It's as easy or as difficult as you want it to be. Some get extremely anal about the quality of their bullets, but the friend who got me into it replied to my concerns with "they'll all shoot....". Basically, even if it's wrinkled, frosted, unevenly coated, etc. just send it. Your skills will improve with each batch and those flaws will start to disappear. You hopefully aren't doing this for the sake of impressing people on the internet. That will never work, as someone will critique it no matter what. It's like asking if your crimp looks right, lol.

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Just doing .454 RB and .50 REAL bullets for black powder.
Have about 100 lbs of 00 buck and #4 buck stockpiled from a while ago.

I picked up Lee buckshot molds a year ago.  I want to caste up some myself and reload some 12ga buck.

This is where I'm at on casting. While I absolutely see the benefits from reloading in general, how long would it take me to recoup the initial costs to get setup for casting and powder coating? I also don't have a good source for lead and the other metals needed to make projectiles, so I'd be starting everything from scratch, unfortunately. Might still get into it at the new house since we'll have more room to store stuff, but not having a source of free lead would still put a damper on it compared to just buying PC'd pistol bullets for 7-9 cents per.

Cheap lead is still out there but you have to work at it to find it.   If I was just starting out I don't think I would bother unless you want a hobby that costs money(like most do).

I buy my water pipe at $0.50/lb and that is a good price.   I used to get wheel weights that were sorted for $0.35/lb.   Now a days, I won't pay more than $20/ bucket for unsorted wheel weights.  I melted 7 buckets of wheel weights this last fall and the waste (steel, zinc & trash) was ~ 50%.

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This just a fraction of the 900 pounds in the stock pile.
It was all free from jobsights that paid to remove it!

I could see myself getting into casting (and shotgun reloading) when the kid gets older and 1. Can help, and/or 2. I have more time for myself

We'll need to find a new mechanic for the wife's car once we move. Maybe I'll take it in the first couple of times and see if they have lead wheel weights they'd like to get rid of.

My dad was a plumber by trade and a maintenance man at a seminary with a campus full of buildings that were built in the 20s-40s. Between renos at work, and him doing side jobs after work, we would always have a garage full of brass, copper, lead, and other assorted metals he would keep until scrap prices went up.

I'm not in the trades, so getting hundreds of pounds of old lead water pipe for free isn't likely in my future

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Nice.  When I get back into casting I want to powder coat.

At one time almost everyone in my shooting crew cast.  None of us do it anymore.  The days of free wheel weights is long gone.  Lead in general is getting harder to find and more expensive.  Factor in time and the return just isn't there.  For those that like it, rock on.  It's not for me anymore.

I’ve got a bunch of sailboat keel lead from Hurricane Ivan cleanup.  I still need to get it cut into ingot size.  Any suggestions?  The salvage yard was cutting it into 100 pound blocks with chainsaws.

I use my 22 ton wood splitter to break down larger pieces.
Works good.

Now I’ve got an excuse to buy a log splitter!  GD comes through again.

All in the last week

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https://www.ar15.com/forums/armory/Last-night-s-bullet-casting/42-551470/

I cast up a bunch of .490 round balls for my muzzleloaders, and a few hundred Lee TL358-158 SWCs that I load in .38 Special last weekend.

Pipe tobacco tins are great for storing about 100 .490 balls.

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Tumble lubed the SWCs in Lee Liquid Alox last night and let them dry until after work today, then loaded 100 on top of 4.1 grains of HP-38 in mixed .38 brass.

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I like the large meplat on this bullet design. If I ever shoot anything besides paper with them I expect it to work well.

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I don't size the bullets before loading. The final step when I load all my .38s is to run them through a Lee Carbide Factory Crimp Die, which sizes it in the case.

Imho, it’s about enjoying the hobby, increasing your skills, and relaxing, as reloading / casting is relaxing.  it isn’t all about cost savings, I mean it can be, if you have the free time to source cheap lead, cheap brass, cheap powder, etc, far beyond just looking online for sales, and getting creative.  People often take great pride at knowing these bullets / this ammo / this black powder was made by me, from scratch, . That’s what I enjoy, the relaxing activities, the repetition, scrounging cheap components, creating my own custom ammo / bullets / powder, etc. it’s why I enjoy black smithing, welding, etc. because ANYONE with a credit card can buy anything tier 1 with a swipe, custom ammo, custom knife, etc, but being able to make these things yourself is a feeling credit card bro will never have. Plus it’s very useful skills.

As for scrounging, I haul out lead, rifle / pistol brass / steel / aluminum/ stainless steel / nuts / bolts / rebar / angle iron / sheet steel / copper wire / copper cable / cast iron antiques / old tools and farm equipment and much more from the local scrap yard junk yard and Facebook deals, providing very cheap materials / supplies for reloading, blacksmithing, metal working, farming, and crafting / creating shit. Like a treasure hunt.

Last scrap yard score was 10,000 pieces of lake city 5.56 mm for $20 a thousand scrap brass weight, and a 50 year old 20,000lb pto driven winch ( for $38.00 as it weighed 150lbs scrap steel weight ) I plan to mount on a counter weight for my tractor for recovering stuck equipment, dragging logs, etc.