Casting Revolver Bullets

I cast competition-quality BPCR rifle bullets and have more than a few trophies to show for it. If one of my big .40 or .45 caliber bullets drops from its mold with rounded base or driving bands, it’s discarded, likewise if it has the slightest wrinkle. From my especially good single-cavity molds, weight variation for keepers is plus/minus a half-grain but usually it’s less. Lastly, a casting session nets me about 105 to 110 bullets. Then I quit, for with fatigue I tend to get sloppy. Bullets are poured by the dipper method with corresponding lead-melting furnace.

At the other end of the bullet-casting spectrum are revolver bullets. My criteria there is totally different. Rounded driving bands are okay but nay-nay for bullet bases. Wrinkles are just fine. For revolver bullets I usually want molds with three or four cavities; always casting with two simultaneously. (I will talk about a couple exceptions shortly.) Single cavity bullet molds are ridiculously slow for revolver bullets and weighing them is a waste of time. There is no set limit on a casting session; many hundreds are desirable. A bottom pour furnace is a necessity.

Double Your Pleasure

Many decades long gone, I’ve forgotten which gun’riter wrote about casting with two molds but he knew his business. The process is simple. Hold one of the multiple cavity molds under the lead furnaces pour spout until each sprue hole overfills. Set it aside so the alloy will cool as the second mold is filled similarly. Knock open mold number one so the bullets drop on a soft pad, i.e., old towel. Refill it as mold number two cools. Repeat ad infinitum. Once I borrowed a friend’s triple-cavity mold identical to mine and timed myself. In an hour after the lead had been brought to temperature I made 600 perfectly good revolver bullets.

Here’s a couple helpful ideas for speed casting. With those multiple cavity molds, especially if they are for heavy .40 caliber or higher bullets, the blocks will begin to overheat rather quickly. If casting is continued lead smears will form atop blocks and under sprue plates. A way to avoid this is to buy a high-speed manicurist’s fan. Set the freshly-filled mold directly in front of it while attending to the second one, speeding up the cooling process immensely.

Which One?

A favorite question of those considering casting their own revolver bullets is, “What shape of bullet is the best: WC (wadcutter), SWC (semiwadcutter), (RN) roundnose, or (RN/FP) roundnose flatpoint?” Back when I started casting revolver bullets in the mid-1960s you were considered a true dummy if you weren’t shooting SWCs. It took me several decades to finally figure out bullet designs should fit shooting purpose.

Speaking in general terms WCs are for paper punching, SWCs are for paper punching or use on living tissue, RNs are good for revolver competition where speed counts because they will load quickly in cylinders from speed loaders. Now my preferred revolver bullet shape is RN/FP because so many of the revolver cartridges I favor are also chambered in lever guns. I want to handload bullets that work well in both revolvers and rifles/carbines.

Raw Material

To end, here’s a word about alloys. I’ve tried everything and everything will suffice to one degree or the other. Because I buy blends of pure lead and pure tin in a ratio of one part tin to 20 lead for BPCR competition, I started trying it in sixguns. It works perfectly up to about 1,200 fps with plain base bullets and another 100-150 fps with gas check designs, making my life a bit easier.

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