Name yer meltin' Pot - recommendations?

[Spot Shooter]

I've been using my coleman propane camp stove outside to do my ingot and roundball casting.

I like it because I can melt the raw lead and skim it and cast the ingots, which I later use to melt and cast the roundballs. It works for me but is it cleaner, easier, .... to use one of those new fangled electronic melt/pour jobs?

BTW a history lesson needs to be provided here - how did the wild men tackle this? Where did they find the lead, and how did they pour it? OR was it bought?

The flatlander
Spot

 

[musketman]

I use the Lee 10 pound melting pot and laddle over the side burner of my gas grill, who cooks a side dish outside anyways? :winking:


Serious small-scale mining for lead began in Southeast Missouri about 1720. A large demand for lead in the late 19th century brought major corporate enterprises to the Old Lead Belt. More than 1,000 miles of abandoned multilevel mine tunnels, with 300 miles of underground mainline railroad tracks are testimony to 108 years of persistent mining operations in this area.

Silver and Lead were mined together, medieval miners worked extensively from 1292 to the end of the 15th century in 4 sepperate mines in Europe.

 

I have a Lee 10 lb. bottom pour pot but haven't used it since I acquired my 20 lb. Lyman bottom pour. For roundball and bullets for my BPCR's I do not use the bottom pour feature. I do use it for revolver bullets. For melting down large quantities of lead to cast into ingots I use my propane fish cooker. I'd recommend a lead furnace over almost anything else for casting projectiles. You can control the temperature better, plus, the 20 lb pot gives you a large enough melt to meintain the temperature longer.

musketman is pretty much dead on regarding the mining of lead. The lead belt in Missouri is about 60 miles east of me and is the largest in the world....or so they say. It's still being mined there.

Generally the mountain men carried their lead in ingots, I assume 1 lb. and melted them in a small, cast iron pot in the coals of a campfire. I don't know if they bought any cast ball at rondesvous but it seems so likely that some did. I bet it took a while to melt the lead in the mountains....I burned a lot of aspen and fir when we lived in Wyoming and it sure doesn't deliver the heat oak/ash/hickory does. That's my .02!

Vic

 

[jrdavis]

I have a large about 50 for propane burner a smal one for a single burner colman stome a 20lb rcbs a 20lb lyman and a 10lb lee also one 3lb elec. with cord and handle...the lyman I use for black power only the rcbs I use for rifle bullets. the big 50 I melt mass down to ingots the smaller ones I use to melt special mixes up.

 

[musketman]

I burned a lot of aspen and fir when we lived in Wyoming and it sure doesn't deliver the heat oak/ash/hickory does. That's my .02! Vic

They used buffalo chips as fuel to melt the lead...

And they still put round balls in their mouth... :shocking:

 

[Spot Shooter]

I burned a lot of aspen and fir when we lived in Wyoming and it sure doesn't deliver the heat oak/ash/hickory does. That's my .02! Vic

They used buffalo chips as fuel to melt the lead...

And they still put round balls in their mouth... :shocking:

Never heard of anyone puttin' a leadball in their mouth?

Is it like spit'n on a ball afer ya pitch it? :haha:

Spot

 

[musketman]

It's an old mountain man trick...

The smoothbore shooters of the day use to do that, close the frizzen first, powder, spit a ball down the barrel and thump the butt on the ground to seat the un-patched ball against the powder...

The muskets had enlarged flash holes too, so when the stock's butt was hit on the ground, it primed the weapon too...

This way they could reload on the run while the entire indian nation chased them, a dangerous survival skill, I guess...

 

musketman......do you think "buffler chips" would make a fire hot enough, long enough to melt lead? I'm asking, not being a smart a$$....having burned some "domestic" buffler chips just for the experience it seems to me they wouldn't, but I didn't burn a big pile of them....anyone ever tried it? I'd be curious to know.

Vic

 

[musketman]

To my knowledge, (and thats not much) they used a combo of both, wood when they could get it, but out in the open plains, wood is few and far between...

I'm not sure of the BTU output of buffler chips, but it is organic methane...

From the mountain man glossery:
"BUFFLER WOOD" buffalo chips, dried buffalo dung. Used for fuel in cooking fires.

 

[Zonie]

""BUFFLER WOOD" buffalo chips, dried buffalo dung. Used for fuel in cooking fires."
Any way you slice it it can't have been much more than compacted prairie grass.
IMO when they wrote of using it for firewood they didn't write about its lack of heat mainly because they were just grateful to have something that would burn longer and slower than handfuls of grass.
(It seems to me, the people of those days were "grateful" for a lot of things we in our modern arrogance take for granted or scorn.)

 

[Myra lou]

I use a Lee Pro20 in 220volt......It really get after it.......use to use Saeco and Lyman......still have the Lyman sitting over in the corner.......john......

 

[Myra lou]

I don't believe I would be into that experiment........I smelled burning 'poop' for 2 years in Vietnam in 65'-67'........of course it was laced with diesel fuel........I'll never forget that smell........I guess it doesn't smell when you are really really cold.......john..........

 

10 pound Lee.

 

8 or 10lb Lyman and 20lb LEE

 

...and what a NICE smile you have. /ubbthreads/images/graemlins/cool.gif

 

[jtmattison]

I use my Coleman propane camp stove and a $2 stainless steel pot I got at a thrift store. I skim and dip the lead with a Lee Dipper.
Whan making ingots I just melt about 10-15 pounds of lead in the pot and pour it off into ingot molds.
For casting RB's or conicals I use the dipper to pour the lead into the mold.
I'm thinking about getting a bottom pour pot but what I've got now does the trick for me.

Huntin

 

For roughing out into ingots you can't beat a coleman stove, or any high output burner, and some kind of rough pot. I have cast thousands of balls and slugs with this setup and always had good results. I have had a Lee production pot, 10lb, bottom pour spout, for so long I have forgotten were I bought it or when I bought it. I know it was before my son was born and he just turned 26. Oddly enough, in this day and time, neither the pot or the kid has ever disipointed me.

 

[Deadeye]

I use a Saeco for lead, a Lyman for medium alloys and a RCBS for hard alloy for rifle bullets. I really like the RCBS. Would like to have several. Also have a 50 lb. electric pot (not bottom pour) that I use for melting wheelweights.

 

[cayugad]

I have a Lyman 8 or 10 pound pot. I bought a $19.95 turkey cooker (from Menard's which is like a Home Depot)that was on sale. It came with a large stock pot, a burner, regulator, stand to hold the turkey pot, and hose that hooks to the propane tank on the gas grill. Then I took an old burner grate off a gas range, and wired that onto the stand that holds the turkey pot. My Lyman pot sits on that old range grate, and I can adjust the heat with the regulator of the burner. Plus I got a stock pot to cook with when I actually want to make a turkey. I then have a LEE dipper and after fluxing the lead, and getting it to temperature I begin my casting.

 

[gordy]

I use a small flat bottomed cast iron pot.It will hold between 10 and twelve pounds of lead.I tried to use the small propane campstove,but it would't keep the lead hot enough.The Coleman stove works very good,and even better is the Wifes kitchen range,(when Shes not home :redface.A small gravey laddle with a pour lip bent into one side works great for pouring.As for the Buffer Chips,in the High Desert country of West Texas,Arz.,New Mex.,The chips get much drier then back East.Also in the early morning and evenings there is almost always a wind or breeze that fans the fire like a bellows.Never used real Buffer Chips but have made a lot of coffee,Beans and a few Jackrabbits.(couldn't find the herd of Jack-O-Lopes) :bulln cow chips Anyway the fire did get quite hot.I'll try melting some lead on chips when I go back to West Texas in August and report on it!We worked about 800 to 1000 head of cows with calves and about 15 bulls,even on 33,000 acres it's not hard to find chips enough to build a fire.We mostly camped and cooked near the water tanks ,and thats where the cows spent considerble time! /ubbthreads/images/graemlins/cool.gif