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Civil War Bullet Making Tools

Civil war bullets and bullet making tools are valuable historical items. The technology of the era often involved simple blacksmithing tools which could work with the soft lead composites that were used to make bullets at the time. Since the tools were so simple many soldiers would even cast their own bullets.

Melting Pot
- Lead is a relatively easy metal to mold and melt, so an iron pot, or in some cases a small iron ladle, would be used to hold lead until it melted. Expended bullets, lead toys or a variety of other items could all be melted down over little more than a campfire. Once the lead was melted it was ready to be re-cast into new, round bullets.
Bullet Mold
- A bullet mold was a tool that was meant to take hot lead and shape it into a bullet. These tools had handles similarly to a pair of pliers, but on the far end there was a small, round hole for lead to be poured into. The caster would squeeze the handles, and once the heat had dissipated, pop out the newly formed lead ball. There were other models that had multiple molds attached to a single set of handles so multiple bullets could be made at once.
Forge
- Bullets were made in large quantities at a forge. The forge fire would be the ideal place for blacksmiths to melt lead and cast new bullets. Because of the heat available, and the workspace, multiple workers could cast bullets at once, sometimes with rows of them being cast rather than a single bullet at a time.

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