Disappointing Book
Despite its title, this is not a handbook about cast bullets. It is first and foremost a handbook about Lyman reloading products. Second, it is a long list of popular pistol and rifle rounds as cast in lead. Beyond that it is a random assortment of poorly structured and brief, incomplete descriptions of elements of lead bullet casting. Some specific criticisms: 1) It has few European cartridges and no (British, German, Swedish, Austrian, French) Black Powder Express calibers. 2) Nothing about paper patching, which has seen a resurgence because it works very well, and a lot of, if not most 1870s-1890s black powder guns shot paper patch cast lead bullets. 3) Unbelievably lame and incomplete lead alloy list, missing critical field characteristics. I was expecting some discussion of the relative merits of 50:1, 40:1, 30:1, 20:1, 16:1, and 12:1, and perhaps a discussion of their different purposes i.e. thin skinned or thick skinned game, at what ranges, their hardness and weight out of the same mould relative to one another, etc. There are some lead alloys that are predominant or most popular (40:1, 20:1, 16:1), because they are very practical, and there is zero recognition of this here. Instead the authors treat us to their own narrow interest in very hard Linotype. 3) Lots of wasted pages and space on scientific nonsense about melting lead. I have a graduate degree in statistics and economics and a lot of interest in this subject, and I still fell asleep after the first paragraph about the physics of melting lead. This section is unreadable, as well as pointless and useless for practical lead casters. 4) Very little written about mould types or materials i.e. relative merits of bronze vs. brass vs. iron vs steel, or should we use the antique moulds or have new ones made, or how to care for moulds. This is a huge subject as more and more mould makers have come on line all over America and Canada to meet the strong demand for custom moulds, each offering their own preference of mould material. 5) Nothing about the Ideal tool, which is also becoming popular, i.e. how do you properly store and travel with your paper patched bullets, so you can load them on-site? 6) It is pre-Internet, although an Appendix is roughly tacked on promoting certain Lyman wares and suppliers available on the Web. 7) Finally, adding insult to injury, the cover contradicts the text. The primary author describes how he ladle - pours with the spout right in the mould pour-hole. Yet the cover shows a dramatic looking stream of molten lead leaving the ladle and landing in the mould some distance below. And that right there summed it up for me: The cover shows one thing, the text describes another. What we have here are some self-satisfied old gun guys from the Jurassic Age of black powder shooting, kind of casually telling us how they do it in a folksy way. I am frustrated and disappointed by this book, and so I rank it at the very bottom of reloading books. I have quite a shooting library. And yes, I have been been shooting black powder since I was a kid, so I know of which I speak. I regret buying this book. You can get much better, more useful, more accurate, more up-to-date information from the guys hanging out at various web pages than you will get from this book. How sad.
Bestätigter Kauf: JaArtikelzustand: Neu