When melting lead into ingots, must a cast iron pot be used?

[canoeguy]

I just purchased on-line everything I need to cast my own bullets, I got a Lee bottom pour melter, their "Production Pot IV", but I was thinking of melting my wheel weights and scrap in something else, make ingots to put in the production pot. This is the technique a friend of mine uses, he uses an old, small Lee melter for this purpose, the purpose being that no slag or wheel weight clips clog the outlet tube on the production pot.

I was thinking of using an old pot of some sort, and a coleman stove as a heat source. I have seen some old cast iron lead melting pots on Ebay, but was wondering if something else would work, does the pot have to be cast iron?

Thanks,

Canoeguy

 

[shaggist]

One of the best vessels for melting and cleaning wheel weights is a cast iron frying pan of medium size. They are substantial in construction, have a wide, open top for cleaning out dross and WW clips, and a pouring spout on the sides for making the ingots. They don't cost much and are widely available locally in a variety of sizes.

 

[OKFC05]

The Lee pot works. You should remove the clips (they float) and slag before bottom pouring lead into ingots.

No matter what you do, you are going to need a small wire to clear the inevitable trash getting into the pour spout from time to time when you cast.

 

[bagolden]

I use an old dutch oven. You can use other pots but stay away from aluminium. The melting point is close enough to lead that the weight of the melt could cause problems. Personally I am going to up grade to a fish cooker burner, my Coleman finally gave up the ghost. I also use Lee's production pot IV. I have a little bit of a common problem with it. The spout tends to leak and I think this would be worse if I were smelting down WW's. As an aside, to do any volume of casting I think it would take forever to clean up enough WW's in such a small pot. Break out that old coleman and find an old cast iron or stainless steel pot(yard sales are great!!) to smelt down your WW's and save the bottom pour pot for casting.

 

[Sven]

Doesn't have to be cast iron. One of the advantages of working at a large industrial plant is knowing quite a few welders and having access to scrap iron. I had a guy weld up a melting pot from a piece of 5" pipe. I cut most of the pieces into length, shape, etc on the chop saw and he finished it off. Even had a spout out of 1/2" pipe, but if the lead isn't hot enough, it has plugged up. Had to melt it free with a propane touch. Somewhere I have pieces made for another one out of thin-wall 6" pipe and a piece of angle for a spout, but never have had it finished.

 

[Joed49]

The pot doesn't have to be cast iron but other metals will probably warp.

 

[campfire]

If you go to Cast Bullets website and have a look at the section on
Casting Equipment “One home smelting production setup” you will see pictures of an amazing assortment of home made burners.
I tend to think that the cast iron camp oven/ dutch oven and a very good burner is the way to go and I am hoping to get myself set-up with all the right goodies early this year.

These links should get you there.
Cast Boolits - Dedicated To The World Of Cast Bullets!
One home smelting production setup - Cast Boolits

Campfire

 

[Skip Sackett]

The cast iron pot is a good choice for the task. It retains heat and usually has a loop handle for pouring. You can ladle too, I do.

Like OKFC said, no matter what the spout will leak. You can have a torch or matches ready for nozzle freeze offs and that will help when no metal flows.

Go to Goodwill or Salvation Army stores to find your pot. Yard sales are another good source.

I used a Turkey fryer pot too for just a short time. The aluminum warped pretty bad under the weight and heat applied to it. I got a cast iron Dutch Oven and use the burner from the fryer. This is a good setup!

 

[Rangerone]

Go to Harbor Freight and buy a large Dutch oven like this...

http://www.harborfreight.com/cpi/ctaf/displayitem.taf?Itemnumber=44705

And then get one of these...
15,000 BTU Single Buner Furnace - Cowboy Gun Ammunition Bullet Casting Supplies

I have probably processed more than a ton of scrap lead/range scrap through this simple combination.

 

[canoeguy]

I'm going to try a smaller cast iron skillet and my coleman stove. Hopefully, the stove will get the metal hot enough to melt....

I looked at the links provided above, and all I can say is "Wow", these people are melting 2000 pounds of lead at a sitting! Must be a commercial operation.

When my friend introduced me to bullet casting, he gave me about 2 1/2 gallons of wheel weights, it took me about four hours to turn them into ingots using his old, small Lee melter, designed for casting bullets with a dipper or ladle. Can't imagine how slow that process must have been, filling bullet molds with a ladle...

I'll be casting .38/.357, 158 grain LRN and LSWC and 45/70, 350 and 405 grain bullets.

 

[Alk8944]

I'm going to try a smaller cast iron skillet and my Coleman stove. Hopefully, the stove will get the metal hot enough to melt.... If it is a gasoline stove it will work fine. Propane stoves don't put out enough heat and the cost of the usual small cylinders would be atrocious. (Big turkey-fryer style burners work fine and use bulk propane so are more economical)

I looked at the links provided above, and all I can say is "Wow", these people are melting 2000 pounds of lead at a sitting! Must be a commercial operation.

When my friend introduced me to bullet casting, he gave me about 2 1/2 gallons of wheel weights, it took me about four hours to turn them into ingots using his old, small Lee melter, designed for casting bullets with a dipper or ladle. Can't imagine how slow that process must have been, filling bullet molds with a ladle... Actually, I have had a bottom pour pot (Saeco) for many years (40+) and now prefer using a dipper. I get a better cull ratio with the dipper and don't get spout freeze!

Never, never, never use an Aluminum pot!!!!!!!!!!!! Aluminum melts within the casting temperature range of Lead alloys and can precipitously fail resulting in the entire contents being dumped in your casting area, your lap, feet, etc. Always use Cast Iron or Steel pots. Please don't be someone who needs to learn by his own mistakes, it isn't worth it! Serious burns take a long time to heal and are extremely painful.

 

[Rangerone]

I'm going to try a smaller cast iron skillet and my coleman stove. Hopefully, the stove will get the metal hot enough to melt....

I looked at the links provided above, and all I can say is "Wow", these people are melting 2000 pounds of lead at a sitting! Must be a commercial operation.

When my friend introduced me to bullet casting, he gave me about 2 1/2 gallons of wheel weights, it took me about four hours to turn them into ingots using his old, small Lee melter, designed for casting bullets with a dipper or ladle. Can't imagine how slow that process must have been, filling bullet molds with a ladle...

I'll be casting .38/.357, 158 grain LRN and LSWC and 45/70, 350 and 405 grain bullets.

If you were referring to me when I talked about my "ton of lead", let me clarify and say that amount of lead was processed over the course of several months.

I have been casting bullets since the mid-70s, so I will give you some thoughts for future reference... By the way, I have casted for .308, .375, .458, .452, .358, .312, and probably a few others I've forgotten....

Range scrap is great, just remember that when you bring home those buckets full of lead from your local pistol range, lay out a large white sheet on your garage floor and pour all lead out onto it so that you can identify any live cartridges that some moron most assuredly threw into the butts.

I would recommend that you not use your frying pan. The reason is that while you will be able to melt your lead, you will not hold temperature as well as you would with something much deeper. The Dutch oven recommendation, both by myself and others, is really your best bet. I have a wonderful RCBS bottom pour furnace that I purchased in 1974 and it still serves me well, but I think you'll find that you will get better fill and more consistency with a large ladle pouring method.

Also,these ladles make life so much easier...

Bullet Metals

I use them exclusively when filling bullet moulds. Since you said you will be casting some heavier bullets, or if you are using a larger, multi-cavity mould, you want to make sure that you can hold enough hot lead to completely fill the mold on one pour, some of the smaller ladles will not do that.

My best advice to you is to think of whatever possible ways you can to minimize the amount of motions you go through in any casting operation. The reason for this is that you are dealing with things that are very hot and very heavy, so the less repetitions the better...

Another hint will be to get a set of cheap metal stamps from Harbor Freight. I use these to mark my ingots with a "WW" for wheel weights, or I will use a number to signify the hardness if I am using my tester. An example of this would be if I were to mix up some lead/tin mix at say a 1/20 ratio, I would simply mark each ingot with "20". This makes life much easier when you are trying to mix up a lot of lead at once.

 

[canoeguy]

Thanks for the advice, lots to think about while waiting for my stuff to get here.

Yes, my Coleman stove is a gas powered one.

One other thing, I aniticipate building a dedicated bench for casting, I'm thinking that one that is high would be better (safer), the bullet caster would be standing throughout the process. Perhaps have a tall stool for resting during a long casting session. For some reason, I'm thinking a lower bench like you would have for reloading cartridges would not be as safe, being seated in front of a pot of melted lead gives me images of problems if something disatrous occurs...

My bench would be built near the garage door, open the door for ventilation while casting....

 

[Rangerone]

Thanks for the advice, lots to think about while waiting for my stuff to get here.

Yes, my Coleman stove is a gas powered one.

One other thing, I aniticipate building a dedicated bench for casting, I'm thinking that one that is high would be better (safer), the bullet caster would be standing throughout the process. Perhaps have a tall stool for resting during a long casting session. For some reason, I'm thinking a lower bench like you would have for reloading cartridges would not be as safe, being seated in front of a pot of melted lead gives me images of problems if something disatrous occurs...

My bench would be built near the garage door, open the door for ventilation while casting....

Very good ideas... I always stand so I can get away quickly if needed. Also, I run a simple box fan at an angle behind me so the vapors are always being pushed away from me.

 

[Texasflyboy]

I was thinking of using an old pot of some sort, and a coleman stove as a heat source. I have seen some old cast iron lead melting pots on Ebay, but was wondering if something else would work, does the pot have to be cast iron?

Definition of terms:

Cast Iron Cookware: Cast iron pots and pans made to cook food
Cast Iron Melting Pots: Cast iron pots made specifically to melt lead and other lower temperature metals

Food for thought. I have had several cast iron cooking pots crack suddenly over the years when used for smelting lead. There appears to be inconsistency in materials and manufacture in cast iron *cookware* as opposed to cast iron ware made specifically for smelting lead (such as a plumbers pot.)

Cast iron cookware is made to operate at temperatures between 100F and ~500F (oven). Cast iron smelting pots have thicker bases and other features to allow the safe melting of lead. Some of the higher BTU "turkey fryers" can heat the bottom of a cast iron pot to a dull red very quickly. Much hotter than those cooking pots were designed to be used.

I no longer use any cast iron cookware because of the number that cracked suddenly when they were at temperature. There was no way to predict when they would crack. I had one cast iron dutch oven crack on the first use, I had another that ran for over two years before suddenly cracking nearly in half and spilling about 30 lbs of molten lead all over my concrete driveway.

The safest, most effective tools I have found are old surplus plumbers pots made for melting lead, or any plate (1/4" or better, mine are 3/8") steel welded into a pot. Welded plate steel has to be the safest method next to dedicated cast iron pots made for smelting lead.

There are thousands of folks here and on other sites who will tell you that they have successfully smelted lead with cast iron cookware for years without any problems.

My point is this: With cast iron cookware, there is *some* risk that the pot will crack. How much? No one knows.

With plate steel or cast iron pots made for smelting, the risk of cracking is almost non-existent, and at least an order of magnitude less than cast iron cookware. If you are ok with the risk of a cast iron cooking pot cracking and spilling lead, then you can make an educated decision on risk vs. reward specific to your application and use. If you desire the safest operation possible, then you might want to try and obtain tools that were made specifically to smelt lead to lower your risk of injury.

Which is why I don't use cast iron cookware anymore. I don't like risk when it can be mitigated.

FWIW.

 

[Paul5388]

Here's what I use.

I don't know its origin and it has been welded on two sides, but it works.

Here's where I cast.

The hot plate is on to preheat the mould and the Lee Pro 20-4 is hot. There isn't any vapors, since the melt is way below the boiling point of lead. I use sawdust for a flux and have about 1/2" on top of the melt that has carbonized. That also reduces oxidation and prevents any vapors. Sawdust is cheap and I use cedar so it smells nicer than most.

For most handgun bullets the bottom pour will work just fine. It isn't rocket science or even rocket surgery.

 

[nitesite]

Want a cheap alternative to a $20 wide cast iron pot that you can start out with and is usually FREE?

Here's what I started with, using a small Coleman camp stove... The bottom of an R-22 steel tank. They are everywhere. The handle was from a bucket of cat litter. The pic is from the day I cut the tank in half. I've smelted a couple hundred pounds thru it. I don't worry about it cracking, either!

It was wide enough to stir and flux and even ladle from, although the stove output limited the lead volume to around 10-12 pounds each time (about 5-6 ingots).

Using 2-lb muffin pan ingots allows me to use my Lee 4-20 pot for bottom pour or ladle casting without any dross and crap getting into my casting pot.

BTW, I'm really new at this myself. But so far everything has been fairly straightforward and pretty simple as long as I follow strict safety protocols.

Only thing I would do differently would be to cut the tank so the sides were only about 4" high.

 

[snowman.45]

lead smelting

I use a cast iron Dutch oven over a turkey broiler burner. I put the wheel weights into a stainless, round deep frying basket that fits into the Dutch oven. The first attempt took about 30 minutes to melt the contents of the basket. Thereafter, I left some molten lead in the Dutch oven, and the lead melted very quickly. I, too, use cupcake or bisquit pans as ingot molds. I have about 1200 lbs of unprocessed wheel weights left.

 

[oldRoger]

Cast Iron in general is not a bad material to use for this purpose, however, what you will be getting in C I cookware is Grey Iron, and by nature it’s brittle. So be careful with it.
I found a HD SS Dutch Oven at the local TJ Maxx cheap. Since I don’t do large batches it suffices for me, my old Lyman pot was too small. You can find muffin tins and small loaf pans there as well, made sure they are not soldered together for obvious reasons.
The recommended bottom pour ladles are very helpful as well, they work like a teapot. Melting over the Coleman works for me but the set-ups made for deep frying turkeys are cheap at Lowes and worth looking into as well.

 

[Paul5388]

Speaking of muffin tins, here's the ones I use, except I use the 12 holers now.

I don't know if these are what people are calling "soldiered" or not, but I haven't had a bit of trouble using them.