How did you pick your bullets?

Bob Sanders · Apr 9, 2013

How did you settle on a bullet? Plated, jacketed, HP, coated, or lead? I cast tumble lubed 176 gr .40 from Lee molds. Strictly an economic decision, supporting 4 shooters.
B

spelling edit

jeremys · Apr 9, 2013

Bayou. Small guy, great product, great price. Too bad he wasn't accepting orders last time I looked.

Plus, everyone wants to know why my bullets are snot colored. Always makes great conversation with guys that don't reload, and some that do.

bsdubois00 · Apr 9, 2013

Price.

I've shot Lead, Moly, Plated, Jacketed....really just depends what I can get and how good of a deal I get on it

Dustin Cantrell · Apr 9, 2013

Loaded Montana Gold JHPs because I was loading for a Glock with a stock barrel and didn't feel like trying lead in that pistol. Now that I've got a pistol for competition that has a standard rifled barrel, I wanted to try some moly coated lead bullets for significant savings. Ordered some Bear Creek bullets yesterday because they were available. I've read some good things about them. We shall see. I've also loaded Missouri Bullet Co and J&K lead bullets. Bought them because they were cheap. I don't favor them because they lead my barrels. I don't necessarily think it's because they're not jacketed but because they're too hard for the application.

I wanted to start casting last year. Couldn't find lead locally. If you can find lead cheap or free, I think it is worth it. Paying for alloy and then casting a common bullet and spending a lot of time doing so makes it not worth my time. I'm still on the lookout for cheap lead in case I can ever gather enough to make casting worth my while.

jtischauser · Apr 9, 2013

I like Federal 115's because they used to come in a box of 50 all ready loaded at Walmart.

jeremys · Apr 9, 2013

Lol.

Maybe someday again...

Jon-Luc Ruben · Apr 9, 2013

I shoot lead bullets...because I shoot a lot...and they are the cheapest I can find locally when I'm home. I just ordered 5k. I don't really worry about lead fouling because I don't have polygonal rifling, but that being said I still give it a thorough cleaning after a long day at the range. I want to get into casting, just can't really do it in my apartment when I'm at school

dennishoddy · Apr 9, 2013

I pretty much stick with lead. Its the cheapest, and I've had a little leading in my barrel, but that is what comes with the territory. At the ranges we shoot USPSA, whaterver is the most accurate doesn't really apply. We aren't shooting for group size.

drmitchgibson · Apr 9, 2013

Price. I've been concerned about lead exposure from the beginning, but my demand for more and more shooting supplies tempted me to almost buy lead bullets for this year. I ended up with Precision Bullets, and they're pretty good. Slightly less good than Bayou Bullets, and that's because they smoke just a bit more. I also had to change my die settings quite a bit because of the different bullet profile.

Corey · Apr 9, 2013

Price, I shoot lead but have bought HP, plated & moly coated bullets because I got a great price

poopgiggle · Apr 10, 2013

Mitch Gibson said:
Price. I've been concerned about lead exposure from the beginning, but my demand for more and more shooting supplies tempted me to almost buy lead bullets for this year. I ended up with Precision Bullets, and they're pretty good. Slightly less good than Bayou Bullets, and that's because they smoke just a bit more. I also had to change my die settings quite a bit because of the different bullet profile.

Some D-Lead hand soap after reloading and shooting should take care of any lead exposure issues from bullets.

Also your primers probably use lead styphnate anyways and that's a way bigger concern for lead exposure than cast bullets IIRC

drmitchgibson · Apr 10, 2013

poopgiggle said:
Some D-Lead hand soap after reloading and shooting should take care of any lead exposure issues from bullets.

Also your primers probably use lead styphnate anyways and that's a way bigger concern for lead exposure than cast bullets IIRC

It is, and I've stopped using a tumbler to clean brass to avoid the dust it generates. Quite frankly it's night-and-day better using water with a cleaning agent and cleaning a few thousand cases at a time. The tumbler just cleans the lube off my prepped rifle brass now.

Bob Sanders · Apr 10, 2013

Where is DLead soap available?

poopgiggle · Apr 11, 2013

I got mine from Dillon.

Keep the hand wipes in your range bag too.

jeremys · Apr 11, 2013

Mitch Gibson said:
It is, and I've stopped using a tumbler to clean brass to avoid the dust it generates. Quite frankly it's night-and-day better using water with a cleaning agent and cleaning a few thousand cases at a time. The tumbler just cleans the lube off my prepped rifle brass now.

What cleaning agent are you using? I assume you have a utility tub or sink you are using. I am interested in how to do this.

jeremys · Apr 11, 2013

BobS761 said:
Where is DLead soap available?

I didn't know there was a soap, I use the wipes.

I guess I don't like the idea of a soap and using a sink?

Three Guns · Apr 14, 2013

I have been using Rainer Ballistics for about eight years now. I was shooting ammo loaded with lead bullets over Unique powder but it was to smoky. I was shooting a match in NC one summer and it was humid with no wind. One stage was on a very small bay that had divider walls between the bays. After a few shots I had a smoke screen so thick that I could not see my targets. It looked like I had been shooting black powder! I switched to Rainers shortly after that and haven't looked back.

Midway was a very good supplier of Rainers until recently. To sweeten the deal they would put them on sale almost every month. I shoot them out of Glocks, STI, and Springfield Armory with no issues. They are as accurate as anything that I have shot.

Tom

kdf9511 · Apr 14, 2013

Jesse Tischauser said:
I like Federal 115's because they used to come in a box of 50 all ready loaded at Walmart.

Same here but I'll get the Winchester or Tulammo too.

Carmanml · Apr 19, 2013

Jesse Tischauser said:
I like Federal 115's because they used to come in a box of 50 all ready loaded at Walmart.

Wait, you mean they make bullets that are already loaded? What a novel idea! I wonder if there's any market for it...

drmitchgibson · Apr 20, 2013

jeremys said:
What cleaning agent are you using? I assume you have a utility tub or sink you are using. I am interested in how to do this.

I'm just using liquid dish soap and hot tap water. Put a few thousand brass in a 5 gallon bucket and agitate by hand every 10 minutes. Drain and rinse after an hour. Started drying on cookie sheets in the oven at 250 degrees, but that was too inconvenient, so I lay a towel out on the trampoline in the backyard and let them air dry. Not a spotless cleaning, but better than tumbling. Quite frankly this is all less time-consuming than using the tumbler and having to use the media separator and then individually dump the media out of any cases that didn't dump it while in the media separator.

I got some citric acid to start trying out also, from the Mediterranean Imports store. According to the internet the brass will be very clean after a soak in diluted citric acid. http://castboolits.gunloads.com/showthread.php?83572-Citric-acid-brass-cleaner

Eventually I plan on getting a cement mixer like GT did, and maybe even using the stainless steel pin media.