Author Topic: Cost of Lead vs. Jacketed (Read 478 times)

Castaway · « **on:** January 02, 2005, 09:17:09 AM »

Just got my Midway and am I a little confused! Winchester 0.452", 230 grain jacketed bullets are on sale for $60/1,000, Ranier plated 230 grainers are $66/1,000. Checked the price of Laser Cast and they're $60/1,000 and Meister cast bullets are $90/1,000. Looked at 45-70 bullets and I saw the same trend. Being as how I cast my own, I was surprised at the cost of cast bullets. Doesn't make sense to me that jacketed bullets would be cheaper than cast bullets. Can anyone explain why lead cost so much?

ricciardelli · « **Reply #1 on:** January 02, 2005, 11:54:07 AM »

Labor

Dusty Miller · « **Reply #2 on:** January 02, 2005, 12:15:31 PM »

Price of lead going up because of the war.

Castaway · « **Reply #3 on:** January 02, 2005, 12:49:42 PM »

Dusty, I have a hard time buying that. If that was the case, jacketed bullletes would be higher proportionately as well.

Patriot_1776 · « **Reply #4 on:** January 02, 2005, 01:14:56 PM »

With Laser Cast, and other specialty cast bullet mfgs, they use different components that I believe improve bullet concentricity and accuracy. As for Laser Cast, they used a small amount of silver in their bullets to give them a slightly higher hardness factor. You can see too they advertise as talking about " Shoot The Real Silver Bullet!!" I still have over 400 bullets in my garage from my first box of 500 I bought, and they seem to do pretty good in my 45 Colts. I just haven't had time to shoot them.

Quote

Price of lead going up because of the war.

DM,

Sorry, but I believe we have MORE bullets in this country than we know what to do with. Which may be a good thing for us reloaders! Patriot

Duffy · « **Reply #5 on:** January 02, 2005, 09:02:16 PM »

Hmmm, So I guess I got a good deal on those WW .451 230JHP that I bought a few years ago for 75.00 for 1850. Think the 230 FMJ's were 62.00 for 1850 and that included shipping.

Mikey · « **Reply #6 on:** January 03, 2005, 03:02:14 AM »

Guys, I'm going with Steve (Ricciardelli) on this one. Most of the average jacketed bullets are machine mass produced from one desgin or another. Most of the cast bullets you can purchase are literally handmade, adding the labor cost to the end product.

But, the most important factor that may increase the price of cast bullets is the design - you simply cannot purchase wadcutter or semi-wadcutter designs in jacketed bullets (that I am aware of). You cannot purchase a particular type of round nose flat point bullet in many of the different bore diameters in jacketed that you can in cast.

And dog gone it, if anyone out there has seen that slightly ogived flat nose cast slug for the 45 Schofield and knows who makes it willya please lemme know. Thanks. Mikey.

Questor · « **Reply #7 on:** January 03, 2005, 04:24:43 AM »

It looks like your sources for cast bullets are bad. I'm used to paying about 1/3 the price of jacketed bullets.

Mac11700 · « **Reply #8 on:** January 03, 2005, 08:06:57 AM »

Actually it's 3 reasons.....the price of lead has skyrocketed...and everyones labor cost has gone up some.. and the cost of fuel to deliver it has gone up,and up,and up..all one has to do look at the price of lead shot these last couple of years to see how much more it cost for a 25lb bag...and the fuel cost...well ...that's obvious..and labor cost will go up all the time too...

Mac

Black Jaque Janaviac · « **Reply #9 on:** January 04, 2005, 06:39:18 AM »

The price of lead don't make sense, since jacketed bullets use lead too. So the price of those should increase just the same.

Also, cost of fuel should make both jacketed and cast increase, since jacketed bullets get shipped on the same roads cast bullets get shipped on.

The thing that catches my eye is you stated that the JHPs were "on sale". So are you comparing a "sale" price for JHPs to regular priced cast/swaged? You're listing $0.06/bullet, that's pretty good for jacketed.

It does seem that the price for cast is a bit higher though.