Do you make your own pellets?

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wpoctane

Member
Mar 17, 2022
15
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Missouri, United States
Just curious how many folks cast there own pellets. I cast my .45 and .50 cal ammo. But I have found anything smaller a bit harder to cast with a great degree of accuracy.



One problem with casting your own ammo is that it has become harder to find molds I look online and most of the time, everything is out of stock.

Would love to hear what other members are doing?


 
I have had good luck casting .25, .257, .357 but never tried larger calibers so I can’t compare. Some mold makers just billed to order so you place the order and then they make it and send it to you so it won’t show as in stock.


Arsenal molds and accurate molds both build to order. In the past I’ve had good luck getting in-stock molds from MP molds. Also NOE but stock has been limited for sure.

What are you looking for and where have you looked?





 
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I bought a NOE 27 grain pellet mold, 25 caliber. It makes nice looking pellets but my Avenger and P35 don't like them very much. I don't think it's that the pellets are bad or the mold is bad. My weight and size variation is less than the commercial pellets both guns like. But the groups from the Avenger are too big to be usable and the P35 is better but still twice or more what it does with pellets it likes. I tried pushing a few of these cast pellets through the P35 barrel and they show good rifling engagement. The groups are just a bit big.

So no success casting for my guns so far.
 
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There was a problem with the NOE .25 27gr RF molds from the last batch, a bunch of people were getting out of round skirts and generally too small skirts. Mine were out of round, but after measuring the mold numerous ways, I need to give mine a second chance. Measure the skirt, then turn 90 degrees and measure again.
Click to expand...

Yikes, never heard that. Do you know when was last batch? My 25 mold is fine, bought about a year ago. 


Ive had good success, at least I think so, casting 22,25,30 pellets and 25 slugs. Took a few times to get the process down and find the right tin %, but im keeping much more than I scrap now, which is nice. What I do keep gets sized for its intended barrel and shoots well enough in my Mrod’s and Prophet to replace bought stuff altogether. The problem for me is finding time to cast regularly. 
 
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This was probably 9 months ago. He replaced several but I never took the time to really be careful and make sure I wasn't my fault. I may get it out this week and try again, I've been busy trying to get some 50cal ammo made for a rifle that's gone back for warranty twice. Lot of good having that ammo right now. Also need to make more 125gr 357 ammo, low on that stuff and I have new parts for my 357 on the way to try out.
 
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I started casting with the NOE 30cal 46gr 4-cavity aluminum mold few months ago and have been really pleased with how they they shoot. Glemm Chally has the 2 cavity and he shared some of his for me to try. Thanks again Nate. I shoot them out of my Impact MKII with a 700mm Heavy Superior liner and out of my Crown 600mm/Superior liner. Although not as accurate as a JSB or Hatsan Supreme they are probably 75-80% as good which is fine for paper shooting and pesting inside of 70yds in my case. I'm hoarding my 14 tins of JSB/Hatsans for future times. There's a couple of reason why I wanted to try it. One, the lack of availability and increase in price of the good stuff and secondly I now have a good use for my stash of spent pellets that I've been recovering from my targets for years. The pellets in the blue bowl represent what I cast yesterday in a couple of hours, approximately 720 rounds. I currently have about 3600 "free" NOE's to play with which will go a long ways. Any questions don't hesitate to ask.

Ingots.1647791795.jpg
Bowl of pellets.1647791922.jpg


Tins of pellets.1647792106.jpg

 
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Not that he can make these smaller pellet sizes, but real impressed with the Accurate Molds mold that I just received. Cleaned it, smoked it, had it on a hot plate, and first casts were probably good enough to keep. Sprue plate cuts clean and easy, rounds dropped right out. These were 50cal so that may have some influence but everything dropped at size or +0.001 which is right where I wanted. The cutouts were really smooth, way nicer than the expensive Lyman mold I have. I'll buy from Accurate again, only wish he did hollow point or hollow base too. Need to get my shop set up so I can bore a hole and make the pins.
 
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If your on the fence about trying a NOE 30cal mold I think you'll be pleased with the results, at least I'm thoroughly happy. Again they are not JSB's but for me they are fairly close and definitely worth the investment. As I said before I have about 14 tins of JSB and Hatsan Supreme but they are staying in storage. I shot these groups out of my Crown with a Superior liner in it. I shoot these all the time now but a couple of days ago I put up some fresh targets and the weather was perfect. I fired a couple of shots just to wake up the regulator and proceeded to my 60,70 and 80yd targets. I did have a right to left 5-10mph off and on breeze which seemed to show the difference at 80yds. I just shot the 60,70 and 80 single groups consecutively.

Day1 60.1649458102.jpg
Day1 70.1649458104.jpg
Day1 80.1649458116.jpg


Yesterday evening I tried to repeat my results. One bad flyer at 70yds though.

Day2 60.1649458208.jpg
Day2 70.1649458256.jpg
Day2 80-1.1649458278.jpg


Anyway it's a good way to save a little money and have some fun casting and shooting.

Jking






 
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I got an NOE .22 cal mold,i tried using used pellets out of my trap and it didnt go too well.

I tried pure lead with some tin added and that worked a lot better but the production of good pellets was way too time consuming,too many rejects.

I have cast literally tons of lead into bullets for PB use using different alloys over the past 35 plus years but i put the pellet mold away for now.

When i go back to casting pellets im going to get some 20:1 alloy from Rotometals,that should cut the reject rate down to acceptable levels.
 
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