This ammo crunch drove me to buy a bucket list gun- a Ruger New Vaquero single action revolver. I can’t believe I needed a crisis to get one, because it is so fun to shoot.
The best thing is that single action revolvers are ready made for shooting wax bullets. I didn’t realize this previously, but wax bullets are a huge part of Cowboy Action Shooting, especially fast draw. Because of this, there are several sources of high quality commercially made wax bullets in 45 and 38 calibers.
I cover one complete system designed for 45LC in this video, but I talk a bit about ways of doing it yourself, too. If you haven’t tried shooting wax bullets before, now is a perfect time to start. They are cheap, available, and great fun.
Wax bullets, wow… It’s been a long time since I’ve messed with those. When I was a kid, I remember reading an article about wax bullets in Guns and Ammo so my brother and I decided to melt a bunch of candles into baking pans and make our own. We pulled bullets, emptied the powder, and pressed the primed brass in. We had a blast (when the folks were at work of course) with my dad’s single six, setting up a makeshift shooting range in the hallway… Ahhhh… memories…
The wax may be readily available but the primers are not. Doh! Wax / rubber bullets are fun, though. In this current climate, as long as I have projectiles my primers are reserved for loaded ammo.
This is sort of related - on of my relatives and a local doctor would spend hours in his basement shooting 00 buck from 30-.06 cases. They ran the buckshot through a sizing die, charged the case with a half grain of bullseye, inserted the buckshot and topped it off with grease (from the well pump I believe).
I would just love to see the look on my wife’s face when she found me filling the basement with smoke and noise.
I really think they had a lot more fun back in the old days.
