Home Forums Reloading Bullet Casting Hot plate not enough?

I melted my mixture of old bullets, wheel weights and led scraps tonight. I was able to collect the dirt off the top, but when I tried to cast some bullets, the mixture was not thin enough to get through the plate to the mould. It would solidify all over the mold top with nothing getting in. After that I pulled the plate out of the way and that worked somewhat but bullets were not consistent and I tossed them
back in the pot.

I suspect it was not hot enough, correct? Higher temperature will make led flow better and more liquid.

Yep, your correct. Try a Coleman stove or a regular smelting pot. Need to get the mix up to about 700 deg.

Also you may need to preheat your mold.

Alan

Thanks! I ended up leaving the mold on the edge of the plate, the scoop in the led to keep it warm, got few bullets out, but nothing to use.

The dead give away was that I was not able to pour led from cold ladl, it would just solidify on it. I will try tonight with coleman stove.

I melt the lead outside and since there was no wind tonight, I gave the hot plate another shot. It worked like a charm. I used up all my led, about 3 pounds and casted 120+ bullets. Gottta get more lead, but I think I got a pretty good hang of it.

Very addictive craft I must say

Oh-oh! Now your hooked. As was said earlier, a furnace makes it a whole lot easier and if you really like ladle pouring, Lee makes a 20 lb. furnace for ladle use for about $50. I like the bottom pour furnace that Lyman and RCBS make. All have thermostatically controlled heating elements which makes it easy to control alloy temp.

I bought the small lyman furnace and that thing gets so hot that the copper jackets from the recycled bullets I was melting started to glow. Never saw this from the Lee furnaces that I have used in the past.

I use an old cast iron Lyman bottom pour furnace, and love it. Truth be told I used a hot plate for years, with a little cast iron skillet to hold the lead and the ubiquitous Lyman dipper. I still use that setup when I just want to try a handful of experimental bullets and don't want to change over what's in the furnace.