need new leadpot, suggestions?

[Don Steele]

Fleener,
When I’m getting the pot up to temperature after plugging it in, I’ll set the thermostat pretty high so it puts a lot of heat into the metal. As the temperature of the metal in the pot starts closing in on my target, say 775-800 deg F, I reduce the setting on the thermostat and allow things to stabilize. It’s been my experience that it holds quite well during a casting session. I leave my thermometer in the pot. It has a “clip” that fits over the body of the pot and holds it in place so that I can monitor the metal temperature constantly.

 

[8 BORE]

My old lyman cast iron is about wornout. Am considering a new Lyman digital or RCBS digital. Both are bottom pour. They should last a long time

 

[Flint62Smoothie]

Get the new RCBS with built-in temp controller!

 

[8 BORE]

What about the Lyman

 

[Flint62Smoothie]

What about the Lyman

Not familiar with it? Does it have a digital temperature PID controller? That RCBS unit does and if you set 750-degrees, it stays at 750. I kick my arse that I did not buy one when Midway had them on special for 100 bucks or so .

 

[oldwolf]

How reliable is the electronic circuitry, I wonder?

 

[8 BORE]

Yes lyman does its also easy to install an on/off switch on it . Utube has good videos on both

 

[Howard Pippin]

I use the LEE "Pro4" 20 lb bottom pour pot. You'll read a lot of comments about how it drips lead and I can verify that it happens. To minimize that problem it is critical that the lead you put in the pot be very clean. In other words....unless you're buying pure lead ingots from a reliable supplier (e.g.: Rotometals for example) CLEAN your raw material in another pot then pour the CLEAN metal into some kind of ingot molds that can be fed directly into your LEE pot when you want to cast. Any "unknown" lead I acquire gets melted and pre-cleaned in a cast iron pot on a Coleman stove before being made into ingots for casting in my LEE. Even so, you will still have some "issues" with drips, but not (IMHO) to the point of tossing the LEE for something else. Periodic emptying and cleaning is also required. Frequency of that task depends upon how often you use it, and how dirty the lead you put in it is.
I DEFINITELY recommend a thermometer. I run roundballs at 800 degrees F. I'm one of those folks who weighs every ball so I can verify the consistency of my procedure. I'm getting excellent precision with very few throw-outs, especially so if I let the mold come completely up to temperature before beginning to cast. One last note for folks using a bottom pour pot. I've found that once the metal is up to temperature, cleaned one last time and I'm ready to go...putting a "field expedient" cover over the pot really helps. I make mine up out of heavy duty Aluminium foil, folded over several times to provide some thickness, then "fitted" over the open top of the pot.
Hope this helps.

like many on this site, I like to cast my own round balls and mini balls. I've experimented with R. E. A. L. bullets also. I don't trek, am just more of an experimenter, probably only shoot 100 hundred times or just a little more a year, so I don't need large quantities of lead.
It probably applies to most of us kind of people, but I like to scrounge lead. For 30 or years or so I've melted it in a cast aluminum frypan that was about 6 inches in diameter, worked quite nice to clean up small batches of lead, Never had any problem and then I ran across a post about the dangers of an aluminum frypan. I know aluminum melts at a low temperature, I also weld it. Never having given much thought that's that little frypan was probably pretty weak, and though I don't melted in an excessive high temperature, perhaps it was dangerous, I thought why wouldn't stainless steel work, so I bought one from a secondhand store about a week ago, really a nice heavy pan with a metal handle, and melted a bunch of old lead water pipe to get it cleaned up and see if it was serviceable. It purr-near Ruined my lead. It stuck to the outside and I can't believe the amount of fluxing to try and clean it up. Didn't work worth a hoot, and being I collect cast iron frying pans and have 25 or 30, I went and took a number three that was just so-so and that is my new lead cleanup pan. For years I used a small cast-iron plumber's lead pot, but it was hard to fit it on a camp stove so consequently I went to the aluminum one. I do want to thank whoever mentioned may be being a little smarter in the choice of some of the equipment we tend to use.
Squint

 

[FishDFly]

"Wow, 30+ years with that one pot? That say's something not only about the pot, but your care for it.Wish I could help ya,, but I'm an iron pot/coleman stove/dipper kind of guy"

Gotta, love simple, my old Lee iron pot has been with me since, 1973, that is 45 years. I did up grade from the Coleman stove to a propane burner. I had a Lee bottom pour and it went to the landfill with no regrets.

 

[8 BORE]

I have an old lyman cast iron pot with bottom pour. Maybe 30 years old still works great

 

[Griz44Mag]

My (2) Lee 10# bottom pours are going on 20 years. Other than a cleaning every couple of years, no issues.
Like everything else, read the instructions. I like the bottom pour because it keeps and crap out of your pour, the crud floats on top, and is easily scooped off. When doing large batches of casting, I will drop a 1# ingot in the pot everytime it gets a little low. I don't have to wait for it to melt, I just keep casting.
I too, use a hot plate to pre-heat or keep waiting molds nice and hot. I have very few rejects that way.

 

[artrepro]

Have a question. Have used a cast iron pot for the last 30 years over a Coleman stove. Used to use a lot of junk lead. Lots of dross.

For Christmas someone gave me a Lee bottom pour pot.

Just wondering if a lot of people have problems with the bottom pour pots caused by dirty lead. Could dirt and unknown metals be the cause of the bottom pours problems?

Have not fired up the new pot yet but plan on using only clean lead from RotoMetals. I know that they cost more, but should be able to count on them for the correct mix of Lyman #2.

Comments?

Well I should have looked backwards in this topic. I see that Don Steele has address the same question I had in post #18.

chuck40219

 

[Juice Jaws]

I have a Lee bottom pour and really like it. But I did have some problems with some really dirty lead pouring through the spout. Now if my lead is really dirty I use my Lee Pot. But all clean lead goes through my bottom pour pot.

 

[Rifleman1776]

Lee bottom pour pots never leak.

 

[EC121]

I put a Lyman ingot mold under my Lee bottom pour pot and let it drip. Every once in a while I pick up the drips and put them back in the pot. Not a big deal. My carpal tunnel stops me from a long session and picking up the drips rests my hand. Beside, I spill more pouring than it drips. I also bent a hacksaw blade into a "C" shape and put it under the spout while the pot heats. It snaps on from the top of the pot to the spout to stop the drips while heating. I can pour .40cal. balls with mostly a .5gr. variation. I use a 0-1000deg. thermometer to watch the temp. My pot was bought in the early 80s but sat around for a while. It is rusty and dirty but pours clean balls.

 

[FishDFly]

Rifleman1776, were you in my garage years ago??

I prefer to dip, Ford vs Chev.

 

[bang]

Not a whole lot to go wrong. Probably just need a new element.

 

[Scota4570]

To stop the Lee leak put a screw driver in the slot on top of the valve pin and turn the pin to break up the gunk causing the leak. That is why the put the slot there. Sometimes the the metal melts under the top and expansion opens the valve. Simple heat the valve pin with a propane torch to avoid this. They do drip a little but should not spew. If it spews after the metal is liquid, something is damages or junk is wedged in the valve. I have owned half a dozen Lee pots and an most happy with the 20# unit pictured earlier. They require a little more understand and technique than a simple pot but, it is worth it to me.

When I cast I making balls or bullets in large quanties. I use lee gang molds. I only cast occasionally but when I do I get after it and make hundreds of bullets and balls. If you are just playing around with a single or double cavity mold then dipping is fine.

 

[jfaldo]

Another Waage owner here. I've had mine for at least 25 years now. The thermostat started acting flaky last year so attached a PID controller to it and it's working fine again now. Their a little pricey but for large volume casting they do the job well. I can easily get 150 or so 550 grain bullets out of it without adding any lead.

 

[Greenjoytj]

See rifleman1776 post #34. That pot was obviously left unattended to allow such a catastrophic leak of that portion to occur. If a LEE pot doesn’t drip then there is no liquid lead in the pot, these pots only vary in the speed of the dripping, slow one drip per minute to a drip a second (which need correction).
The valve stem is too light, the thin steel stem almost floats in the lead it needs a steel weight screwed on its top. As my pot is a very slow dripper the valve modification can wait.

I place my LEE pot in a cheap rectangular cake baking pan, the 2” high sides would keep all 20 pounds in the pan captured in the pan.

I did buy a 3qt. stainless steel saucepan from Walmart for cleaning lead but I haven’t used it yet until I determine if the rivets that hold the handle are SS or aluminum (handle to). If their aluminum I will modify the pot to add 2 bolted on steel handles.

Last August I got the new RCBS PID controlled pot. It worked great. It doesn’t melt the solid lead as fast as the LEE pot but that’s probably because it’s holding an extra 5# more lead.
The mold Guide is a little fiddley and requires a learning curve it deals with it. It looks like it would be easy to modify.