cost to cast rifle bullets?

B

bricz75

New member
I noticed some people cast their own rifle bullets. How much do materials cost to cast bullets? Around how much does it come out to per bullet? Only the lead and whatever needs to be mixed in, if applicable. Not furnace or mold costs, or anything like that.

What rifle velocities are these cast bullets generally limited to?
 
With the right mixture of alloy and gas checks, cast bullets can reach well into the 2200fps range without serious trouble. Sometimes things work out just right in individual rifles and you might get a bit more.

With the wrong mix of alloy, (even with gas checks) you can turn your bore into a lead lined pipe in a handful of shots.

Tools are the same as those used for pistol bullets, only the molds are different (sizer dies for caliber, of course)

Material costs are going to vary depending on where you get them, lead, especially. Lead, Tin, and Antimony are the commonly used elements of cast bullet alloy.

There has been a LOT of material written about casting rifle bullets, for as long as there have been rifles. We've learned a lot, its a fascinating field.

One of the biggest advantages casting rifle bullets has, is the ability to size them to properly fit barrels that are not, or no longer the standard bore size.

Variation in groove diameter is common with many older guns, and especially foreign milsurps. When you have a rifle with a oversize bore (or under, though that's rare) and there is no jacketed bullet common, or even existing in exactly the right diameter you need, cast is often the answer.
 
I'll try for a quick answer for wheel weights only:
Back when I started casting, you could get 100 lbs of wheel weights for around $5.
Let's say you are casting 200 gr bullets:
Starting from there:
100 lb lead x 7000 gr/lb = 700,000 gr
700,000 gr / 200 gr/bullet = 3,500 bullets (per 100 lbs)
3,500 bullets / 500 cents per 100 lbs = 7 cents per bullet
But that was then and assuming you can find wheel weights, the cost now would probably be at least 10 fold at $50 per 100 lbs.
That would bring up the cost per bullet to 70 cents each.

At least that's what I think if my arithmetic and formulas are correct.

Someone else can throw in the cost of tin, etc.
 
3,500 bullets / 500 cents per 100 lbs = 7 cents per bullet
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Nope. Check your math. the cost per bullet is WAAAY less than that. 3500 bullets for $5 comes out to 0.1428 cents per.
100 lbs for $5 is one pound for five cents. One pound (7000 grains) gives you 35 two hundred grain bullets for five cents or 7 bullets for one cent.

When I started casting, WW were free for the asking.

Pete
 
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What are wheel weights?
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They're the lead weights a tire shop uses to balance the wheel. The shop usually use new ones since the wheel is back to being unbalanced if a weight falls off, so they accumulate old ones pretty fast. As Darkgael mentioned, they used to give them away, but nowadays they have some value. But casters tend to be scroungers. Wheel weights, old plumbing, and many other sources are used. You can also buy lead, pure or an alloy, but it tends to run over a dollar a pound.

By the way, there was a mistake in the math, it should be 500 cents/3500 bullets, so about 1.5 cents per bullet for the lead.
 
To the OP, wheel weights are still prime material for casting, however, be aware that nowadays many shops won't give them away or even sell them, not really sure why, ya gotta scrounge them. Also, be aware that many modern WW are not lead, they are zinc and other materials which you DO NOT want, especially the zinc. Tons of info available on the castboolits forum great for new casters. GW
 
darkgael:

Re: "check your math"
I'll concede my error. Last calculation was reversed and should have been:
500 cents ÷ 3500 bullets = .1428 cents/bullet
or about 7 bullets per one cent @ $5 per 100 lbs for 200 gr bullets
 
Buying Rotometals Hardball Bullet Casting Alloy Metal (2%-Tin,6%-Antimony,and 92%-Lead) Is .07 cents per bullet. A gas check adds .035 cents. This is for a 180 gr 30 caliber cast bullet.

Total 10 1/2 cents per bullet. Shipping was not added or tax.

It possible to do it at a lower cost. Heat treating free wheel weights is one.

http://www.lasc.us/castbulletnotes.htm learn all here.
 
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And for some folks casting is more about getting the best accuracy out of a given firearm than it is for cost savings, so there is that.
 
wheel weights are still prime material for casting, however, be aware that nowadays many shops won't give them away or even sell them, not really sure why,..
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They're probably afraid of being sued by someone, or fined by the govt. Lead is, after all a toxic material, and well, you can't just give away "poison" these days.
 
I am fortunate. First off I am not a high volume shooter. I average less than 100 rds a week and that includes jacketed bullet's in rifles. In hand guns all I have shot for a lot of years has been cast from wheel weight's. Every free wheel weight I could get, I got. Have 1# blocks all over the place here at home, foe me, a lifetime supply. I'd figured out cost at one time back in the 70's. Don't recall the price but they were far less expensive that 22 LR! cost for powder was almost zip. What's 2.5 grs of bulls eye cost? Don't use gas checks on handguns so zip there. Primers I don't recall the price of but really inexpensive. And to save money (?) I scrounged brass. When I shot, I took along a bucket and a sieve and recovered the bullet's from dirt banks! Don't have those dirt banks around here very close so one shot, one bullet gone. I heard that lead is something like $5 a pound? That would be about 45 150 gr bullet's. Nice thing is, 150 gr of lead will make any 150gr bullet! I just figured it out, about $.10 a bullet. I must have the price of lead wrong.I think I paid about $35 a 1000 for the gas check's, doesn't come out to much. The expensive part is powder, I think! But I have a ton of old and new Red Dot around and about 5# of old Pistol powder #6, stuff still works fine. But to load the rifle's I've used a bit of Red Dot but mostly newer powder. 13grs of Red Dot is a max load in the 30-06 and it's only 12 grs in the 308!
 
Buying Rotometals Hardball Bullet Casting Alloy Metal (2%-Tin,6%-Antimony,and 92%-Lead) Is .07 cents per bullet. A gas check adds .035 cents. This is for a 180 gr 30 caliber cast bullet.

Total 10 1/2 cents per bullet. Shipping was not added or tax.
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Then 10.5 cents is incorrect. It also does not factor in the cost for either electricity or propane for melting the lead. We won't even go into the time is money aspect.... ;)
 
With range lead (fired bullets collected from gun ranges), it costs me a little propane to melt a 40 lb batch (a dollar or two). Add some tin solder and a little antimony, since range lead is generally pretty soft and doesn't fill well. ...And it costs me, generally, less than a penny per bullet. ("Generally" because there's a big difference in yield and per-bullet alloy use between .312" 80 gr HBWCs and .475" 480 gr WFNs.)
Add a gas check (call it 3 cents), since I use them on rifle and most revolver bullets, and that jumps to 3-4 cents per bullet.

With other alloys, such as Linotype, medical isotope containers, wheel weight ingots, etc., I'm usually invested for $1 to $2 per pound.
So, a 200 gr bullet will be 2.8 to 5.6 cents per. ...Plus gas check, if used.

Buying commercial alloys is more expensive, at $3-$5 per lb; but you don't have to mess with mixing alloys or using mystery alloys (like range lead and modern wheel weights).
One can still drop 200 gr bullets for under 10 cents per.
Using Rotometals certified Lyman #2, at $2.72/lb, for example, results in a 200 gr bullet costing 7.8 cents in alloy.


wheel weights are still prime material for casting, however, be aware that nowadays many shops won't give them away or even sell them, not really sure why,..
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When I checked around while living in Utah, I got two answers from shops that said no:
1. Some one else already had dibs.
2. They were under contract with the company they bought wheel weights from to recycle everything.

I haven't checked here, since the scroungers are cut-throat and much more serious (for brass, range lead, and wheel weights).
 
Lead has a great value to the folks who sell it to the battery makers. Besides, CA outlawed lead weights years ago, so most new ones tend to be zinc......

When we had our trap and skeet fields mined, the reclaimer (who gets 60%), already had it sold to a company who makes car batteries. Their market? The new exploding car markets of China and India. A few billion folks, and a of of them now have the means to buy and own a car, so I suspect the scrounging of lead will become harder or more expensive.
 
I can't berm mine or smelt large quantities like some do, but I do have a certified Doe Run secondary lead smelter a few miles from my house, so I have been known to swing by Seafab and pick up a chunked 25 pound string every so often, or a 62 pound pig for my buddy to smelt. Yes, more expensive than WW, about $1.5 a pound, but it's also certified Lyman Number 2 bullet metal. Castboolets.gunloads.com is the premier casting website, and there are still guys who will sell wheel weight ingots in flat rate boxes for about $1 a pound, or so.
 
Casting bullets is a dangerous hobby.
Exposure to lead fumes and burns is assured. Not a cheap hobby either. Most of the old timer casters got into Bullet Casting at a time when lead material/s and tools for ~were reasonably priced. No longer the same today.

To try and explain to some other the techniques involved. I'd say: "Its a over whelming metallurgy subject having no ending in its learning"
Below are some of the materials I blend for my casting of bullets.

Soft sheet lead
Clip-on wheel weights
Linotype
Magnum bird shot
Babbitting metal
Pewter
isotope lead
Reclaim lead from a indoor gun range.
Reclaim bird shot from a Trap Range.
 
Casting bullets is a dangerous hobby.
Exposure to lead fumes and burns is assured.
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That's like saying "if you eat you will become obese." Done correctly you won't get negative side effects.

In my experience shooting at indoor ranges exposed me to more lead than how I smelt and cast.

I know this because I have my lead levels tested every year and the only time they were elevated was a period I shot matches at an indoor range. Quit that and continued casting and it dropped.
 
Exposure to lead fumes and burns is assured.
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If your lead is vaporizing, it's WAY too hot. Proper safety gear, never becoming complacent and attention to detail eliminates the largest risks for burns.

Stolen from jsizemore at castboolits.gunloads.com;
When folks were posting pix of their indoor casting enclosures, I started an internet search of the vaporization question (at least in my mind). I found that lead starts to vaporive at about 1600*F but lead oxide starts at 820*F. Since our tin-pb alloys start to oxidize at 750*F, at least the tin, then it doesn't seem to be any stretch of the imagination that some lead oxide is also taking place. So I've kept my casting temp below 700*F (usually 650-675) and kept the melt fluxed and covered. I cast when and where I took a notion.

Then I read about the arsenic. Uh-oh, now I messed up casting anywhere. Well, arsenic sublimates (means goes from solid to gas without a liquid state in between) at 1137*F. I'm ok there but then I remember that there has to be an oxide version since it always seems to happen. Sure enough, arsenic oxide. Well it vaporizes at 869*F.

So I seem to be safe. At least with what I'm aware of. Haven't made up my mind about casting without a hood inside.

07-04-2011, 05:33 PM
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