Casting bullets today, what’s your setup?

[Casual Smith Nut]

I’m waiting on my next couple of ingots to melt down and thought I’d share. It’s a great day to cast. Upper 50s temperature outside here in GA with a slight breeze to keep the air moving.

Here’s my humble casting setup using a Lee pot. The ingots are muffin pan donors that I picked up somewhere sometime back and are on lower end of BHN using the fingernail test. I’m a big fan of the muffin size as my pot is just right for 2 muffins when casting. Any more ingots and I get a lot of splash when dropping in the sprue or throw back bullets before the mold gets up to temp.

It’s a good day. The mold is cooperating nicely to drop clean 158gr bullets without much tapping or difficulty. Y’all can see my hi tech flux material also.

Let’s see the “casting setups.”

 

[AJ]

Pretty much the same as yours. My production pot is older, but still works. Still have my cast iron skillet and camp stove for melting recovered lead and making ingots. Been casting for over 50 years.

 

[austintexas]

Yep, Looks like mine.
SWCA 892

 

[Ivan the Butcher]

For mass quantities I use a set up like yours. For slow and very consistent bullets I use a Lyman ladle and a thermometer and get bullets usually within .3 or less % of each other. For those 20:1 alloy and usually over Black Powder.

Ivan

 

[Forrest r]

I do things a little differently with the same lee #20 pot. I don't put the sprue's back in the pot when casting. It causes huge swings in the alloys temperatures which led to differences in bullet weights/diameters.

Several years ago, I started using a PID controller on that lee pot. Huge difference!!! Before I would learn thru trial and error what alloy temp works best for specific molds & alloy combos. Most of the time it didn't matter. Casting soft alloys for hollow points, hollow based and cores for swaging bullets tended to be more picky. Same with a lot of the big blocked brass molds like the several Egan molds I use.

For me it all starts with the smelting pot I use to make alloys, ingots or simply use to restock the #20 pot when casting. I use a propane turkey frier base and an old propane tank. I cut the valve off of the tank which left 2 1/4" vent holes in the top. Then I cut it just below the weld using a 4 1/2" angle grinder and a 1/16" thick cutting wheel. Taking my time cutting I cut thru the tank only, leaving the support ring still attached/welded to the upper half (lid). The end result is a pot that I typically put #150 of recovered bullets, scrap lead, tin, printers type, etc.
The smelting put with the smelted alloy in it.

It doesn't take long to make a pile of ingots in a hurry. Typical pots full of range scrap lead are #150 of range scrap and 1 hour latter I end up with #100 of ingots.

 

[Forrest r]

The main cast bullets I use/shoot come from 10/8/6/4 cavity molds. If I need any of those bullets I cast them when I make a batch (#100 batches) of alloy in the propane tank pot. I'll ladle the alloy into the lee #20 pot filling it about 1" from the top and let the PID settle into the temp setting while I preheat the molds.

Then it's casting time with the bullets going it 1 place and the sprues going in another to go back into the smelting pot to be remelted. When the lee pot runs down I simply refill it from the smelting pot.

The end results are piles of cast bullets in a hurry. I typically get #10 of cast bullets from that lee pot when I don't put the sprues back in. It take +/- 1 hour to cast those #10 of bullets depending on the weight of the bullet & how many cavities the mold has.

#20+ of 158gr hp's for the 38spl/357's using a 4-cavity mold. It took close to 2 hours to cast them.

#20 of 245gr hp's for the 44cals

Some times I push a little too hard and end up either stopping or taking a long break. Only #34 of h&g 68 clone swc's/ hp swc's for the 45acp's

#20 200gr hp's for the 45acp's

#10 of 47gr cores for swaging 60gr jacketed bullets for the 223's.

#40 of 9mm bullets. #20 are 125gr hp's the other #20 are 125gr lee tumble lube. Didn't care the lee design and sold it after testing that #20 pile of bullets in the 9mm/38spl/357mags.

 

[Forrest r]

With the single and double cavity molds I simply fill the #20 pot, set the temp for the bullet/alloy combo. And preheat the mold and cast using the pots spout or ladle cast. I use the PID controller and don't put the sprues back into the pot when casting.

Still end up with +/- #10 of cast bullets per pot.

There' so many excellent bullet designs out there from the different molds makers (past & present). Had over 200 molds at 1 time, been thinning the herd and now it's +/- 40 molds.

Casting bullets isn't for everyone. It give me something to do when tinkering with bullet designs & alloy combo's.

 

[max503]

I got tired of setting up and tearing down so I made a place on the back porch.

 

[LoboGunLeather]

I have always used muffin pans, Lee molds and Lee Production Pots. Melt my scrap in an old cast iron dutch oven on a propane-fired Coleman camp stove, clean, flux, cast in aluminum muffin pans, mark each muffin with content (wheel weights, type metal, plumbing salvage, range mining). Combine muffins in the production pots to get the alloy I want.

Casting is usually a day's project for me. I like to fire up two production pots, work one down to about 20%, refill with muffins, switch to the other pot while the first is getting back to temperature. Usually use 2 or 3 molds at a time. Fill one, set it aside, fill the next, fill the next. Then cut sprue and drop, refill, and repeat.

Usually make 1500 to 2000 in a 4 or 5 hour session. I use a bench-mount lubri-sizer so I can inspect each bullet during that process, reject any that show irregularities (into a box for re-casting next time). Run several hundred through the lubri-sizer in a couple of hours.

Cast two or three times a year. Couple hours at the reloading bench during the evenings (beats watching stupid TV shows). Crank out finished ammo, box it, label it, put it in the ammo locker for next use.

Been doing it for decades, probably won't change in this lifetime.

 

[Casual Smith Nut]

I have always used muffin pans, Lee molds and Lee Production Pots. Melt my scrap in an old cast iron dutch oven on a propane-fired Coleman camp stove, clean, flux, cast in aluminum muffin pans, mark each muffin with content (wheel weights, type metal, plumbing salvage, range mining). Combine muffins in the production pots to get the alloy I want.

Casting is usually a day's project for me. I like to fire up two production pots, work one down to about 20%, refill with muffins, switch to the other pot while the first is getting back to temperature. Usually use 2 or 3 molds at a time. Fill one, set it aside, fill the next, fill the next. Then cut sprue and drop, refill, and repeat.

Usually make 1500 to 2000 in a 4 or 5 hour session. I use a bench-mount lubri-sizer so I can inspect each bullet during that process, reject any that show irregularities (into a box for re-casting next time). Run several hundred through the lubri-sizer in a couple of hours.

Cast two or three times a year. Couple hours at the reloading bench during the evenings (beats watching stupid TV shows). Crank out finished ammo, box it, label it, put it in the ammo locker for next use.

Been doing it for decades, probably won't change in this lifetime.

Yep my melting process for the raw stuff (range scrap and wheel weights) is pretty much the same. Use an old cast iron dutch oven and turkey frier style propane burner. Haven’t had to melt for ingots in several months since current supply is still pretty good.

 

[BillBro]

Nice looking bullets there OP.

 

[243winxb]

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