Making lead ingots

[Badger]

My son-in-law recently brought by a big box of pure lead pieces of various sizes. After church yesterday I set up my Coleman stove and lead pot and melted all afternoon making ingots with the 4-bar Lyman ingot mould.

The last pot of pure lead was used casting .45 caliber 260 grain Maxis and 500 grain .58 caliber Minies. My casting area is in a 3-bay tractor shed and my work bench is an old hay wagon in bay #3. The wagon is just perfect for a casting site. While I was casting, two neightbors stopped by at different times to inquire what I was doing. Neither ever saw bullets casted before and were amazed by the process. Both own muzzleloaders and want to cast some roundball and maxis the next time I am casting.

Who else makes ingots or casts their own projectiles?

Badger

[Bill Gunn]

Just this year I've made about 200 ingots, a few bullets for my .44 mags (250gr. gc), 6 trolling cannon balls 10 pounds each, about 100 trolling weights from 2 to 16 oz., 8 garden tractor wheel weights 75#'s ea., but I mostly make plain pencil sinkers for drift fishing with 3 ways for walleye, and lake trout.

I only do it when there's a very good draft in the barn though, to keep from breathing the fumes. I already lost one liver from copper poisoning, I ain't doing it again with lead, trust me, that hurts.

[captchee]

i cast all my own RB and conical . i also cast the brass for the rifles i make , but plates , TG , side plates and such .
shortly i will be making an aluminum mould that will cast an original bullet for my Stutzer

[Twanger]

All I've used my lead pot for is to make some stuff for work, and to make fishing weights. I've been wanting to make some bullets, but have not done so yet. In fact, I still haven't shot the banana-patch bullets that Rattus sent me 4 years ago! Oops. :eek:

I make ingots out of wheel weight lead by pouring it into an old muffin tin. The stuff is too hard for bullets, but works for a lot of other lead uses.

[Otter]

Been "rolling my own" for about 15 years. Haven't made any ingots for about 7 years, but when I did, I had found one of those cast iron corn-cob shaped corn bread pans. They hold right near one pound of lead per cavity and they fit in the pot real good. I use an aluminum mini-muffin tin for wheel weight ingots (that way I don't get them mixed up) for smokeless bullets. I only have 22 or 23 coffee cans full of good lead ingots left (approx 750 pounds), so maybe I'll have to find some more lead in another 10 or 15 years . . .

[Badger]

I pour lead or wheel weights into the 4-bar ingot mould and let it cool a minute or two. Before I dump out the ingots, I mark each one "L" for lead, "WW" for wheel weights and "2" for #2 alloy with a screwdriver.

Badger