In my own
opinion, loading and shooting cast lead bullets is for somewhat advanced folks who don't mind the amount of tinkering it calls for and the folks who don't mind the greater attention to detail that the entire process requires.
I'm not saying you need to be brilliant to pull this off... but the savings certainly does come at a cost.
Most of that cost is the inspection and cleaning time for the barrel of whatever you are shooting it out of. In my experience, even the least leading loads still dirty up the bore and the rest of the pistol more so than jacketed or plated bullet loads. And if you are really depositing lead in a bore, you are not simply talking about an issue of how clean or pretty your handgun is, but you are talking about the function of it and at some point, the
safety of it as lead accrues in the barrel.
If lead is building up in the bore, the bore is getting incrementally smaller. When it's getting smaller and the bullets you are sending through it remain the same size, pressure will increase accordingly. So it's in your best interest to inspect the bore when developing new loads and to spend more time inspecting and cleaning at the conclusion of the range day.
Lead bullets often drop lead in a barrel for one of two or three reasons, in my experience. The biggest reason is sizing. If you find the right size bullet and it's a decent, tight fit, you'll greatly reduce your chance of leading. If the bullet is undersized for the bore, it'll skid down the tube and not properly engage the rifling and lead strips will get pulled off the bullet and left in your barrel. Lead bullets can also leave deposits when you run them too fast, in some magnum loads where a proper jacketed bullet is the norm. And it's my understanding that some bullets can lead up a bore in use with certain powder (while not with others so much) if the flame temperature is hot enough to melt the base of the bullet.
Even after all of these years, I still consider myself a neophyte when it comes to fully understanding cast lead bullets and how best to use them. I feel this way because my use of them ends up being little more than trial & error. Good for me, however, is that I have had great success with many of them, so I feel like I've gotten somewhere.
I use cast lead bullets in 9mm, .38 Special and .45 Auto. I'm tinkering with them right now in .44 Magnum. On occasion, I will also load and shoot them in 10mm.
There is an alternative to cast lead bullets that will still save you a little bit over the cost of jacketed, and that's plated. I do use a
lot of plated. You can't send them at the same screaming speeds as true jacketed, but they run
very well for me and when purchased in bulk quantities, I save a good bit of dough over jacketed. And as was mentioned -- many (most?) indoor ranges these days won't allow the use of pure lead bullets due to the airborne lead that you often get from shooting them. This is much more work for the air filtration systems present and necessary on indoor ranges.
I know a lot of people like & use Missouri bullets. I've not tried them. They are very competitively priced and have a lot of happy customers.
I use Dardas cast bullets out of Essexville, Mich.
http://www.dardascastbullets.com/" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;
They are a little more expensive... but I have found that they work awfully well where I use them, so I've stuck with them. Very accurate bullets in the loads I've worked up for them -- in my handguns, anyway.