A new used Pro IV pot

[kmw1954]

Well I picked up a nice used Pro IV furnace from ebay and received it a couple days ago. It is an older model with the squared controller box but it is in very good condition and looks hardly used.

So I fired it up the for a test run and to also test a new used Lee 452-200 SWC die I also picked up. Right away I could see a huge difference in how quickly it melted the lead and got to temp. It actually gets much hotter than my old hot plate. First few attempts were a complete mess. I had lead everywhere and it was all because of me. At first I was having trouble lining up the fill spout with the sprue holes so I poured lead all over. Next I had no idea how fast the mold would fill so again lead everywhere. After 4 or 5 pours I finally got somewhat of control and didn't overfill and spill.

Also right away I noticed that quickly I was getting heavily frosted bullets so I turned the temp down which much have been too much because rather quickly it cooled down and the sprue was freezing right away and I started having trouble opening the sprue plate. Then after I finally got the temp to a happy place I started getting incomplete fills which again was all on me as I was cutting off the flow too soon and still missing the fill hole at times.

The first whole bunch of drops all went back into the pot, probably 30 pours Then tried a run that was dropping mostly nice bullets. Good fillout, not a lot of frosting and mostly well defined bases. There were still a few that I quit on early and didn't completely fill. I got about 40 that I kept out of this and about 20 that weren't filled out.

All-in-all I am pleased with this pot and it was a good learning experience and I think will be a good fit for what I want to do. Now I just need to learn this bottom pour and gain some experience over-all. Lastly I think I need to make an adjustment in the height at which I have this set up. Right now it might be set up too high.

Impressed with this new little two cavity 452 mold. at first I was getting one cavity that wasn't dropping and on one of the pour holes in the sprue plate it was keeping a small lead burr which was also blocking the fill. Both eventually cleared up.

[GasGuzzler]

Good job. You'll get the hang of it.