I'll dig my stuff out and get a photo taken today or tomorrow.PT7 wrote: ↑Tue Dec 03, 2019 9:19 amIt would be interesting to see a photo of your RB casting equipment, Dave. Is that doable? I'm curious as to what you used. And maybe a brief explanation about the tools? TIA. I see that MrEd noted some of the equipment he had used, too. Maybe between his list and your photo I'll get an idea on initial RB casting.
One fellow from the ML forum I write on answered my same inquiry, and said it cost him "probably less than $100 to get started...used a small cast iron pot (bought new), ladle, mold and old naphtha stove." What I need to follow up on is that he said this was to "get started." Wonder what else was/is needed?
I did some playing around with numbers for the 1000 lbs of pure lead you all purchased. I might be doing this incorrectly, but the results seem reasonable. 1000 lbs = 453,592 grams. One .490 RB is 177 grams. So I did the division resulting in a little more than 2550 cast RBs. Sound about right? I now have just over 300 RBs in stock to start out the next year, and will see how long it takes to shoot those. Anyway, I hope I got the estimated numbers close and don't end up too ! Thanks for your comments.
PT7
Your figure of 2550 balls in a 1000 lbs seemed low. Looked up the weight of a 50 cal. rd. ball and it's 177 grains instead of grams. 1000lbs.= 7,000,000 grains so 39,548 50 cal. balls is 1000 lbs. so my share of 333 lbs is 13,182 50 cal. rds. Since my rifle and pistol are both 45 cal. it would be 16,317 rds. That's a lot of BP shooting.That's 266 hours of shooting a round every minute.