Casting musket balls?

[FSCJedi]

Can anyone tell me where to find a good kit for casting musket balls in the traditional revolutionary war style? I.E. melting pan, mold, slag skimmer, stand for the pan, cooling tray, etc... I'd be most appreciative of links. Thanks in advance.

 

[Metis]

try:

www.trackofthewolf.com



Metis

 

[mwerner]

Ah, the joys of casting bullets. Did a lot of this years ago to save money; my dad worked at National Lead...hehe. Used to bring home 10-pound "pigs" of soft lead. I'd mix em' with wheelweight lead I got for free from local service stations. Wheelweights are quite hard; I forget the exact tin-antimony content. It was funny to see the little steel clips floating on top of the lead like corks.

Rather than a proper lead-melting pot, I had a strange rig consisting of a Sears blowtorch mounted in a homemade frame to direct it's flame onto an iron lead pot meant for fishing sinkers!

Worked ok- once you got the lead melted you could turn the torch down and cast for hours. Throw in some flux, set it on fire, watch billowing clouds of noxious smoke...then you had to size and lubricate all your bullets.

Shot up thousands of Keith-style semi-wadcutters out of my old .357.

 

[The Tourist]

Yup, you can start out with an iron pot and a dipper, but that grows really old fast. To make matters worse, I used to have a flat pan with lube it in, and I cut and then pounded the slug through a sizer die by hand! Those days are over.

I now use a 20 pound Lyman bottom spout casting pot. I have a lube/sizer die press that takes all of my favorite calibres. I use a Dillon Square deal for my most common practice round, the .45 ACP. I do have the parts for a .40 SW and the 10mm, but that necessitates removing the shell plate. Easy, true enough, but it's almost as easy to screw the dies into my Lyman turret press. After +20 years of doing this, die set-up is a snap. BTW, I now have an electronic powder measure. How did I load for so many years without one?!! That makes precise powder measuring a breeze!