doublegunshop.com - home Forums General Discussion Classic & Custom Single Barreled Sporting Rifles @ doublegunshop.com wanted, dies,brass and mold for 30-40 krag

Thanks for the offer but I will decline with an explanation.

Given that I have not particularly taken to the act of casting bullets as a desired recreational activity, I confine my interest to the single purpose of making enough really cheap bullets for snap shooting practice off-hand with reduced loads in order to tune up for elk season.

As opposed to obsessing (as Mr. Petrov admits to and seems the case with people that actually like casting bullets enough to willingly inhale brain-toxic amounts of lead), I pretty much settle for "good enough" with my lax standard being minute-of-pie-plate snap-shooting at 60 yards max under the aforementioned conditions. Not a lot of point for loads more accurate than you are, especially when simulating real world shooting conditions by straddling a wet saw-horse off-balance while wearing a wet paper grocery sack as a hat that covers my good eye while one of those cycling sprinklers run a goodly quantity of cold water down my neck ever 30 seconds or so.

Anyway, I cast 150 grainers from a Modern Bond M311-910 that was in $9 box-lot at an estate auction which also contained a Star luber all set up with a 310 sizer, about a gallon of some home-brew wax lube, and a life-time supply of 30 caliber gap caps. There was another box full of old dirty moulds and assorted sizers I could have had for 9 more dollars, but I figured why confuse myself or risk brain damage by an obsessive compulsion to figure out which bullet was best. Besides, changing sizers or bullets would have meant having to figure out how to get the Star timed to squirt lube in the right grooves, not to mention figuring which grooves were right in a different bullet in the first place. Sometimes happiness requires willful effort to maintain ignorance.

Anyway, I didn't recommend this mould to our poster because I had no reason to think he could ever find one and I can not recall using these bullets in a Krag (as opposed to an 06).

Don't fear inhaling lead molecules when casting. They're a lot heavier than air and won't float into your breathing space. But, that's a moot point because to get lead to vaporize you have to heat it a heckuva lot hotter than you can get it in a lead pot over a propane fire, or in a commercial casting furnace.

The vapors/smoke given off when fluxing on the other hand might prove injurious, but that's why God gave us exhaust fans and/or the great outdoors.

Oft times I too view the act of casting bullets as not a means to an end, but the end itself. I almost hate to shoot the little jewels after expending the labor to make them.

For the record, I cast in warmer weather with my shop door ope to the garage and a vet fan going to the outside over my casting bench.

"good enough" means a lot of different things to different people. I use pure lead and pure tin so I always know what mixture I'm using. I mix my own lube, when I cast I inspect every bullet and any little flaw it's back into the pot. When I'm done I weigh every single bullet on a scale, the ones I shoot for group all weigh the same, there is no plus or minus.

I am a solitary stool shooter (from the bench) I'm not a competitor and never have been. There used to be a lot of us who did this but not so much anymore.

The quickest way to lose what little credibility a person might have is to post pictures of groups on the Internet. I won't show you my smaller groups but this one is not bad and was witnessed by two guys who signed my target.

This is what "good enough" for me means . The caliber is 32-40.

Makes one wonder what all the fuss about the "new and improved" rifles is about.

Some folks scoff at my anal-ity concerning lead casting, but the results justify it as witnessed by Michael's illustration. The devil's in the details.

My first reading of Mann's "The Bullet's Flight" almost 40 years ago now (bless our well stocked public library!) wised me up to the importance of paying attention to the picayune- lessons I have carried with me as I explored the world of cast bullet shooting ever since.

Unfortunately, it all began with finding a better way to do in our fellow man. Other than that, it's mostly marketing.

But the target notes indicate that Michael had some help other than his skill as a bullet caster.