Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Ask The Gunwriters Ladle or bottom pour ?

As any who clicks on this probably knows I'm trying to get back into casting. Am going to have to buy a furnace.

For just getting started and only intending to make 50-100 bullets at a time would a bottom pour furnace make better bullets or a simple melt pot and use a ladle ??

Like everything else these days, even casting equipment is in short supply !!

Thanks.

It depends. During my casting days I used a ladle exclusively, as I was casting big BPCR bullets. That is the norm for those who cast big bullets. I am going the other way, getting rid of all my casting stuff. Have a brand new RCBS Easy Melt furnace, among other stuff.

Mayo or miracle whip? It's that kind of question. After 50 years of casting, I settled on ladle pour, seems like my rejection rate went down noticeably. Kinda counter intuitive isn't it? Probably something to do with my technique. Also, strange as it sounds, I elevate the ladle to introduce turbulence into the mold, seems I get very sharp clean edges and good fillout.

I mostly use a bottom-pour furnace these days, as am mostly casting smaller bullets than I used to--including .22s. But keep the pot and ladle around for some stuff.

I've always a ladle and melting pot, but I only cast handgun bullets in .358 and .452. Rifle bullets are limited to .458 for my 45-70.

Depends on the mold and the bullet. Ladle for me for certain single cavity molds, definitely bottom pour furnace for multiple cavity molds, and most single cavities.

Filling a 4 or 6 cavity gang mold is a PIA with a ladle. With them, entirely for .38 and .45 pistol bullets, I start running the stream into the first cavity and on into the other cavities one at a time as soon as the previous one is filled. With a hot alloy and a hot mold, the reject rate is very low, but the main objective there is speed and suffering a few rejects is more than compensated by being able to produce a huge pile of bullets in an hour.

One protocol I follow if using a bottom pour with a single cavity mold is to hold the sprue plate tight against the nozzle and give it a 1-2-3 count before lowering the mold from contact and letting the stream "free fall" thus piling up a big sprue, and even letting some flow over the side more often than not. Helps guarantee perfect fill-out and nicely filled out bases with sharp corners. I honestly can't tell the difference between bullets formed like that versus ladle poured ones.

They make a bottom pour ladle that keeps floating dross and particles out of the bullet. I believe mine is a Lyman.

I bottom pour when I'm pouring bullets and use a ladle for everything else.

BTW: You say 50-100 bullets, but you'll find that you may want to up that limit. Casting is fickle. There are a lot of factors at play. Some of them are obvious. Some of them are subtle. Once you get going, it's a good idea to cast as much as you can. When I'm doing pistol bullets, I'll get in the groove and get several hundred bullets knocked out before I quit even though I'm looking for only 50-100 for a batch.

I used to work in a solder factory, and something similar would happen. There'd be a work order for a ton of this or that, and the casting supervisor would see things going well and order and extra 2-3 tons cast, just because he knew he'd be making it again in a few months. We'd also get in the situation where a ton of A would be needed, and once the order for A was done, the supervisor would switch to B, C, and D and cast a ton or two of each, because they were related alloys and the platform was running just right.

With bullets, there's another reason. If you cast 500 bullets where you really only needed 200, you can be more finicky on what you accept vs what you scrap. If you need only 50 and cast only 50, you'll be stuck with those 50. If you cast 500, you can inspect more closely, and reject more for your initial need, and then troll through the scrap and come up with some decent plinkers. If you're really going for high-quality, you can sort by weight and only shoot a narrow weight tolerance.

Lots of good replies here.

I bottom pour ALL bullets. The crap floats on top. The lead comes out the bottom. Why wouldn't you want that regardless how many you are filling?

Making ingots over the camp fire I'll use a ladle with about a three foot handle on it. Doesn't seem practical to try to pour in a tiny hole through a spru plate to me.

Ladle pour is my path. Pick your poison, have fun.

Bottom pour.. Because as you get older your hand isen't a steady as needed to pour from a ladle.. you will have less clean ups with a bottom pour... at one time I was making 400 44 mag semiwad cutters a week for me and my friend for a week end of Pistol shooting.... we shot a lot of pistol back then... also was making round ball for muzzleloader for deer hunting.. and black powder compition shoots..

I do this too. Started by accident and found out it worked!

Great comments all, thanks.

Sounds like maybe having both methods at your disposal is the ticket..

An old gunsmith/Schuetzen shooter named Wayne Schwartz advocated the technique a bazillion years ago. I gave it a whirl and liked it. Wayne has since passed on but, man, was he a font of knowledge.

I'd like to amend my post above...yes, I settled eventually on ladle pour...but my ladle, kinda, sorta, is a bottom pour, see "erich's" post above...my ladle could best be described as an egg shaped affair with an orfice spout, with 1/4 of the eggshell missing. So, I suppose as the melt flows from the ladle, the dross remains on top...perhaps the best of both worlds. No good for gang molds as Gnoaaah stated.
As to electric furnaces...I have some, but mostly use a cheap Ebay chinese LP gas single burner and cast iron saucepan melt pot with a very high quality thermometer. IMO the temp control on the Lyman and the RCBS is funky according to the Ametek US Gauge thermometer. If you are trying to maintain eutectic temperatures. Most don't care.

Some time ago, Mike Venturino addressed this. IIRC, he polled some successful BPCR shooters about how they did it and they were all ladle lovers. Whether or not that applies to the rest of us is another question. Those folks pour some big, honkin’ bullets.

Haven’t cast in decades, but like any good Boomer-Prepper, I have the gear. Most will probably remain in the boxes, except a few ML molds I want to try. When I geared up, I bought a small pot without a spout. If I decide to get serious, pots are pretty cheap.

There is one other mold on my want list, but molds are scarce because of all the Boomer-Preppers that geared up. Meanwhile, some kind soul donated some of the bullets so I can try them out while I wait.

And what about the Chinese? Can they even cast, or does the lead fall out of the pot?

Inherited a new Lyman Mag furnace and a bunch of moulds.
Only cast bullets, when helping pops (diff furnace).
Just did whatever he said to do.

Don't remember much, been years, but every multi cavity deal was from a furnace and bottom pour.
That I remember LOL

Only things Im looking to cast.........44 mag SWC and .50 maxihunter (dunno if TC made such a mould- have the maxiball one and and not interested in those).

I think the purists are most likely to use a ladle. I use bottom pour - when I cast, I like to cast a bunch.