Hand loading question

[700cdl]

I'm going ask a loaded question that has been in the back of my mind since I started hand loading over 25 years ago.
Why do most people that load for a handgun, load non jacketed bullets? I have never loaded with anything but jacketed bullets. When I decided to hand load it was primarily to achieve quality that exceeds that of factory. The amount of money I save by hand loading is only icing on the cake, in my opinion. My next question is, how much does a lead bullet cost. Use a common bullet like a 40 cal. to give me some idea. I'm sincere in that I have no idea about the economics of using lead.
On average I can load a box of 50 count .40 cal. JHP XTP for about $11.50 using a slow burning powder. My .357 mag. is a little cheaper to load for at about $10 per 50 rounds. There are better prices on jacketed bullets than what I get them for. I'm just a creature of habit and buy my supplies from the same shops as when I began this hobby. I've found some quality jacketed bullets at much lower prices from online retail sources for significantly less.
Please respond with some good average costs for the bullets only that have already been manufactured, not home made.

 

[Lost Sheep]

I estimate 30%

Copper plated, 500 count 45 caliber, 255 grain. $76 in Anchorage Alaska (shipping is a killer!) Sportsman's Warehouse.

Sorry, I don't have current pricing on .40 or .357, but I will venture a guess that you could save 30% or so by using copper plated instead of jacketed.

The trick to saving money is to find a cheap (lead or copper plated or inexpensive jacketed) bullet that duplicates the feel and point of impact of your "shoot for real" bullets. The practice bullets don't have to have the costly design features that make for good terminal ballistics performance.

So, for practice and target shooting, 30% cheaper, would you stock two (or four) different inventory items?

Lost Sheep

 

[Saguaro Firearms]

why?

honestly i dont buy lead bullets, its not really worth the hassle and mess to me, i load alot of plated bullets, i can tell you i load 9mm for 35 dollars a case of 1000,and i have a blast casting, its enjoyable to me, but i dont buy lead bullets,

 

[chris in va]

One word...cost.

I can load 50 rounds of 45ACP for roughly $4 with my own cast bullets. I just don't see the need to buy someone else's bullets when I can make my own. Until lead supplies run out of course.

 

[aaalaska]

Cost, but since I cast my own, there is that personal touch.Kind of like tying your own flies, when it all comes together it's cause you did it all right.
Alex

 

[m&p45acp10+1]

I cast my own lead. Price to load 1,000 .45 ACP is about $40 give or take up to $5 for variance in cost of primers. 1,000 of .41 Rem mag is in the $50 area. I load plated for 9mm since I shoot a stock Glock 26. Tholugh I only shoot maybe 150 to 200 rounds a month to stay familiar with it.

 

[jmortimer]

Some people actually perfer hard cast lead bullets with a large meplat. Easy on the barrel and hard on the target. Look at the "best " hunting ammunition Buffalo Bore, Garrett Cartridge, Doluble Tap and you will often see hard cast bullets with large meplats. So you save a bundle loading a 300 grain hard cast LBT WFN in your .45 Colt or .44 mag and at the same time have a load that will kill anything on earth. I like wadcutters for self-defense. All give deep srtright-line penetration.

 

[Sevens]

I do not cast my own... and "never say never", but I don't plan to take up casting any time soon.

But I do buy my share of cast lead bullets. I do it because of cost. There's more clean up to be done and I can only shoot them outdoors, but they work well for me in many of the calibers that I load.

I save a heap of dough over plated and jacketed.

I buy much more plated than jacketed and I shoot my share of those, also.

 

[Rifleman1776]

I haven't bought any in a long time but when I loaded for my .44 mag. I bought hard cast lead bullets in quantity, 500 or a 1000 at a time in each weight. I loaded three weights. The cost per bullet was pennies compared to expensive jacketed. I used for target competition mostly and never wanted for better performance. I also carried for hunting with 245 gr. Keith style semi-wadcutters. Unfortunately, I never had a shot with them to comment on performance. But, I figured, if they were good enough for ole' Elmer they would be good enough for me.
Spending more than necessary to achieve desired results doesn't make sense to me.

 

[kraigwy]

I'll take the 40 cal the OP mentioned. I don't by lead, I have a endless supply of free wheel weights.

Got somebody who supplies me with once fired 40 cal brass (from LE practice)

So that leaves primers and powers. Primers are the big cost, about 3 cents each. Pistols don't use much powder, so @ 5 grns thats about 1 penny per load. Thats $1.96 per box of 50.

Brass in the biggest cost but pistol brass last a long time (unless you have a 40 S&W like mine that throws it two counties over). The last brass I bought was about 7 years ago and that was for 45 LC. When I retired I came away with a pretty hefty supply of 45 ACP, 38, 357s 'n such.

Also in the 90s I had a deal where I ended up with thousands of LP primers and 231 Powder FREE. So in reality I can shoot 45 ACPs for nothing.

What I'm trying to say, if you cast bullets, you can cut your cost to that of bulk 22s. The longer you live, the longer you stay in the shooting game, the longer you are in LE and/or the NG, the more contacts you make allowing you to keep your shooting down to next to nothing.

Casting is half the fun of reloading, reloading is half the fun of shooting. The cheaper you can get you ammo, the more you'll be able to shoot, the more you shoot the better (assuming you do it right) you shoot.

Its not that difficult to hit a target at 1000 yards with a Heavy Match M1A using carefully constructed ammo using the best components. It's a different matter to cast your own 500 grn slug, shoot it out of a rifle that's trajectory interferes with air traffic, and hit a 1000 yard gong in a black powder Creedmor Match.

I think one is missing a lot by not casting bullets.

 

[maillemaker]

I cast because my goal is to get my plinking ammo as cheap as possible.

If I purchase Oregon Trail Laser Cast .45 ACP lead bullets my per-cartridge cost is about $.16 per shot. If I cast my own from wheel weights, my cost is about $.08 per shot. Buying Winchester White-Box .45 ACP in a box of 50 runs about $.46 a shot.

 

[Clark500]

Casters often refer to their bullets as "free", but there must be costs for consumables. Propane for smelting, electricity for the pot, bullet lube, $3-a-gallon gas to pick up the "free" wheelweights, etc. How much do these costs add to the finished product?

 

[overkill0084]

Using premium jacketed bullets for plinking or punching paper seems like a waste of money to me. Cans & paper don't care what they are hit with. Cast and/or plated bullets are more than accurate enough for many applications. For specific needs where jacketed bullets are truely needed, (high velocity magnum loads, some specific hunting loads, etc) then I will spring the extra money as needs dictate. YMMV.

 

[AlaskaMike]

700cdl, most everyone else covered the cost issue, and my costs using cast bullets are in line with those previously mentioned. As in your case, cost is actually a relatively minor factor in my own handloading efforts. I will say though, that I shoot cast bullets for the same reason you use jacketed--that I want ammo that's better than factory. Lots of handloaders assume jacketed automatically equates to higher quality than cast, and that's a false assumption.

Cast bullets scare a lot of people who have no experience with them because they've been buffaloed by ignorant gun writers and "high-speed" tacticool types who are far more knowledgeable about black nylon and velcro than cast bullets. These people tend to claim that cast bullets are only good for leading up barrels and give poor accuracy, but when you ask them how much shooting they've actually done with cast bullets, they quickly change the subject.

To address your main question (why do most handgun loaders use non-jacketed bullets), I tend to see three main categories of shooting:

(recognizing that we're only talking handgun shooting here)
1. Target/Competition
2. Hunting
3. Self defense

The number one requirement of all three categories is accuracy. From my experience, cast bullets are superior than jacketed in that respect.

For target/competition, you want to be able to tailor bullet characteristics to suit conditions, and cast bullets excel here. You can vary the alloy, the sizing, the bullet lube and other characteristics to fine-tune for best performance. You can't do that with jacketed.

For hunting, you either want a bullet with a big meplat or a full caliber front band (depending on personal views), or you want expansion. Expansion is usually also number one on the list of requirements for self defense bullets. Cast bullets of the proper alloy beat jacketed here as well. The jacketed bullet industry's latest efforts with bonded jacket/plating is an attempt to produce consistent expansion without jacket separation. Cast hollowpoint bullets achieved this many decades ago. In addition, you can again vary alloy and hollowpoint depth to optimize expansion and penetration at your intended velocity. The best you can do with JHPs is change from one brand to another.

I also have to agree with Kraig 100%. Casting is half of the enjoyment I get from handloading. I understand that it's not for everyone though.

 

[kraigwy]

Casters often refer to their bullets as "free", but there must be costs for consumables. Propane for smelting, electricity for the pot, bullet lube, $3-a-gallon gas to pick up the "free" wheelweights, etc. How much do these costs add to the finished product?

I knew this would pop up, so I'll address it.

I cast in my shop with its too cold to do anything else. The heat generated by the casting process helps heat the shop. Therefore the few pennys spent here would otherwise be spent in heating my shop.

I have three trucks, two cars, four tractors, two motorcycles, 4 trailers, and so on, I spend a lot of time at the tire shop, it dosn't cost a penny extra to throw a bucket of wheelweights into the truck. No differant then driving to the gun shop to buy jacketed bullets.

The time involved in casting would otherwise be spent watching the boob tube. Or the time we spend trying to justify not casting could be spent casting.

 

[William T. Watts]

I don't cast lead because of the risk of ingestion or breathing the fumes that may cause health issues later. William

 

[maillemaker]

Casters often refer to their bullets as "free", but there must be costs for consumables. Propane for smelting, electricity for the pot, bullet lube, $3-a-gallon gas to pick up the "free" wheelweights, etc. How much do these costs add to the finished product?

This is true. There is no such thing as a free lunch. You have to buy the lead (unless you are lucky enough to get it for free), you have to pay for the energy to melt it. And of course casting, like all reloading, costs your time.

But to me, these are "free" expenses. When I buy bullets, it's just a plain old expense. I have to give up the money, and in exchange all I get is a product.

But when I spend money to melt and cast my own lead bullets, that's money I'm paying for an experience. In other words, it's money paid for entertainment, not just an object. So the bullets are still free (or nearly so) - I just paid some money for some entertainment, and happened to get free bullets as a bonus.

Steve

 

[AlaskaMike]

I don't cast lead because of the risk of ingestion or breathing the fumes that may cause health issues later.

I get around this by not eating my lead, and I don't stick my nose into the pot and inhale.

Seriously, even a modest amount of research will reveal that the dangers of lead exposure from casting bullets is way overblown. Most of us get our blood lead level tested periodically, but that's mostly for peace of mind. When I had mine tested late last year it was 3 mg/dL where normal is 0 - 20.

You presumably use common sense in the other aspects of handloading, right? You don't eat, drink or smoke while handloading and you wash your hands when you're done, right? If you use the same common sense when casting you'll never have any problems.

 

[parttime]

I get more lead in my system by putting on and taking off sinkers from my grand daughters fishing line than I would from casting.

After all the hype from the EPA, the media and other sources the bottom line is- normal hygene and DON'T EAT LEAD!!!

 

[brickeyee]

I don't cast lead because of the risk of ingestion or breathing the fumes that may cause health issues later.

As long as you take reasonable precautions the lead vapor exposure is very small.

Do NOT use a torch of ANY type to speed up melting, and do NOT set the lead pot higher than required.

Those things and washing your hands is all you really need to do.