Your brain is your best safety equipment

Take total control of your projectiles by casting your own!
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Pb2au
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Your brain is your best safety equipment

Post by Pb2au »

I was casting yesterday morning. All was well in the universe, radio low in the background, work area nice and clean. Nothing underfoot to cause chaos. Safety glasses on.
I run an older Lyman pot that has a large shelf on top. I keep one ingot on there to preheat while I am casting. when the pot runs low, I can add the ingot and I get less of a temperature drop.
I think you can see where this is going......
The time came to add my ingot. I set my mold on the trivet, and promptly picked up the pre-heated ingot of lead. With my bare fingers........
I got the ingot up about two inches, my figures said that they were done being subjected to stupidity and promptly dropped the ingot into the pot. I got one tiny splash of lead on my lifting hand, about the size of dime. Now I have a dime sized blister where that was.....
So kids, the moral of the story is;
Take your time. This is not a race.
Be careful.
Where the proper PPE.
I like to think that I learn the hard lessons so I can share them with others.

P.S.
The most irritating thing about this was that adjacent to my pot is my pair of channel locks I use to add ingots to the pot.
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pricedo
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Re: Your brain is your best safety equipment

Post by pricedo »

I don't cast cause I've always been leery of molten lead and lead vapors around the house and quite frankly I don't have the time to develop the skill-set to do it properly.
I've been buying my lead bullets in bulk or loaded in factory or custom ammo rather than casting them myself but the trick is getting them the right size cause apparently all barrels are slightly different even of guns from the same make and model.
Size (diameter) seems to be more critical with cast lead bullets than jacketed ones.
I have observed that most jacketed bullets are manufactured over-diameter for caliber.
This makes sense as the barrel rifling has to get a good "bite" on the bullet to impart the proper spin for stability in flight.
I don't know anyone with the cottage-infrastructure to make their own jacketed bullets at home and the generic off the shelf bullets seem to work well in most off the rack guns of the designated caliber.
If they didn't it would have become apparent long ago and be well documented yet I don't hear a lot of "chatter" about sizing jacketed bullets to make them shoot more accurately while slugging gun barrels and proper bullet sizing appears to be a topic of constant discussion in regards to cast lead bullets on this board and elsewhere.
See if you can wrap your brain around that. :mrgreen:
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Re: Your brain is your best safety equipment

Post by Missionary »

Greetings
Been around casting since I was 4 as my dad and his Navy buddy were casters.
Learned early on... cover whatever part of your body you canot afford to have put out of action. So leather gloves, long sleeves, long pants, heavy socks and leather shoes or boots are always worn. Large lens glasses or face shield with a hat. Leather apron is also used if I will be sitting. I do not care how badly I may swet . My hide matters alot more.
And for why I cast... I shoot some odd calibers you will not find ammo to shoot and not easily found boolits. I refuse to be at the mercy of others who may have to stop casting. Transportation will break down. Shorteges happen. But when they do.. I am still going to be shooting and certainly not feeling sorry about the situation.
The 4th Of July means Independence to me... and that includes my shooting.
If you are really serious about shooting cast boolits try the Castboolits site. All you will ever need to know about diameters, hardness, base prerrure, barrel twist.... has or is being wrote about.
Mike in Peru
Way down south in Arequipa, Peru till June 2020.
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Pb2au
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Re: Your brain is your best safety equipment

Post by Pb2au »

Castboolits is where I really learned the nuts and bolts of boolit casting. There is not any witchcraft or elaborate rite to perform to get a cast boolit to work.
I agree, independence is why I cast as well. I make my boolits. And that pleases me.

Anyway, back on topic, my point of my post was simple. Through my pain, I hope another will take pause and get the correct safety gear and procedures down.
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Re: Your brain is your best safety equipment

Post by Ranch Dog »

Pb2au wrote:Anyway, back on topic, my point of my post was simple. Through my pain, I hope another will take pause and get the correct safety gear and procedures down.
I always appreciate the personal experiences and heed the lessons learned. Thanks.
Michael
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