I've been collecting components in preparation for reloading 10mm. Over the past month I've decided on casting my own bullets for multiple reasons, the main being cost. I've got a Lee 175 TC .401 aluminum mold and it's been working well. With some guidance from The_shadow i've been able to cast roughly 250 bullets from the mold using straight wheel weights air cooled. Have not decided on lube yet. I do not have a scale yet so I do not know exact weights but they have been dropping .401-.402 regularly so I am happy with that.

Now, I've been getting anxious for my reloading equipment to arrive (it's in shipping as I type) and after reading some posts about these hot glue bullets I decided last night I'd give it a try as to have some fun with my mold and hold me over until I can load my own real bullets. Just figured I'd share my experience.

I was using just regular old hot glue from the craft store in an old glue gun. Lubed my mold with some Hoppes #9, pumped it full of glue, rubber banded the handles together and stuck it in the fridge for about 5 mins. Once hard I cut the sprues, popped the newly formed gloolits in the freezer while I filled the mold back up and repeated. To load the round I put just a touch of oil on the gloolit, pushed all the way into the unprimed case, then seated a winchester large pistol primer (carefully, with saftey glasses) into the case using a C-clamp with the case mouth end in an 11mm socket. Worked pretty good, though crude.

I loaded up the gloolit round into a 1006 mag and closed the slide on it to chamber. Took it to the basement and from about 15ft it went through 6 layers of cardboard. I was pretty impressed with the "power" and even the accuracy. The recovered gloolit is also impressive as it was undamaged, just a little charred. I also tried a few in my G22 with equal success. All in all it was a fun experiment and made for an entertaining evening 

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I played with them several years ago.  I had less success with my mold release agent, and first glued my then new Mountain Mold shut.  Once I got it open the gloolits looked fine.  I pressed them into a primed case and headed to the basement with one of my 10's.  I don't remember which.

I do remember that they were much louder than I expected.  I fired into a clothes basket of dirty clothes.  Several were not immediately found, as they had reached a high enough temp to stick to fabric.  They were discovered when the owner of the garment they stuck to put them on.

If I were single, I would expect I would spend many hours in my basement shooting them.  As it is, it was a diverting afternoon.

The Hot Glue projectiles look great, but to start casting lead alloy again it will take a good cleaning to degrease them, carburetor cleaner can be you're friend.

I had often thought about melting plastic soda bottles to make some plastic projectiles using my molds, but never got around to doing this project.

Quote from: sqlbullet on March 05 2014 12:43:00 PM MST
I played with them several years ago.  I had less success with my mold release agent, and first glued my then new Mountain Mold shut.  Once I got it open the gloolits looked fine.  I pressed them into a primed case and headed to the basement with one of my 10's.  I don't remember which.

I do remember that they were much louder than I expected.  I fired into a clothes basket of dirty clothes.  Several were not immediately found, as they had reached a high enough temp to stick to fabric.  They were discovered when the owner of the garment they stuck to put them on.

If I were single, I would expect I would spend many hours in my basement shooting them.  As it is, it was a diverting afternoon.

That's pretty funny. I'd read on here somewhere that you'd glued one shut, that was my reason enough to be liberal with the hoppes. I bet getting that thing apart was fun!

I agree, they were a lot louder than I thought they'd be, the 10mm being louder than the .40sw shot out of the g22. It's fine though, if I ever use them as a non lethal alternative to the feral cats around, I'll have a nice noisy crack to go along with the sting I put on it haha

Quote from: The_Shadow on March 05 2014 12:58:12 PM MST
The Hot Glue projectiles look great, but to start casting lead alloy again it will take a good cleaning to degrease them, carburetor cleaner can be you're friend.

I had often thought about melting plastic soda bottles to make some plastic projectiles using my molds, but never got around to doing this project.

Indeed. I was pretty liberal with it but it should clean up nicely, I've been using rubbing alcohol to clean it before casting lead but the carb cleaner will probably to a better job after this little oil endeavor, good call

It would be interesting to do something with plastic bottles, I bet that'd be tricky and turn into a big "screw this" goopy mess in a hurry   

Quote from: BT8850 on March 05 2014 12:09:59 PM MST
I've got a Lee 175 TC .401 aluminum mold and it's been working well. With some guidance from The_shadow i've been able to cast roughly 250 bullets from the mold using straight wheel weights air cooled. Have not decided on lube yet.

That's actually a pretty decent bullet. It's a little better if you ream out the bevel base so it casts a straight plain base.

For lube - I highly recommend looking into powder coating. It's cheaper than anything except Lee's tumble lube, and works so much better than any other lube method I've tried, that I've quit lubing bullets completely. It takes about the same amount of time as tumble lubing, and less work than conventional lubing.

Quote from: Yondering on March 06 2014 10:40:40 PM MST

That's actually a pretty decent bullet. It's a little better if you ream out the bevel base so it casts a straight plain base.

For lube - I highly recommend looking into powder coating. It's cheaper than anything except Lee's tumble lube, and works so much better than any other lube method I've tried, that I've quit lubing bullets completely. It takes about the same amount of time as tumble lubing, and less work than conventional lubing.

That's good to know, I  bought it mostly because it was a cheap mold and I didn't want to spend a bunch if it wasn't for me but its quite fun, i'm glad its a good bullet. Whats the benefit of plain base over bevel base? I've attached a pic of a couple boolits i've cast, mostly just for the 'look what I did' feel, they're nothing super impressive but it is satifying  

As for the powdercoating, that's what I've been considering. I've read your thread on here and read a bit on Cast boolits about it and it seems like the method is a win win all around. Being pretty green to the casting/reloading process I don't have any experience with pan/tumble lubing but have heard many gripes about it and powedercoating seems like a really good way to avoid the mess while getting equal or better lube properties.

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I just did this:


I took these:
http://www.midwayusa.com/product/740745/speer-plastic-bullets-44-caliber-429-diameter-box-of-50

Chucked them into my Drill-press and turned them down to (approx 0.40) fit the Bore
And basically the same with .357 Speer Plastic Bullets for the 9mm

A friend of mine has a screw machine at his shop so we decided to make our own plastic bullets. Depending on the plastic we could find some shattered on impact, some were wildly inaccurate, and some were just right. Used them to shoot rats in his haymow at night with our 45 ACP's. Great fun and very cheap to play with. In the don't try this at home category, we cast up some graphite filled epoxy bullets. They were very nasty when they hit, think FMJ with a chance of shattering into glass like shards. PLEASE DONT TRY TO DUPLICATE THESE EXPERIMENTS.

Quote from: BT8850 on March 07 2014 06:26:33 AM MST

That's good to know, I  bought it mostly because it was a cheap mold and I didn't want to spend a bunch if it wasn't for me but its quite fun, i'm glad its a good bullet. Whats the benefit of plain base over bevel base? I've attached a pic of a couple boolits i've cast, mostly just for the 'look what I did' feel, they're nothing super impressive but it is satifying  

The bevel vs plain base is less of an issue when powdercoating; in a lube-sizer press the bevel base allows lube under the bullet and makes a gooey mess. The plain base does offer a slight edge on accuracy.
I highly recommend getting that same mold in a 6 cavity version; mine is a real pleasure to cast with, and I can easily end up with 500-1000 cast and powdercoated bullets in an evening. Then, when you're ready for it, send me the two cavity mold for a hollow point conversion. 

Those cast bullets look OK, although the edges of the lube grooves look a little rounded. Try a little more heat in the pot (make sure to use a thermometer for best results). I recommend smoking the mold cavities with a bic lighter (only use a butane lighter, never the wick Zippo style, match, or candle!); this helps the bullets fill out in the mold better, and makes the mold less sensitive to temperature. (Smoking the mold has nothing to do with mold release, as some think, and is only for better fill-out.)

Quote from: DenStinett on March 07 2014 11:43:18 AM MST

I took these:
http://www.midwayusa.com/product/740745/speer-plastic-bullets-44-caliber-429-diameter-box-of-50

Chucked them into my Drill-press and turned them down to (approx 0.40) fit the Bore
And basically the same with .357 Speer Plastic Bullets for the 9mm

Quote from: denclaste on March 07 2014 06:24:59 PM MST
A friend of mine has a screw machine at his shop so we decided to make our own plastic bullets. Depending on the plastic we could find some shattered on impact, some were wildly inaccurate, and some were just right. Used them to shoot rats in his haymow at night with our 45 ACP's. Great fun and very cheap to play with. In the don't try this at home category, we cast up some graphite filled epoxy bullets. They were very nasty when they hit, think FMJ with a chance of shattering into glass like shards. PLEASE DONT TRY TO DUPLICATE THESE EXPERIMENTS.

Loooks like you guys have done some experimenting too, I like it. How do the plastic bullets work for you DenStinett? Can they be reused?

The epoxy bullets sound like an interesting concept dencastle, although I'll be sure to follow your disclaimer and not mess with them myself .

Quote from: Yondering on March 07 2014 09:55:41 PM MST
The bevel vs plain base is less of an issue when powdercoating; in a lube-sizer press the bevel base allows lube under the bullet and makes a gooey mess. The plain base does offer a slight edge on accuracy.
I highly recommend getting that same mold in a 6 cavity version; mine is a real pleasure to cast with, and I can easily end up with 500-1000 cast and powdercoated bullets in an evening. Then, when you're ready for it, send me the two cavity mold for a hollow point conversion. 

Those cast bullets look OK, although the edges of the lube grooves look a little rounded. Try a little more heat in the pot (make sure to use a thermometer for best results). I recommend smoking the mold cavities with a bic lighter (only use a butane lighter, never the wick Zippo style, match, or candle!); this helps the bullets fill out in the mold better, and makes the mold less sensitive to temperature. (Smoking the mold has nothing to do with mold release, as some think, and is only for better fill-out.)

Good to know. I don't plan on a lubrisizer any time soon so I'll probably leave the mold as is and go the powdercoat route. Its good to hear the 6 cavity mold works well for you, I was curious, and for the price as well as tripling the boolit output, it seems its a great option. It would be really nice to be able to ramp up production like that!! I will keep the HP conversion in mind, for sure.

My next investment in casting is an actual electric pot, my current method is crude to say the least, think Mel Gibson in 'The Patriot', only differences are my flame is propane induced from a burner I made, my 'ladle' is a steel kitchen measuring spoon, and i'm melting wheel weight muffin ingots instead of little figurines LOL. It works but definitely can use improvement in just about every aspect.

You are correct, the lube grooves tend to get a little rounded on me, Shadow also pointed this out when I sent him the pics. He made similar reccommendations with regard to heat and smoking. Given my set up, it's difficult to tell precisely what my heat is and be consistent, a thermometer is also in the near future. I judge heat by using the same settings on my regulator and same pot each time and when the ingots are completely melted, I'll flux it and make sure the sawdust/wax flames up, if it doesn't, i'll scoop it out, bump the heat up a tad, and try again until it flames, then start the casting procedure.

As far as smoking the mold, given I have the open flame from the burner at hand, every 3 or 4 casts I would hold the mold open exposing the cavities to the flame for a few seconds before filling it. I've noticed that indeed it does help fill them out, and you are correct i've noticed no difference in mold release due to the smoking. Sometimes this will produce soot in the cavities, sometimes heavy, sometimes barely any. It seems there are many oppinions online about soot, to each their own.

Also, i've read that some have had alot of trouble with boolits releasing from LEE molds like mine, Idk if I just got luck or what but mine fall out 99% of the time as soon as the mold opens or with a light shake of the mold. I haven't had to do any polishing of the cavities or anything like that, it just works and I am happy with that!

Also worth mentioning, they are dropping .401-.4015, straight wheel weights air cooled, not sure on weight just yet, my reloading stuff came in thursday but I haven't set up the scale yet  but i'm pretty happy with this.

lastly, all this lead business is done outside, fan blowing, leather gloves, saftey glasses, long pants and sleeves, etc. and all my equipment is stored in the basement in a large plastic tote, saftey first!


After all of that, the question now is, what brand powder coat is recommended for those of you that've experimented? I know there was debate over color choice, material, supplier etc? What's worked the best for you in 10mm Yondering?

Quote from: BT8850 on March 08 2014 07:53:40 AM MST
How do the plastic bullets work for you DenStinett? Can they be reused?

They work as well as the 44 and 357s I have shot
I have never used the 45s, but that's the idea here
Use the 9mm or 10mm Brass and standard Primers
And yes, I have reused the ones that do not show any deformation

When using the primer to power those you may want to open up the primer holes a little larger gives better performance from the primer...

Quote from: The_Shadow on March 08 2014 07:42:11 PM MST
When using the primer to power those you may want to open up the primer holes a little larger gives better performance from the primer...

Very true
That also keeps the Primer from Backing out and possibly causing ejection issues
OH, and om the 10mm, you need "Neck-down" to hold the Bullet in place, then flare the Case Mouth back to the 0.42" for proper Headspacing