Home Forums Reloading Bullet Casting Casting issue today

Rick, I don’t cast near as much as I used to…..my Lyman ladle was bought around 1971/72! 🙂 memtb

Two burner gas hot plate has been my heat source for the past fifty years. I have several cast iron lead pots. My old Lyman and newer Lee bottom pour pots have been unused since about 2000. In my black powder days I used a Coleman stove and iron pot.
Have not cast since I moved to town in 2017 but am out of 30-30 bullets and have a few new moulds to try out.
I have two five gallon buckets of wheel weights down at the farm I need to melt down.

I picked up an inexpensive propane burner off Amazon. Also picked up 50 lbs of lead from the local scrap metal yard. Most of the lead was in the form of hockey puck sized ingots. I melted them down, fluxed with sawdust, and poured into an old corncob shaped cornbread mold. I am not sure but I think there may have been some zinc in there because I noticed some blueish colors on the surface and a small amount of what looked like oatmeal texture on the surface. Not experienced enough to know for sure.

I did a test pour on a batch of 158 gr 38/357 bullets and 200 gr 45 ACP bullets. The bullets filled out nicely and were at the correct weights. The 38/357 bullets had an average weight of 160.3 grains and the 45 acp bullets averaged 201.3 grains. Loaded up some of the 45 ACP bullets on top of W231 and they were as accurate as anything I have loaded up to this point.

so I am not sure if I am overthinking the zinc stuff.

Also, I had cleaned out the Lee bottom pour pot and it seemed to work fine this time with good flow. I emptied the pot after the test pour and ran some bees wax down the spout while the pot was still warm.

Never could get my Lee to flow right. I just picked up a ladle and forgot about it.

I use a Lee pot and I like it. Ins and outs have pretty well been covered. I do a couple things- increase flow adjustment as pot level goes down and have a second pot ready to pour into the pot I'm pouring from. Usually run thee molds- seems to be about the right amount of time to let sprues harden. And usually they're 6 cavity so the bullets pile up pretty fast. I'm an old farmer, used to doing what it takes. Mainly pay attention and figure it out.
I am wondering what brand pot would I like better?
Really like this forum- lots of good info/ ideas.

I use 2 different RCBS PRO MELTS for bottom pour pistol bullets a a Lee Magnum dipper pot with a pid controller for ladle poured bpcr ppb slugs. Works for me. Mb