From time to time I share stuff about some of the bullet casting I like to do. I scavenge the materials. I’m casting .357 magnum from scavenged used wheel weights and pewter. I sort, melt and flux the wheel weights to remove impurities and pour into clean ingots of soft lead and harder but more brittle lead with antimony in it. I had cast these in different molds so I know what my cleaned up casting material is. 640 pounds of lead with 3.5% antimony and 72 pounds of soft lead.

I also scavenge junk made of pewter. I want the tin in pewter to alloy with the other materials. I melt them down and flux out the impurities and pour them into 8 ounce coins. Antimony adds hardness. Tin adds malleability and toughness. Tin also aids in fill out at lower temperatures. By changing alloy I can tailor expansion, penetration, and weight retention. 10 pounds of 8 ounce pewter coins.

Using a small portion of these materials, I alloyed Lyman No 2 alloy for casting a big batch of 158’s for my .357’s. I shoot a lot of these. These are cast with a Six cavity .358 Lee mold. Coming out of the mold they look like this.

Keeping the alloy and mold temperature right in the sweet spot they come out of the mold at .360 diameter with nice square edges and near perfect bases. Altering alloy or temperature alters diameter and degrades consistency. Near perfect bases and concentricity are crucial for top accuracy with cast. Adding a gas check, sizing them to .359, and lubing them is one operation in the RCBS Lube-A-Matic. Gas checked, lubed and sized they look like this.

Lubed and gas checked they weigh 163 grains. Sizing them to .359 is for two particular firearms. My flat top Blackhawk has .3585 forcing cones in the cylinder. By allowing the forcing cones to slightly size the projectiles I avoid gas leading on the cylinder face. The barrel then sizes them down to .357. Doing it that way the barrel seals and does not lead either. The Blackhawk gets 1222 fps and shoots them tight. I also shoot the same ammunition in an 18.5” ‘86 Marlin model 1894 lever action carbine. The Marlin has their micro groove rifling that slugs .356. The fit needs to be a .002-.003 over groove diameter in micro groove barrels to bite the rifling and completely seal to shoot accurately and not lead in my rifle. The little carbine really brings .357 magnum alive. The same ammunition in the carbine gets 1719 fps. A max load gets it up over 1,800 fps but 15.3 grains of H-110 is where the case fill is such that the base of the bullet sits right on top of the powder charge without compression and where it seems to shoot best. I had put a 2-7x scope on the Marlin working up the load at 100 yards.

When I’m not working on a load I remove the scope. The scope just ruins the balance and lively handling of the little carbine and to me takes away from what it does best. I’m 63 years old now though and my eyesight is not what it once was. Group size at 100 yards doubles on me without the scope but still a sweet little hunting rig for close range in heavy cover and maybe my most fun firearm. With my aging eyes I am using a 6 o’clock hold trying to center the top of the diamond atop a fine bead.

I think the next project with the carbine is to see if I can develop a home defense load with a gas checked 124 at 2200 fps that expands to 2x and shoots good.

Looking good and thanks for sharing. Love those little Marlin 1894s in 357.

Very cool!

I've never done any bullet casting. It is very interesting.

Impressive work!

Nicely done, and great pics. That lever gun really likes your cast bullets!

I have about 500 pounds of metal ready to go right now. I use muffin tins as well to make my alloy cookies.

I just replaced my old Lee Production pot with a new RCBS bottom pour furnace and haven't even fired it up yet. I need to build a pedestal for the new furnace to sit on so I can see the pour stream.

I don't mess with different alloys since I only cast for handgun. I really need to do some real world testing for hunting purposes, but I think my alloy will be fine. The BHN is around 13.5, that much I know but I do not know about how my bullets will expand at handgun velocities. I don't hunt with handguns, but I always carry a sidearm if I expect to be afoot. We got some ornery hogs down at San Saba, and I think they take offense to being shot at.

Amazing and way over my head.

Smokey I've seen lead cast bullets for sale that don't look that nice. Those are good looking bullets, congrats!

The bars look like miniature Comex deliverables (1000 Troy oz silver bars, ~$25k currently).

I don't even know what I'm talking about, but I have to agree based on what I've seen.

Thank y’all for the kind words. It adds another facet to my reloading that I enjoy. The cast bullets work better in slow twist barrels. Free projectiles is also kind of a big deal. To put twist in perspective, in the .357 carbine @ 1719 fps they are spinning a little better than 77,000 RPM’s at the muzzle. A harder alloy at the expense of expansion or powder coating to give them a harder outer layer allows you to push your bullets faster without over rotating beyond what they will handle. I have not been able to match the accuracy I can find with conventional lubed bullets with powder coating so I don’t do much of it. Conventional lubed bullets apply the centrifugal force of those RPM’s like a pump to the lube sealed in the lube grooves by the bullets seal to the bore to combat speed leading in your barrel. Full house 30-30 win in a 12 twist @ around 2150 fps is as fast as I’ve been able to obtain good results with my cast. We are talking 129,000 plus RPMs at the muzzle. That kind of spin is approaching the upper edge of what I’ve been able to get to shoot and not lead. With that kind of rotation the bullet needs to be as close to perfect as I am capable of making. It is also why jacketed bullets rule in high velocity cartridges with smokeless powder. The .357 with it’s 16 twist is tailor made for casting. The 124 grain load I want to work on would only be spinning 99,000 RPMs at the muzzle with a maximum charge. Using as close to perfect Bullets as I can make, they should shoot. I want one of the new Ruger made Marlin 1894’s chambered in .44 magnum. The new ones have 20 twist Ballard rifling. Tailor made for a cast bullet pushed to maximum pressures with spin to spare.

You have way too much extra time, but those are some pretttyyy bullets. Hell of a 357 lever group too.

It is far less time consuming than one might imagine. Once I have the six cavity mold up to temperature it rains bullets. At 3 cycles per minute that is 570 in 30 minutes. The nearest place to purchase store bought projectiles is 30 minutes from my house one way. Sizing, lubing, and gas checking is at a rate of about 20 per minute. Five minutes to do 100. The time to learn is a one time investment like with so many other things.

Very nice , thanks for sharing

Casting is fun/cheap and accurate. I do for 308W, 30/30, BO and SA pistols. PC works fine, for pistol plinking I just use BLL - 50/50 LLA and liquid floor wax.
For Tx made ammo, these guys make some interesting stuff. https://www.tvammo.com/

X2. I used to sell the heck out of wheel weights for bullet & fishing weight casting, but have never personally done it.

Those are some good looking bullets right there! Years ago i experimented with some black powder bullets and getting a concave base to help seal things off.
Lost interest over time but did enjoy it.

Thanks y’all. It is easy to turn out good stuff when you are the quality control.

I sold my Lub-A-Matic during the pandemic for over $400. They wanted it way more than I did. I powder coat now. Everything else is similar here although I do not mess with the alloy percentages near as much.

NOE 360160 with two crimp groove choices, powder coat, and gas check. Sized to .359" after PC and weighs in at about 183 grains for .357 in an 1892 copy or a Blackhawk if you're willing.

Those are beautiful. I like that bullet design. NOE makes nice molds. What diameter do they drop from the mold with what alloy? The advantage I see to powder coating is the ability to use a softer alloy pushed faster. I bet they are really effective on deer.

Smokey, your post is all kinds of awesome! Thank you, sir!

Thanks ... I don't remember. I'll go out there and see if I have any without PC. Nope, all PC'd. I think they drop about .360" as intended but I do not size them until after PC (because of film thickness). The Lee APP sizer installs the gas check just like on a Lub-A-Matic. My alloy is mostly COWW with a very small amount of range scrap (probably 10%) added. I usually keep the SOWW out of my smelt and make its own pucks. I smack an ingot of alloy on the concrete and might add some SOWW if it sounds "too hard". Not very scientific. I use a cast iron "corn" cornbread pan to make my ingots.

Another note ... those new to casting should be careful using muffin pans for ingots as sometimes they have the cups soldered to the tray and they can come apart under the heat and weight of molten lead. Make sure the muffin pan is cast iron or vintage.

Nice! Wish I had one a .357 levergun like that, I'd be doing the same thing.
I messed with casting a while back - turned out really good after a few tries.
I even tried some 'paper-patched' 220gr 'cat-sneeze' rounds in an old mosin-nagant w/31" barrel - those were a hoot!

I'm another big fan. I hate to shoot a factory bullet almost as much as I hate to shoot factory cartridges. Cast mine from cleaned and fluxed range scrap. Tie my own flies, too ...

I might have what you're looking for...

Really cool smokey! I'd say that's pretty good at 100 on irons. I'm a bit younger and I don't think I can even see that far myself without my glasses on! You're doin good sir!