Author: Ian Urbina / Source: New York Times
WRIGHTSVILLE, Pa. — Standing inside his cluttered garage workshop, Michael Crumling, a 29-year-old gunsmith, proudly showed off an impressive collection of lead bullets he has meticulously crafted from scratch.
Across the country, millions of weapons aficionados like Mr.
Crumling reload their own ammunition and cast their own bullets — time-consuming hobbies that have been a part of firearms culture for generations.But Mr. Crumling has also created something else in his garage that distinguishes him from his peers, a potential solution to a problem that has long vexed creators of 3-D printed guns: a bullet that wouldn’t ruin the plastic firearms.
And yet Mr. Crumling says he has no plans to sell or mass produce the designer round, despite it representing the next step in making printable guns more reliable, and the next front in an ongoing regulatory fight over homemade weaponry.
“I don’t see the point,” he said recently, explaining that despite the allure of 3-D guns and ammunition, people who want to build their own firearms can do much better with off-the-shelf parts from their local hardware stores — or eBay, which he turned to when constructing a submachine gun with metal he filed and bent himself.
Amid a national debate over tighter access to guns, and legislative efforts to regulate the unfettered sale of bullets and shells, interest in this pastime has been bolstered by a lively online D.I.Y. community that trades in how-to YouTube videos and engages in passionate web forum discussions about best practices and likely legal challenges.
As fervid as D.I.Y. gunsmiths are, an equally passionate online community has emerged around homemade ammunition. About five million out of roughly 43 million hunters and sport shooters in the United States make their own bullets and shells, according to reloading companies. These D.I.Y. hobbyists consist primarily of two groups: Reloaders who take spent shell casings that are left behind after a weapon, usually a semiautomatic, is fired, and make them usable again by carefully refilling them with gunpowder and coupling that with a new primer and a bullet. And home casters who make bullets from scratch, typically by melting lead they buy online or get from junkyards, auto body shops or gun ranges.
[Read: California Tries New Tack on Gun Violence: Ammunition Control]
Enthusiasts cite this pursuit as a way to customize ammunition for heightened accuracy or lethality and as a practical skill should bullets be banned or one day be in short supply.
“It gives me time to think,” said Gavin Gear, who runs a popular blog and YouTube channel called Ultimate Reloader, which offers instructional videos and reviews of reloading equipment. He described the process as a relaxing ritual: “Not unlike a blacksmith making a knife or a samurai sword.”
But mostly, it comes down to saving money: Many people who cast bullets at home cited the price of ammunition, which, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, has steadily climbed over the past several decades and hit its highest price this year.
David Reiss, who has been casting his own bullets for more than 10 years, said that a box of 50 factory-made cartridges for a .38 special costs about $15, whereas he can reload the same number for roughly $4 in materials.
Some types of ammunition, such as .44 Magnum cartridges, can cost more than 50 cents per round. Typical target shooters might use more than 150 rounds at each range visit, while competitive shooters can use over 1,000 rounds every week.
Barriers, Real and Perceived
Most bullets are made of lead, and obtaining this metal isn’t always easy.
There are car tires that have internal lead weights meant to stabilize the vehicles, and bullet casters customarily turned to their local mechanics to get…
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