Casting for some antiques today

[Baltimore Ed]

Fired up the lead pot today after doing some work on my Webley mold, broke the sprue cutter screw some time ago but got it out. Cleaned it up, reassembled and put new handles on it. It throws the iconic Webley 265 gr .455 hollow base bullet with the long pointy nose. I also tried out a new aluminum mold from Accurate Molds, # 38-135c. It throws a heel base bullet for my .38 Long 1892 Colt DA revolvers. A nice mold that makes pretty little bullets. I've got an old large bottom pour pot but I've been using a small dip pot. Couple of months back I started molding 30 caliber rifle bullets for my '06,-krag and blackout rifles. Started water dropping my bullets this past year too. It does make them harder. I want to cast some more tomorrow and then it's going to get cold here so I'll load up what I cast. Pardon the ugly .455s, some of my orange lube seeped by and got on the noses. I loaded 6 up real quick and they shot fine from my MK IV. Interesting is that even though it's a big hunk of lead in a little bitty case, the hollow base gives the pressure some place to go which makes the heavy bullet feel much more comfortable to fire.

Just put 25 through my WF and they work great.

[Coal Creek Griff]

I find casting to be extremely relaxing, especially when I get into the rhythm and things are going smoothly. I listen to audio books (westerns!) and watch the bullets pile up like shiny silver jewels. Ah, that's nice...

CC Griff

[Baltimore Ed]

Here's some of the .38 Long reloads. The first 4 cylinders of them had at least one rd that had to be hit twice to fire. Odd because I'd never had issues with this Colt before. As there was a chance that I'd put small rifle primers in the tube i dumped what was left and refilled with small pistol primers. That fixed it.

The nicer DA has some fire blue left on the hammer and trigger, it's from 1897 the other is from 1894. But you've got to have a J. Miculek trigger finger to fire these old Colts.