How do you acquire your pistol bullets, and what type?

How do you get your bullets?

  • Buy bullets, buying large proportion plated or jacketed.

    Votes: 38 56.7%

  • Buy mostly lead or coated.

    Votes: 17 25.4%

  • Don't buy very many, I cast my own.

    Votes: 12 17.9%
  • Total voters
    67
  • Poll closed .
B

briandg

New member
I'm curious about how loaders on this forum source their bulk use handgun bullets, such as 9mm. Don't consider how you load your casul, just the bulk stuff.

I'm running a poll to see how many people here actually use home casting to supply a majority of their target pistol rounds.
 
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Bulk cast lead from the cheapest vendor I can find.

I'm getting back into casting, experimenting with powder coating as an easy alternative to the lubrisizer.. (Using my lubrisizer is a PITA.)
 
I purchase most to all of my cast bullets from Missouri Bullet.Always gotten good service and the bullets are good quality hard cast.
 
I prefer jacketed bullets to plated or lead and buying in bulk (i.e. over 1,000 units at a time) it has generally been possible to find jacketed bullets for only about a penny more per round than plated or cast - a difference I am more than willing to pay.

For smaller quantities, I watch for sales and closeouts. I have a separate e-mail address that I direct all the sales e-mails from internet sellers to. That way, when I want something, I can go look at the recent offers without having the Inbox on my primary account flooded.

I also keep an eye out for distressed shops that may be willing to haggle.
 
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I shoot at least 500 center-fire rounds per month when the weather is nice. I cast for 90% of what I shoot. I got lucky this year and have found a couple different sellers with 200-300 lbs of lead for reasonable prices and have bought enough to last me a while.

9mm is one of the rounds I frequently use plated bullets rather than casting my own.
 
Well, I didn't vote, as my situation wasn't on there. I buy plated bullets for my semi-auto calibers, and buy cast lead for my revolvers. I don't cast any bullets as the boss has vetoed that idea for now.
 
I voted jacket/plated but I am kind of split between that and coated.

I have a brand of coated that works very well but they have had a change in operations and extended sales that affects availability. I am saving up to buy a 4k minimal run on the 452 coated bullets. I have a 6 month supply of loaded 45's so I am saving up.

I shoot twice as much 9mm and try to buy "any FMJ" or 'FP plated' 124 bullets. I am having problems with a FMJ that I purchased a significant quantity of and I am working with the MFG to get me .355 or .356 sized bullets instead of the the .354 sized ones that have that have the accuracy of my 18" Mossberg 500.

I am considering going back to the cast route. I have done it in the past but I find it tedious and don't care for the process with the addition of coating over lube.
 
9mm and 223 make up 85% of what I shoot, neither of which are easy to tune cast bullets to. They both get jacketed bullets, the wifes 40 gets plated bullets and my revolvers get home cast coated bullets. I have a PCC in 9mm that will be going on a trail diet of cast/coated bullets.
 
I buy all my bullets....Montana Gold FMJ / in 9mm, I buy their 115gr FMJ in 4,000 piece case lots....and I shoot 5 or 6 cases a year. They're very good bullets. I have never cast bullets ...and I have been shooting & reloading for 50 yrs...and I currently load for .380, 9mm, .40 s&w, .45acp, .38 spl, .357 mag and .44 mag ....
 
4000 piece crates. Wow.

I did a lot of casting, and I'm now loading up some of those from the boxes in my cache. I started buying bullets a while back, the price was too low to refuse, and my quality was never up to my standards. I finally gave up a while back and put my lubrisizer away. I may start up again in spring.

The cost of casting equipment is phenomenal, and I just can't imagine more than one in a thousand millennial kids ever sitting still long enough to cast, lube, box, then load them.
 
Buy all my polymer coated cast bullets from King Shooter supply. About 7000 a year and buy them in 2000 lots. 357 and 44
 
I cast everything I shoot in both pistol and rifle in 9 different calibers. I have a few jackeded bullets for some mainly rifle in .310 an .311 an a few obscure pistol bullets no longer made but they will just stay in the boxes for a rainy day,they ain't eating anything.
 
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I shoot the Rainier Plated Hollow Point in 9mm, 357 SIG, 40, and 45 AUTO.

I shoot hard cast semi wad cutters in the 41 mag, 44 mag, 45 colt, etc.

I buy them online in 500-1000 round boxes.
 
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Oops, would appear that i read that as buying large numbers(as in at one time, aka bulk).
Not that most are jacketed.
My bad.
 
Only competation shooting I ever did was in the service, Small bore, 22 RF. I use up quite a few bullets in a year but don't really load much bulk. I keep a couple hundred hand gun loads on hand, 32 long, 38 spec and 9mm. The only thing I use jacketed bullet's for is CC. Everything else I cast. Practice in the 9mm is with cast. Home defense gun is a 9mm thats to big and heavy to carry all the time. It get's cast 124gr bullet's and nothing else, my other 9mm. I started casting long ago. I couldn't afford to shoot all I wanted and jacketed handgun loads were just more recoil than I wanted to deal with. So got a mold, an old pot to melt lead in on the stove, a lube-a-sizer and the rest is history. I have no idea what real accuracy is in my handguns, don't really care. I mostly plink with them. if hitting something is real important, I get closer or pull out a rifle!
 
Order from various sources, whoever has exactly what I am looking for regardless of price but usually not over 500 per order. To eliminate lubricant smoking, primarily purchase coated bullets that usually minimizes or eliminates smoking, or Blue Lube, non smoking lubricant, on bullets from Montana Bullet Works. Do not use gas checks with any handgun cast bullets. Also favor bevel base but not overriding all other factors if they are more favorable. SWC's are usually the design of choice, but recently caught myself buying 500 .45 acp coated RN to compare functionality among a variety of 1911's and magazines.

I did cast my own for some 40 years using free spent bullet material from a shooting range as well as wheel weights, but gave it up and sold all equipment when wheel weights became difficult to come by.
 
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