Casting .177 pellets

[SriramK]

I came across this video while I was looking at a few hot melt guns on EBay.com:
[youtube][/youtube]

I was wondering if it's possible to make .177 pellets from these. Also, what's the legal implication of casting your own .177 pellets? Or with air rifles is it "Shoot whatever you want, even stones"?

Hot melt guns are about $1.88 including shipping:
http://www.ebay.com/itm/160870909343

The hot melt glue sticks are about $1 for three sticks from Ebay, might be locally available for cheaper too. Just wondering.

[timmy]

Sriram: I do wonder what this guy is doing, as inexpensive reusable plastic ammo powered by just a primer has been available for many years.

Anyway, that said, he is going through an awful lot of trouble, placing the blocks in the refrigerator for 5 minutes and all, just to make two bullets. Of course, they are reusable, however.

I have never tried to cast hot glue. However, I have cast my share of bullets. I will tell you that, the smaller the bullet, the more difficult it is to cast. You are talking about casting a 4.5mm bullet, and whether you are casting it from lead or hot wax, you are going to have your hands full, trying to get a good usable bullet out of many tries.

I don't know where you would find a mold for a 4.5mm pellet. A round ball would be extremely difficult to cast in such a small size. My take would be that getting a useable pellet that has a more complex shape, like that of a hollow base pellet, would be almost impossible with lead and that hot wax might even be worse.

You would be a true pioneer in my mind, if you could make this work for a 4.5mm pellet!

Just my opinion, of course.

[SriramK]

Sriram: I do wonder what this guy is doing, as inexpensive reusable plastic ammo powered by just a primer has been available for many years.

Anyway, that said, he is going through an awful lot of trouble, placing the blocks in the refrigerator for 5 minutes and all, just to make two bullets. Of course, they are reusable, however.

I have never tried to cast hot glue. However, I have cast my share of bullets. I will tell you that, the smaller the bullet, the more difficult it is to cast. You are talking about casting a 4.5mm bullet, and whether you are casting it from lead or hot wax, you are going to have your hands full, trying to get a good usable bullet out of many tries.

I don't know where you would find a mold for a 4.5mm pellet. A round ball would be extremely difficult to cast in such a small size. My take would be that getting a useable pellet that has a more complex shape, like that of a hollow base pellet, would be almost impossible with lead and that hot wax might even be worse.

You would be a true pioneer in my mind, if you could make this work for a 4.5mm pellet!

Just my opinion, of course.

Come to think of it, I think the weight of the hot glue pellets might be too little to get any sort of accuracy or value for effort I was just wondering if anyone had tried it. I might try it if and when I get a hot glue gun.

[Mark]

Just happened across this interesting contraption while surfing the internet:

http://www.traderscity.com/board/produc ... iy-127897/


The pliers are used to manufacture air-gun pellets with lead wire or fuse wire. The tooling pliers making air-gun lead pellet is consist of more than 50 parts. Besides making lead pellet, it can press other lead products. With the special pliers, to make the lead pellet, its raw material is lead wire or fuse wire. Usually in one minute normal people can make 15-20 pellets.