Use a ladle and forget the bottom pours

[BrownBear]

...but a few quick passes with the propane torch and I was up and running again.

What a great idea! Thanks. :hatsoff:

 

[Carl Fowler III]

Sure glad you posted this question as I was thinking of buying one of those bottom pour melting pots. Did make balls for my 36 cal. navy arms pistol back in the 70's using propane, pot, and ladle...this seemed to work well for me back then...but I'm looking for an electrical melter now, guess I just won't use the bottom spout and go with a ladle! What's the biggest, best make and model out there? Looking to make balls-.495, .535, .610 to begin with and maybe one in .40 cal in the future!
:stir: Not trying to stir things up...just looks like me making bullets back in the day! :rotf:

 

[jamesthomas]

I would get the Lee Magnum Melter, holds 20lbs of lead. I have one and its great, it has a wide top so you have plenty of room for your dipper. I set mine at around 7 1/2.

 

[David Grout]

Look up The Antimony Man.com on the web. He has the best lead pot furnace with ladles I have ever used. And the price is not bad. The opening on top is almost 5 inches wide and holds #20 of lead.

 

[Darkgael]

Rowell bottom pour ladles. The best of both worlds.
Holds one pound of melt. Pours easily.
From Antimony Man

Pete

 

[misher]

I really hate when the bottom pour opening leaks!!!!

 

[M. De Land]

I think Shiloh Rifle Co. sells one that melts 75#s at a whack. That ought to keep you ladling for a while.
I like my little Lee 20 pound bottom pour that I plugged the hole in and took out the hardware and use it just like the melter. Have a ten pound Lee I did the same on. MD

 

[Dphar]

I have had two high end bottom pours and neither made the consistent bullets balls that a ladle will. I could never get them to cast clean bullets after they had been used for a while. Even bead blasted it and recut the lead port in the bottom But I could not get the metal clean for some reason. I bought a Lyman Magdipper when they first came on the market and have never regretted it. Pure lead RBs are harder to cast to low standard weight deviation, but bullets cast 1:40 or 1:20 tin:lead I can weigh to 1 grain +- and not lose 5% once the everything is at temp. Bottom pours are not that consistent.

Dan

 

[larry wv]

Been using the same Lee bottom pour since they came out. No problems so far BUT prob jinxed my self now. Use a ladle every 4 or 5 years but not for any great amount. Larry

 

[M. De Land]

When I started casting the big cartridge gun bullets about 14 years ago is when I really notice the casting potential of using a ladle.
I could keep my 530 grain bullets within +/- .75 grains. That was my standard and I would guess once I get going on a good cadence my keepers are 75 to 80 percent.
After a while I got to wear I quit weighing each bullet and could pretty much cull them my looking each one over.
Actually even if a well cast bullet has a void and it's under the sprue it will usually stay in the group. What gets you is uneven base corners. They will go nuts then.
I have not tested balls with voids and ought to purposely do that some day to see what happens. MD

 

[Dphar]

When I started casting the big cartridge gun bullets about 14 years ago is when I really notice the casting potential of using a ladle.
I could keep my 530 grain bullets within +/- .75 grains. That was my standard and I would guess once I get going on a good cadence my keepers are 75 to 80 percent.
After a while I got to wear I quit weighing each bullet and could pretty much cull them my looking each one over.
Actually even if a well cast bullet has a void and it's under the sprue it will usually stay in the group. What gets you is uneven base corners. They will go nuts then.
I have not tested balls with voids and ought to purposely do that some day to see what happens. MD

It is impossible to cull bullets by sight.
I wondered about this some years ago while casting bullets for the BPCR Sil. Nats. 380 gr 40 cals IIRC.
How could 1% variation hurt?
I set up a board in the mill and milled it flat. I then glued a number of bullets 6 I think of varying weights from over nominal to several grains light. Once the epoxy had set I machined down though the bullets in .010" steps. Bullets more than 1 grain light can have serious off center voids, surprisingly large ones. There is also a center in the bullet that is less dense, probably by shrinkage when the outside of the bullet is solidified and the interior is still going solid and shrinking. The heavier than the norm bullets 1-2 grains over, do not have this and are completely solid like a swaged bullet. Bullets less than 1 grain under have an area that is less dense, it shows in the the surface finish left by the cutter, but is CENTERED and uniform in shape as it is milled down though. It begind to appear grows unformly then shrinks uniformly and then disappears as the cutter gets maybe .030-050" past center. It approximates the bullet out line.
Lighter bullets may have voids and no density change OR they may have no voids but a density change that is NOT centered in the bullet. Some start normally as you mill down then start to get smaller, move off center, get bigger again etc etc. So other than plinking pistol bullets I weigh every cast bullet or ball I shoot so that none are more than 1 gr light.

Dan

 

[M. De Land]

Dan, if you haven't done so save your culls( bullets that are one grain over/under, but well filled out) and shoot some groups out to 300 yards and see if they are any worse than your sorted ones.
This has been an eye opener for many a rifleman. MD

 

[Carl Fowler III]

Dan, that was a well thought out experiment and raises the question why were there some that were dense/solid thru to the middle of the ball? Which in essence made these balls perfect!
I do have an hypothesis: The mold, ladle, and molten lead was at an optimal temperature for making the perfect ball....now all we need to do is isolate when this occurs, and wa-la we have the perfect ball! We could do a run of balls and keep them in sequential order, then weigh them to see where the variance in weight occurs? This would at least tell us at what point the perfect ball starts and finishes in our run! Then isolate why this occurs and narrow down our parameters to a more consistent and methodical practice! :hmm:

 

[Billnpatti]

I, too, have had both kinds of pots and my preference is the electric dipper pot. I find that I get much more accurate casting when I use a dipper as opposed to a bottom pour pot. Besides, I got a bit tired of having to unplug the spout in my bottom pour pot.

 

[majg1234]

whew that sounds like too much thinking and work :wink: anyway agree with M.D. @ least for me (i'm not shooting compitition)Got off into weighing the cast balls culling a good bit of them and recasting.Then I decided to shoot the best against the worst over a period of several range sessions.For my ranges of 100yrds or less seemed not to make a huge difference.Of course these shots were off a lightly bagged rest for hunting accuracy only Lyman bottem pour in use for 30+ years :grin:

 

[Rifleman1776]

Dan, if you haven't done so save your culls( bullets that are one grain over/under, but well filled out) and shoot some groups out to 300 yards and see if they are any worse than your sorted ones.
This has been an eye opener for many a rifleman. MD

They are worse. I have never shot out to 300 yards. But, I know from being there, doing that, balls that are 'culls' for competition will not group as well at 50 and 100 yards as will those within tolerances. e.g. no wrinkles or holes.

 

[mooman76]

I can't really base an opinion of one over the other because I have never used a bottom pour. I can say I don't have allot of the problems they have. A friend came over and we casted one afternoon. He fiddled with his pot som much I had a big pile of castings and he didn't end up with near as much by the end of the day. I figure mine were of better quality too because I had a steady flow ob castings going.

 

[M. De Land]

I was talking about large bullets not balls and said I had not tested this out with balls and should.
I have found with bullets a grain or two either way out side my sorted bullet parameters does not seem to make the culls shoot differently than does my precisely sorted bullets within the plus or minus range of 3/4s of a grain.
That would be a 1.5 grain spread from top to bottom on my sorted bullets.
I have heard this from other mid and long range shooters as well although for long range work would sort them as I think at extended range the weight difference would begin to show up in the vertical. MD