Caster

A factory crimp die does not bring it down near as tight as a sizing die. It's not as small in diameter. It was never meant to "size" anything as much as iron out any bulges.

Whatcha need all that crap for? Just show up with that double barrel, your whiskey bottle and that same look in yer eye and he'll run for the hills.

It's a shame David doesn't have the stickers ready. We could do "Can I stick this in your window " campaign. The local hippie scum would love that.

All ammo is dirty, but I would say Hornady's steel cased stuff would likely be the best of what you're asking for.

One thing about using cast bullets that's difficult to accept is oversizing. It's possible but highly unlikely that you'll be able to stuff a sufficiently sized bullet in the throat of a barrel that would cause a Kaboom. That doesn't mean you can be lax about dimensions though. Something few do, but serious casters know MUST be done is slugging you bore before you start loading. It'll feel all wrong, but you WON"T hurt your gun if you have a bit of common sense. Pull the barrel from that 1911. Hose the inside down with something slick, whatever gun oil you use. Drop a bullet in the chamber nose first and with a punch drive it through the barrel. GENTLY!!! and be sure not to let the punch beat against the side of your bore. Now, measure the bullet you drove through and add .001-.002. Anymore than two thousandths will be counterproductive, as will anything less than one over. THAT figure is your sizing dimension. Because guns vary, so too must your sizing. For instance I have an Ishapore rifle in 7,62x51 NATO. Conventional wisom would say a .309 bullet for a .308 winchester would work. I run a .3115 bullet in that rifle. Dumb indians made an oversized bore and it happens. What I'm trying to say is don't be rash. Take it slow and don't do anything drastic. I'm not an expert but I'll help if I can. There's been a bit of interest in cast boolits here lately. Both in threads and private messages. I would really like to see a reloading and casting revival happen here at TGO. Who knows, we might even save some factory ammo sinners and baptize them in a lead pot!

Do NOT run them through a sizing die. You will size the bullet down so severely that you will undoubtedly have a leading issues. I suggest this first. Run 50 through a Lee factory crimp die. Shoot them. If you notice there is no leading, run them all. If you do get leading, you'll have to use a kenetic hammer and pull them. If you pull them do as Dolomite says and run them through a .452 sizer. Even hardened lead is easily worked. Don't fret over the oversized bullet too much. When you seat a lead bullet, you size them down. It may only be a few tenths, but it does. I use a factory crimp die on my 9mm loads and I do not size them before hand. It works out great for but results vary. That's why you must experiment in small batches.

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Thank God.

Well of COURSE I did it too. AND, I my poor little butt cheeks suffered the wrath when I got caught. You say it has nothing to do with it. Well, I respectfully disagree. It's not about beating this behavior out of existence. It's about sending the message that this behavior is not to be tolerated. It falls in the give them an inch, they'll take a mile category. Would I get mad at my kid [if I had one] for this? No, not really. BUT, they must be made to understand that miscreant behavior is unacceptable. The "encouraged" prankster of today can and often DOES become tomorrows burglar, vandal, ect. Plus, only when you reach our age does the things that you weren't supposed to do become a light from glory days long past. Otherwise, guys would have little to talk about over beer.

I thin more of the splat than the writers and editors of that paper.

Look here folks, this is what happens to a society that refuses to whoop your kids. Girls don't really need a spanking most of the time as the average good girl can be tore down to her feet with words. A man can usually tell his daughter how utterly ashamed he is of her and that is punishment enough, but us boys, well, we only understand when the biggest dog quits barking and starts biting. If these were my boys, I'd wear their little butts out and then since they like ringing door bells so much, I think we'd just make a day of ringing door bells and make them go door to door to every house in the area taking up donations for St. Jude. Hey hippies! Medicate and talk to your spawn all you like, it doesn't work half as well as a good father [notice I said GOOD father] with an iron fist. Notice the mother quoted as saying "My son didn't do anything wrong" Well, give her three licks from a belt for even saying that.

Glock 19 in a Galco silhouette high ride. I wear over the knee denim shorts and a loose t shirt year round. Baggy tshirt covers 75%, if they see it, they can____________

I often wonder if the anti's ever stop and think about the fact that they are poking the world's largest [but unorganized] armed militia? Can you imagine if we could just rally around a leader? The second amendment's own Malcomx? I wonder what the left don't actively seek out and suppress or eliminate potential candidates. I can tell you, I would love NOTHING better than to have someone so outspoken for us to look to. It's a proven fact throughout history that NOTHING by way of peaceful or forceful change can be accomplished without a figure head for leadership. Someone who can demand that like minded people organize against opposition. Not a filthy politician or some religious leader but a man. Pray to whatever god you kneel to or put up your best thoughts and wishes that we should be so lucky to get one. Am I the only one who thinks a leader who goes about business like a totalitarian but governs all by the Constitution and ONLY the constitution and anything contrary to the word for word amendments should be dealt with as severely as possible? All this biased BS and hippy scum rhetoric in the media could be dealt with properly and I could actually pick up a paper and expect to hear real NEWS. The Tennessean isn't fit to line the bottom of my parrot's cage.

You were talking to an idiot. Did you know?

Don't lie, it was one of the best deer you've ever taken, wasn't it? All cuz it was YOUR load;)

That's easy man. You'll have fun with it. Start with a 230g and a starting charge of Accurate #5. Work in lots of 50-100 and work up slowly. AND, if you find that your pistol cycles flawlessly and is nice and accurate, stop. People try to wring out the last bit of performance and for what? Less is more, especially with range and practice ammo. Good luck and post your results. Good or bad. Often folks new to reloading won't post bad results out of shame or some other retarded bassackwards reason. You'll have fun though. Not much better out there than shooting your own loads and the pride you get from it.

Yep, always try to spend the $$ with brick and mortar before the interwebz. I do like Midway USA, but I'll pay at least a 10-15% premium to buy from local guys that are nice to me.

I'd probably work out a deal with DLM for pallet load of reloading items. I don't own the best, but I am happy with the rifles I have. I'd be even happier with enough ammo to wear them out:)

A trick little addition to your casting equipment is a manicurist fan. They are tiny in size but move a LOT of air. When needed I have a couple. I use one to pull air away from you. Don't be tempted to blow air at you, no matter how good it feels:) and when I am casting in the summer I use one to cool the spru. I like to set one fan to draw air away form me, and cast with two or three different molds. Get your molds hot and rotate them. Fill a mold and set it to cool while you fill another. Empty one mold while the other is cooling. You'll need to be pretty into the game before you tackle more than two, but if you get a rhythm going, you can crank out a pile of bullets in no time. When I'm feeling my oats I can go as many as four (2) cavity molds in rotation without letting them get too cool. I much prefer two at a time though, but it depends on the size. Larger bullets take longer to cool and are easier to overheat. I have a two cavity .32 cal ball Lee mold I use as a time gap filler. I use the balls for buckshot, so there's never enough of them. My biggest pet peeve is by the time I get rolling really good, my pot is too low and I have to wait again. You'll soon discover little idiosyncrasies that are time consuming to type out and explain but save you a ton of time when they're all put together. Like when casting two different molds. Don't use two similar molds. It's easier to separate 45's from .38's later than to separate you .38's from 9mm's. I like to cast one rifle and one pistol at a time, especially when water quenching. When I dump the water and separate them to dry, a .30 cal rifle bullet and a .45 are easily distinguished. Also, don't waste time worrying about each bullet that falls from the mold. Separate the bums later. I usually don't get around to separating the ones with deformities until either lubing/sizing or when I weight match them [rifle]. Don't waste time putting the spru back in the pot either. You'll drop the pot temp and take a chance on contaminates getting in. When you add ingots, dump the sprues back in. I could type for an hour on silly little things like: Stop and give a thought to your hand movements. You should never have to reach for anything but NOTHING should interfere with anything. A tidy layout of your molds and tools will expedite things. Repetition, Doing the SAME EXACT thing EVERY time is also the key to consistency in dropped weights and in turn will give you better accuracy. Have fun. It's addictive.

Well Nik, .45 acp is a GREAT cartridge to cut your reloading teeth on. It's very forgiving, hard to make mistakes on and hard to find too many loads that aren't at least moderately accurate. In my opinion it is THE cartridge to learn to reload with. Do you have an idea of what direction you want to go? Cheap range ammo, match grade target, or maybe something to back up a hunting rifle??? A 230g cast bullet is hard to beat and in the .45acp, it doesn't need to be extremely hard. You're not going to be driving it really fast so something a little soft will probably do you better as long as accuracy is good and you're not getting any leading.

Well it certainly could. What caliber are you starting with here? If it's one I've loaded I'll tell you all about how I screwed it up the first go 'round. Save you even more$$ by avoiding my mistakes.

I think it would be even cooler if every gun owner bought a cup of coffee, and it showed a peak in monthly profits!!!

David's right, open carry could send the wrong idea to an already intellectually challenged group of peons, BUT I was just telling the wife we may grab a cup of Joe on V/day [and i HATE coffee] I won't open carry but I think I'll wear my Midway USA hat & my favorite T shirt.

Nik, I shoot lead in just about everything. From 800fps bunny fart loads in 45 colt to 2000 fps in a 308 winchester. How about 1200+fps 325g round nose flat point gas check in my 45 colt blackhawk? Ohh I saw some leading until I found the proper components to weave my spell. I don't see leading now.... It's funny, and I am NOT flogging you here (I swear) but there is so much myth and BS about lead. There's guys paper patching lead bullets at over 2500fps. Don't be afraid of lead. Be afraid to follow the lemmings and sheeple. Remember, lead boolits have been around a lot longer than copper condoms. Lead won the west and slaughtered buffalo and native americans by the thousands at very long distances. What are we loading here? Let's talk about it. BTW, I load my 9mm to around 1,000fps and I get only a light bit of leading at the muzzle from a good day of shooting. A good day of shooting is 300-400 and I have shot as many as 600-700 without cleaning.

Yeah, lucky us:)....very lucky.