Today I spent a part of a beautiful morning out in the shop molding up some bullets and making some ingots from my raw lead stock. A long, long time ago I used to mold all my bullets because it was the only way I could afford to shoot as much as I wanted to. My dad bought me one of the first Ruger Blackhawk .357s and a couple of bullet molds and I was hooked.
Later, when I had a little money I gave up the molding and bought ready-to-load lead bullets from several suppliers, in bulk. In 2008, with the election of our current anti-gun president, and facing a shortage of store-buyable reloading components I decided to re-institute my bullet-making capability. I bought a bunch of molds to go with the ones I already had, a new furnace, all the other gear, and was in business again.
Lead hasn't been a problem. Like many reloaders who come out of a relatively poor childhood I am an addicted brass and lead scrounger. I never weighed it, but even before I stared molding again I probably had almost a thousand pounds of lead in the shop and keep getting more all the time. The primer shortage may have finally broken, but I already had a good supply on hand.
It's nice to be back in the molding game. I have molds for all my principal firearms and feel downright self-sufficient.
[The bullets in the photograph are .452/255s and .357/158s. They were all thrown from Lee aluminum molds, something I would have sniffed at in the old days. But they do an excellent job and I am now an enthusiastic fan of them.]
Posts
1 comment:
I am about to take this up now that I am working again and can buy things. I will try the Lee molds first as I like anything Lee. It always seems to work well.
Post a Comment