anybody ever shoot cast lead in your AR?.
results?
thanks -
Bigshooter,
I have shot some cast lead bullets in .223 Rem, but not through an AR…With even the hardest cast lead bullets velocities are usually kept in the 2200-2300FPS range. Accuracy was good out of a Remington Bolt gun…but in my experience the hassles involved far outweighed the benefits. Especially when one can buy cheap factory seconds in bulk from Sierra.
The link below might offer you some good insight for more modern data as my own experiments with cast lead rifle bullets were conducted some twenty plus years ago.
thanks for the reply.
my thought stems from the possiblity of the .gov crowd either taxing or regulating reloading out of existance in the future, distant hopefully.
atleast if I had something to cast with it wouldn’t stop me from keeping projectiles on hand.
just wondering if it is a feasable investment.
thanks.
You can actually buy swaging equipment and produce Jacketed bullets from spent .22 LR Casings. Thats how Hornady Bullets got started.
don’t really have $2000.00 to drop on the equipment.
put it on a credit card- your bank’s gonna fail before you can pay it off anyway. 
I would think that lead bullets would clog the gas port.
There’s really no reason to be trying to shoot lead projectiles in the AR. Some ape on TOS claimed to be melting down tire balancing weights and casting bullets for .223. Not surprising considering I read about a moron who wanted to use a cement/mortar mixer to tumble brass over there a few days ago.
I remember looking at the numbers on the .22 rimfire brass bullet making nonsense. It was completely silly, and on top of it all, the bullets that they guy made weren’t accurate for shit.
bigshooter I am new here and fairly new to the AR scene but have just worked out a load to shoot cast boolits from my Colt AR.
I cast using wheel weight alloy in this RCBS mold. Sizing to 225 and using Hornady gas checks and Lars Carnuba Red lube. Each projectile weighs about 85 grains when finished. I have only loaded and shot about 50 or so. Just trying to work up a load that fires, feeds, and extracts. No leading yet but I am currently loading another batch to run through the gun.
The nice thing is I figure my cost per projectile is about $.03 or .04. with what I paid for my wheel weights, lube and gas checks. Of course there are other costs (i.e., mold, sizer, electricity, propane, etc). I enjoy doing it!
Shit! Those bullets look good!
You dang hill billys have some skills from time to time!
But I still wouldn’t shoot them in my AR. I’d shoot the equalized number of Jacketed bullets. If it meant me shooting half as much, then so be it.
But good job on those.
nice!
I’m very interested in hearing your assessment after further testing.
thanks for posting!
Ever have to process 10,000 cases a week? Cement mixer or industrial tumbler is the only route.
[QUOTE=markm;291557] Some ape on TOS claimed to be melting down tire balancing weights and casting bullets for .223.
Tire weights are a linotype metal and mixed with lead to harden the bullets and also to help improve the castability of the poured alloy.
That’s cool. I still can’t see the sense in it for the AR platform. Real bullets aren’t that expensive to buy. But if people just like to do it… cheers.
Real bullets aren’t that expensive to buy
YET(if you can even find them)
the reason I started this thread is to try and find an alternative projectile, for when the jacketed ones get banned/taxed/or serialized.