I don't have any desire to make my own cast bullets but I do want to learn about loading and using them ..... both for lite practice loads and for hunting loads in my .450 Matlin bolt-action rifle. Are there any good books? Good web-sites?

Can anyone suggest some good bullet makers for the purpose mentioned above? Thanks.

There's a handful of books suitable for you to learn about the loading and shooting of cast bullets. Lyman's reloading manual on cast bullets has been around the longest, I think RCBS now has one also, Handloader magazine has a book on cast bullets. With the exception of having to expand the cast mouth a bit more then jacketed bullets there's not really a whole lot of difference.
A good web site for cast bullets is Beartooth Bullets. Yahoo has a cast bullet group CB-L.
Jim

DB Bill, cast performance, beartooth bullets, these are the only bullets i have paid for. they are very good quality. just make sure you have the right diameter even for your caliber.my 458 wm, needs .4605- .461" diameter or else the bullets will tumble very badly.
beartoth has a great forum, very knowledgable folks as well. a christian base of folks.also john taffins sixguns, very good reading.
as for not wanting to do your own casting, that will change soon enough. halfbreed

Bill,

I have done some casting but nowhere near what some of these blokes have done. Just a s all gun related aspects you can get into it at various levels. Sort of like you can go shooting with a Remington 710 in 30/06 or you can choose a Lazzeroni rifle in 300 Patriot

45 is easy as Lee make moulds which are cheap and easy to use with the aluminium blocks. Hornady make gas checks which a priced like primers.

Gas checks are good because they make seating bullets easy.

Places like RCBS make a lubricator/sizer press. Bascially, this runs the bullet through a die, seats and crimps the gas check and applies the lubricant all in one go.

Where Lee moulds are good is that because they are so cheap you can buy 2 or 3 of them and one might cast the bullet that is most accurate in your rifle.

For metal, the easiest way is to buy some ingots of pre mixed alloy, such as linotype, which is about 85% lead, 10 or 12% Antimony and the balance in tin.

It is suprisingly easy to get quite good functional results quickly. Just like a rifle, from then on the law of diminushing returns comes into play. I think records for the Cast Bullet Association are 10 shot groups of half inch at 100 yards.

I was going to move back into cast bullet shooting but since I am getting the Corbin jacketed bullet making gear I am also getting the die setup for sawging bullets for paper patching.

Depending on the freebore, it is hard to imagine a better candidate for both cast and paper patch bullets than a bolt action 450 Marlin.

Mike

D B BILL DO YOU KNOW ANYONE WHO RELOADS??
THE VERY BEST WAY I KNOW TO LEARN HOW TO RELOAD METALLIC CARTRAGES IS TO HAVE AN EXPEIRENCED FRIEND SHOW YOU HANDS ON .THATS THE WAY I LEARNED . I WAS TOLD STUFF BY MY FRIEND THAT YOU JUST DONT FIND IN MANUALS.THERES LOTS OF SUBTLE STUFF THAT IS IMPORTANT TO KNOW.MY FRIEND WAS AN AVID IHMSA SHOOTER AND WE LOADED LOTS OF SHELLS TOGETHER.I LOAD 38 SPL .357 MAG AND 9MM. HARLEY TAUGHT ME THINGS THAT MADE MORE SENSE WHEN YOU READ A MANUAL YOU UNDERSTAND THINGS MUCH BETTER .

IF YOU ARE LUCKY ENOUGH FIND A PATIENT RELOADING MENTOR THATS THE WAY TO LEARN.

A .357MAG CAN BE YOUR BEST FRIEND.

Lymans "Cast Bullet Handbook" is the best book on the subject I've seen. I'm not talking about the new one, I havn't seen it yet (I suspect it's also good, Sam Fadala has been shooting cast for a long while). The ealier version is still easy to find.

[ 08-20-2002, 14:16: Message edited by: John Y Cannuck ]

Get a copy of Veral Smith's (LEAD BULLET TECHNOLOGIES - LBT) book, "Jacketed Performance with Cast Bullets". This book tells you what can be accomplished using cast bullets, and how to do it. LBT also has some excellent bullet mould designs in certain calibers, and a company called Cast Performance Bullets makes some of them that you can purchase. There is nothing basically wrong with the Lyman book either, but I have a quarrel with their touting the use of small charges of fast powder in rifle calibers for cast bullets. In my experience, it is better to use slow or medium-burning powders that will occupy more volume in rifle cartridges, producing more uniform ignition and pressures, plus accelerating cast bullets more gradually (gently). This launches them in more pristine condition, enhancing accuracy with the softer projectiles.