plumber) in the garage as well as a good supply of Tin and Antimony to do my own mixing.
I also still have the 15 or so Hensley and Gibbs multi-cavity molds (and a few oddballs) and have always used Star sizer - lubricators custom made to Dad's specifications for the Star Progressive presses we used.
Tried many different mold makers from back in the day, but I alway came back to H&G's and they all have held up like new after 100's of thousands of uses.
Now I find it just as cheap to buy my most used cast bullets for "plinking" without the muss and fuss of firing up the pots unless I run out of some oddball stuff, like 218 Bee gas checked bullets.
I've used Missouri Bullet Company, missouribullet.com, for years because they have a good selection of calibers and hardness' as well as premixed ingots of lead hardness' with fast and cheap shipping. It just hasn't been worth my time lately.

Step one, order lead from Missouri Bullet Company.

Step two, forget about casting your own.

I used to cast almost all my bullets.  But it is so time consuming that its hardly worth it, when compared to MB's prices.

All I cast any more are round balls for muzzle loading.  And not much of that, either.

I agree if you are casting bullets you can buy from some company for a few cents for less than what you can buy them for it’s probably not worth it. Well honestly it probably is cause learning the skill and beating able to source cheap sources of lead will always be better than buying.  I told the OP  I would send him molds for free if he would send them back.  I’ll extend that offer to anyone with 50 feedback that’s 100%.

I started casting because I had almost zero funds to shoot with, and lucked into some equipment. Now, in a MUCH better place in life, I still do. Why? Why not? I enjoy the hobby which feeds my other hobby of reloading which feeds my primary hobby of shooting. Lead I get from various sources - last one was a buddy berm mining. I have another good friend who smelts down all that stuff. I think I have enough lead to keep me humming along for a few years.
Unlike many other people, since I was always strapped for funds, I cast the common calibers like 9mm and 38 Special/357 mag as well, and still do. Powder coating can make it fun, too.



Heck I even cast for 7.62x39mm, though I don't have anything in that caliber right now. This NOE 129gr bullet is quite good.



I echo what was said above - castboolits.gunloads.com is THE source for casting information. However, I will say .223 is NOT fun to do, way too small, huge PITA.

I used to cast a lot, I haven't in many years. When I retire (soon) I may go back to it.
The biggest challenge is finding a cheap source for lead.  In the way old days you could get wheel weight from tire places, now days unlikely. Environmental regulations and independent shops usually have some buddy who get them for fishing weights (at least where I live).  I found a unique source, someone who made stainless glass.  He would sell be his used lead at silly low prices.
After than, lubing was a pain in the butt.  The new thing is powder coating, and I think that makes it much more enjoyable.
Go ahead, dive in it is satisfying to roll your own.

I started casting about a month after I got into reloading.  Did the opposite of what the experts suggested and started with a hollow point Lyman 44 Devastator mold and never looked back.  Shot my first deer with that bullet out of a S&W 629 too.  The Lyman book on casting is a good place to start as well as the cast boolits website.  Casting is fun but beware of the tinsel fairy.

I would say that the powder coating of lead bullets has done a lot to increase the popularity of casting.

Before that, it seemed like some sort of alchemy or voodoo science to get your bullets the correct hardness with the correct lube.  

Lee does make a push through sizing die or sizer system that screws right onto a single stage press:

Attached File


When I first started out casting over 12 years ago, I used the Lyman 4 banger molds made from steel or iron.  I used to knock the sprue plate over with a brass hammer.  Then I realized that if I watched the molten lead puddle on top of the sprue cutter….when it turns from a silvery almost mirror like appearance to a hazy, frosted over gray appearance, that was the ideal time to push the sprue cutter over with my gloved thumb.  

That helped increase my throughput.

The other thing I did was I started dumping the sprue back into the top of the pot.  That keeps the pot from emptying so fast.  In theory, if you drop a fresh ingot into the pot, then the whole melt’s temperature drops and there is a time lag there to bring things back up to temp.

Start with finding a source for lead.  You will need soft and hard lead.  I usually use 1/2 COWW and 1/2 soft lead for pistol bullets.  Add in around 1% tin.  Unless you can source lead on the cheap, I would just buy them.  

Attached File

I cast large bullets 550 / 700 grain slugs for sharps rifles and 500 mag. If you cast large bullets use a pour ladle if you want good bullets that are filled out.
Bottom pour pots do not pour fast enough with enough volume, at least the ones I have used.


Sucks that scrap lead or real lead wheel weights are hard to find for free now.

It was 50 degrees here when I got up this morning.

Probably the last good casting weather of the summer, and I shot my last .358-200 bullets yesterday.


Lee copies of the RCBS 358-200-FN


NOE 350-grain .460” for the 45-70:



As usual the Lee mold started dropping good bullets immediately; the NOE had to get *hot* then it started spitting out gorgeous bullets.

ETA:

OP, a couple of 2-cavity Lee molds are the easy-button starter kit. They warm up quick and rain bullets.

Larger molds, and hollowpoints, have a steeper learning curve.

Awesome way to make cheap and effective buckshot.

80+ Lee .358-200-rf. They’ll weigh ~206 grains gas checked. Will likely be sized to .356” and shot from a .350 Legend over lil’gun at 2200’ or a bit faster.

60+ NOE 460-350-rf with a small ‘cup’ hollowpoint. With a gas check they’ll weigh ~355 and will probably be sized to .460” and shot in the 45-70 over ~45 grains of IMR4198 for ~1850’.

I *could* size a few of these to .452” and shoot them from my .45 Colt at 1050’ or so over H110. For anything I’m ever likely to do with a .45 I think they’re overkill.

Cast from wheelweights with maybe 1% tin added. Eastwood’s Signal Red powder. Not terribly hard, they should readily expand a bit at the ranges/speeds they’re likely to be shot.