# Lead ammo making



## valleyshifter (Dec 9, 2011)

Would like to get a mold for making lead ss ammo. Any ideas where to get one. Or make one?


----------



## Hrawk (Oct 25, 2010)

I am a huge fan of the 000 Buckshot mold from Lee Precision.

18 x 38 cal balls in a single pour with built in sprue cutter.

38 cal = 9.1mm. 4.46grams or 68.5 grain.


----------



## Danny0663 (Mar 15, 2011)

What is your budget range?

Any caliber/size you are after?

Are you a hunter or target shooter?


----------



## Henry the Hermit (Jun 2, 2010)

valleyshifter said:


> Would like to get a mold for making lead ss ammo. Any ideas where to get one. Or make one?


Check out Zeiner's Bass Shop. They sell Do-It gang molds, which cast two different calibers per mold.

http://www.zeiners.com/doit/slingshotpellet.html

Model 1152 casts 11 .31 caliber and 9 .38 caliber balls. Model 1153 casts 8 .44 balls and 7 .50 caliber balls. They are inexpensive at $28.86 plus shipping per mold. Do not use these balls in firearms, they are for slingshots.


----------



## Charles (Aug 26, 2010)

I used to shoot black powder and have a number of Lee molds in various calibers. They are cheap and work well. Most any firearms dealer can bring them in for you, or you can order on-line from a number of sources ... just do a Google search for lead ball molds. I like .45 caliber size.

Milbro Pro Shot in the UK also carry ammo molds in various sizes:

http://milbroproshotuk.com/html/products/ammo_moulds.html

Cheers ..... Charles


----------



## jskeen (Feb 7, 2011)

I use the lee dual chamber molds. Cheapest place I've found them is Cabelas at 20.99, but if you plan to pick up in store, call and make sure they have the size you want in stock, if not they can order ship to store for free. The blocks are aluminum, and don't have the lifespan that a lyman cast iron mold does, but I've not worn one out yet, so I'm not too worried about it.


----------



## slingshot_sniper (Feb 20, 2011)

Sharp shooter USA http://buckshotmold.com/

I have one 9.6mm #0000 buck and did a review awhile back,best bang for the buck IMO

and if you don't see the size on Ricks website shoot him a mail


----------



## RedRubber (Nov 8, 2011)

I've been using Lee molds for a long time. I've just had one "break". it was my fault. It was a 44 dual cavity. There is a screw that holds the sprue cutter to the one of the blocks. I decided to take off the screw, to try and get rid of the sprue marks. In removing the screw, the screw got stressed and broke inside the mold. I had cast about 7,000 lead balls with it.
I ordered another one, found it for $16.95. It must have gotten by QC because the hole at the sprue is enlarged and it renders a ball with a flat spot on it. I bought a do-it mold. lit does not cast a quality ball. I have several do-it molds that I use for casting fishing lures, they all work fine. This one is listed as a slingshot mold.
Valleyshifter, If you want that 44 Lee dual cavity, pm me your mailing address and I'll give it to you. The balls from it shoot just fine, but I can't live with that flat spot on it.


----------



## slingshotwannabe (Oct 17, 2011)

anyone know howw to make lead ammo without mold. in my situation it's very expensive. can anyone pls make a video how to make lead ball ammo without mold. thanks in advance


----------



## Hrawk (Oct 25, 2010)

slingshotwannabe said:


> anyone know howw to make lead ammo without mold. in my situation it's very expensive. can anyone pls make a video how to make lead ball ammo without mold. thanks in advance


Using a shot tower is the only way I know of, unless you want to hand carve them.


----------



## Danny0663 (Mar 15, 2011)

> in my situation it's very expensive. can anyone pls make a video how to make lead ball ammo without mold. thanks in advance


We'll, as Hrawk have stated. It will be kind hard do make slingshot balls in lead without anykind of mold of such.

You could make a wooden mold using a sphere dremel piece, or even small cylinder lead casts from blocks of woods using a regular drill piece, Heck even sand mold casting...

It would be good to invest in a mold, they do not cost as much if you look around online or your local shops etc.
I got my fishing ball lead mold online for $6 which was a $1 reserve auction.

Just look around, i'm sure you will find some bargains.


----------



## RedRubber (Nov 8, 2011)

I saw on a utube someone had posted a tutorial on casting slingshot balls. In that video he melted his lead in a discarded aluminum pot on a regular cooking stove.
Don't do that.
I started out that way in 1964. I was casting 38 special semi-wadcitters. Unknown to me, every time I used the pot a little aluminum was etched away from the bottom of the pot. I guess it was a reaction between dis-similar metals accelerated by the heat. One day it melted through and my stove got ruined.
I went to a Lee melting pot after that. I have a large Lee pot and a small Lee pot, which still work fine, except the bottom spout no longer works.

I also have a nice Saeco pot I picked up at a gun show in the late '70s. Its much larger than the large Lee, so its my goto pot.

I probably will get rid of the small Lee, its been stored in my workshop for a long time and the outside of it (haven't looked at the inside in 20 years or so) looks good.

Another safe alternative is to use a cast Iron pot or a home made black iron pot. I have several of them laying around in my lead pile.

Forgive my rabbleing on. Casting lead has been a favorite of mine for a long time.


----------



## slingshot_sniper (Feb 20, 2011)

Using wood or sand I would not recommend unless you can guarantee its bone dry,any moisture present in any mold is not good,it could explode tinny balls of lead back to your face


----------



## valleyshifter (Dec 9, 2011)

Thanks all for your responses! And special thanks to you RedRubber! Cheers! Dan.


----------



## Henry the Hermit (Jun 2, 2010)

I have a small Lee melter and 2 Lee double cavity molds, .375 round and 158 grain .357. The small melter works fine with the Lee molds, but does not get the lead hot enough to keep the Do-It gang molds up to temperature. I now use a small propane counter-top stove and an old stainless steel cook pot. Works great. BTW, I do all my casting outdoors.


----------



## Charles (Aug 26, 2010)

slingshotwannabe said:


> anyone know howw to make lead ammo without mold. in my situation it's very expensive. can anyone pls make a video how to make lead ball ammo without mold. thanks in advance


Round balls are one of the hardest shapes to cast. You do not need round balls for good slingshot ammo. Square chunks of lead will work just fine. You can easily make "one-time" square molds from wood. Just nail or screw two wooden slats onto a wooden spacer bar to make a little trough about 1 to 1.5 cm deep and as wide as it is deep. Seal the ends of the trough with another piece of wood or some clay. To cast, make sure the mold is sitting on a solid surface, and brace the sides with bricks or stones to keep it from turning over when you pour. Get you lead really hot and then just pour the lead into the trough. Let it cool and then knock the square lead rod out of the mold. You can then use a hammer and chisel to cut off chunks that are the same length as the depth. That will give you lead squares that are 1 to 1.5 cm per side, depending on how large you made your mold.

If you wanted to be fancy, you could make your mold out of mild steel, held together with bolts. Before pouring the lead, smoke the inside of the mold very well with a candle to keep the lead from sticking to it. Pour your lead and let it cool well. Then take the mold apart to remove the lead. You can then reassemble your mold and use it again.

If you made several of these molds, about 25 to 30 cm long, you could make a lot of ammo with just one melt. If you make the molds much longer than 30 cm, the lead might start to set up before you get the mold full.

It ain't pretty, but it works. Square ammo is about as accurate as roundball, as long as you keep the weights more or less the same.

Cheers ...... Charles


----------



## RedRubber (Nov 8, 2011)

valleyshifter said:


> Thanks all for your responses! And special thanks to you RedRubber! Cheers! Dan.


Its on its way.


----------



## jskeen (Feb 7, 2011)

I would add to Charles's post about making lead cubes that once you get consistent lead cubes, it's pretty easy to swage them to (fairly) round with a spring swage and a big hammer. Standard blacksmith tooling, and lead is soft enough to work cold.

A quick google of "ball swage" should give lots of info.


----------



## slingshotwannabe (Oct 17, 2011)

thankyou so much charles for the advice. i will do the square ammo this weekend. thanks


----------



## Charles (Aug 26, 2010)

slingshotwannabe said:


> thankyou so much charles for the advice. i will do the square ammo this weekend. thanks


Good luck with it ... let us know how you get on. And of course I am having a brain fart by referring to "square ammo". I should have been saying "square sectioned ammo", but I just got lazy. And as was correctly pointed out by JSKeen, you will be making cubes of lead ... or at least something close to that.

For hunting, I think I would stick with the cubes rather than try to swage them into balls ... all those sharp corners and edges will do a lot of damage. Swaging the cubes into balls might well be worth it for more precise target work.

Best of luck with it.

Cheers ...... Charles


----------



## slingshotvibe (Sep 26, 2010)

Stick your finger in the sand fill with lead knock in the sides and tap ouyt of the sand


----------



## Alex Jacob (Jan 24, 2010)

Lead flashing works a treat, but mind your footing on the church roof... Just tried 10x50mm strips (just over 1mm thick) cut with scissors, rolled up and then squished with pliers. Takes about half a minute each, nice and consistent, gives a good grip in the pouch and a handful of the things dumped onto a table won't roll everywhere. They shoot really well, too.


----------



## triville36 (Dec 14, 2011)

you can find some tutorial videos in youtube.


----------



## RockinRabbit (May 17, 2012)

so im really contemplating casting lead. but not as a hobbie to save money! do you huys all fiind it cost effective? to cast or are you more in it for the enjoyment of making your own ammo


----------



## MAV (Mar 18, 2012)

I have a Lee .44 dual chamber, works nice but a gang mold with more chambers would be obviously faster. Is it cost effective? Its cheaper then buying lead balls if you don't include your time. Heck, its relaxing for me, I cast for a couple hrs here and there when I need to catch up my inventory. The local metal scrap yard knows me, they set the lead aside and let me pick through it before they send it out. At first they charged me $.60 lb, clean lead and now they give it to me at $.40 lb. clean. I never crunched the numbers to see if it was cost effective, I enjoy it, just part of the hobby I guess.


----------



## Charles (Aug 26, 2010)

For the cheapest, best gang mold you can buy, contact this fellow:

http://buckshotmold.com/

Tell him you want it for slingshot ammo, and you might get a good deal on a mold that is not perfect for rifle or shotgun ammo.

If you want really cheap and are not wedded to round ball, you can make your own mold to cast cylindrical slugs in whatever size you want. I use 3/8 inch diameter by 1/2 inch long. I find these slugs to be as accurate as round ball out to 10-15 meters, and they are devastating on game. Check out my tutorial here:

http://slingshotforu...le-wooden-mold/

I get lead wheel weights for nothing from my local garage. I have also scored lead from a variety of other sources. If you do much shooting at all, casting your own is waayyy cheaper than buying ammo.

Cheers .... Charles


----------



## MAV (Mar 18, 2012)

I can't get wheel weights anymore, local tire store treats them like hazardous waste, they even switched to steel for weights. If I could get the lead free I wouldn't shoot anything else.


----------



## Charles (Aug 26, 2010)

Most wheel weights these days are zinc. But lead is still found on tires that come in to be changed and have to be re-ballanced. I get about half lead and half zinc. I return the zinc ones for recycling. Check around at a number of garages and auto shops ... tell them what you want it for ... you might find someone sympathetic. Also, check your local gun shops to get a lead on local black powder groups ... those guys cast their own ammo and can probably put you on to some lead.

Cheers ..... Charles


----------



## jskeen (Feb 7, 2011)

Lets see, places to get lead. Try calling local roofing contractors. Lead was used for flashing on roofs for a long time. sometimes they have some they removed. Try indoor shooting ranges. they collect spent bullets and might part with a bucket full, If you know anybody in construction that works in hospitals or doctors offices, they may have done some work in xray departments where walls are lead lined. Boating supply places, yacht clubs, anything related to sailing is liable to have a pile of old ballast around somewhere, and lead was common for that at one time. Just don't mess around with old car batteries. that's one source that's not worth the trouble.


----------



## trobbie66 (May 13, 2012)

slingshotwannabe said:


> anyone know howw to make lead ammo without mold. in my situation it's very expensive. can anyone pls make a video how to make lead ball ammo without mold. thanks in advance


Charles uses a method where a hole is drilled in seam between two boards,you get a tube then with side cutters size it. Search charles and lead you should find the thread


----------



## Adirondack Kyle (Aug 20, 2012)

Someone said you could get it at a scrap yard fairly cheap, is that true?


----------



## Henry the Hermit (Jun 2, 2010)

MAV said:


> I have a Lee .44 dual chamber, works nice but a gang mold with more chambers would be obviously faster. Is it cost effective? Its cheaper then buying lead balls if you don't include your time. Heck, its relaxing for me, I cast for a couple hrs here and there when I need to catch up my inventory. The local metal scrap yard knows me, they set the lead aside and let me pick through it before they send it out. At first they charged me $.60 lb, clean lead and now they give it to me at $.40 lb. clean. I never crunched the numbers to see if it was cost effective, I enjoy it, just part of the hobby I guess.


I have a 2 cavity Lee mold and two Do-It gang molds. The Lee is just as about as fast as the Do-Its, because it has a sprue cutter, and the balls come out of the mold ready to shoot. I have to manually cut off the sprue on every ball cast with the Do-It. Also, the Do-It mold, being much larger, requires a higher temperature to get clean casts, and my small Lee melter doesn't get the lead hot enough, though it works fine with the 2 cavity mold.

Bear in mind that I'm not saying one is better than the other, but moving up from a 2 cavity to a gang mold may involve more than just buying a new mold, and it might not be any faster.


----------



## Adirondack Kyle (Aug 20, 2012)

Thanks, i think iv reached the peak of my ss expenses for the year	, so for now, instead of buying molds, this fall and winter, im gonna fill 5/16 hex nuts with lead and in the spring, ill order a good mold. Thanks henry


----------



## MAV (Mar 18, 2012)

adarondack kyle said:


> Thanks, i think iv reached the peak of my ss expenses for the year	, so for now, instead of buying molds, this fall and winter, im gonna fill 5/16 hex nuts with lead and in the spring, ill order a good mold. Thanks henry


I just spent BIG BUCKS for a 6 ball Lee .44 with sprue cutter. Let me try the 6 pack out this weekend. If all goes well I'll make ya a deal my 2 ball Lee .44. If your not interested I'll post it for sale, (but I have to try the new one first, might not like it for who knows what).


----------



## Geko (Nov 13, 2012)

i got the lee 00buckshot mould and i´m very happy with it.


----------



## Adirondack Kyle (Aug 20, 2012)

Il buy it dude


----------



## MAV (Mar 18, 2012)

adarondack kyle said:


> Il buy it dude


Kyle, PM me Dude.

I have a 0000 buck (.38 inch or 9.5mm) 10 ball gang mould that you have to preform a vasectomy on to free the balls from the sprue. I'm going to keep it for now even though I don't really care for the size as much as the .44 inch. I guess you have to draw a line somewhere and 0000 buck is the smallest I'll go. Geko, I hope you like the 00 buck, I like the Lee moulds so far so good. Been busy and haven't tried the 6 ball Lee .44 in with sprue cutter yet but I'll go on blind faith and sell you (Kyle Dude) the .44 two ball before I try the 6 pack sprue with cutter. What the heck.
What I have done so far is...
II read HERE (and I forgot who) that someone was removing the sprue cutter from their Lee mould to smooth up some galling and the bolt was froze and broke off. Makes scene, dissimilar metals and heat just like that exhaust manifold with a steel bolt/stud in a aluminum engine block. You seem to brake one off and its the hardest one to get to, ALWAYS! I took apart my beloved but yet untested 6 baller Lee with sprue cutter and put a little high temp anti-seize on all the threads and reassembled.
High Temp anti-seize! Looks good on paper, can't hurt.

Mark


----------

