Lee Loader

Yesterday I became a novice caster. The mold is a Lee 356-102-1R two cavity and the lead alloy is COWW's. The equipment is a two burner 1500watt hot plate and a 1qt. SS sauce pan and a Lyman ladle.

A couple weeks ago I acquired a 5gal bucket of assorted WW's for free. After sorting it yielded 80# of COWW's after rendering them down and cleaning, and 20# of SOWW's. Didn't bother to weigh the scrap steel and zinc but it was about 45#.

Learned a lot about my equipment, the process and my own technique. The plate and pot are slow and take a long time to heat to temp and wish it could get a little hotter. Took a bit to get everything hot enough to start casting good bullets but it did get there. The ladle and two cavity mold seemed to work well together.

Hope to try again this week and work on my technique now that I have a slight clue as to what I'm doing.

Welcome to the club. A lead pot is a great investment. I use the Lee 10 pound. I also bought a thermometer from NOE. The stick on weights make good traditional bullets for low power revolver loads. They also are great for black powder guns. I add a 10-12 inch length of tin solder to help them fill out in the mold. Casting your own can lead to other experiences like paper patching, powder coating, making your own lube and gas checks. Enjoy.

For rendering bulk lead I like a turkey fryer burner and a cast iron Dutch oven . The 10-12" by deep frying pans are cheaper new but weathered Dutch ovens are cheap at yard sales too .
You can add a heat shield to confine the hot plate heat to the pan with a collar made from a #10 (aka large steel coffee can or the "gallon" sized veggie cans) to help with heat time and temp control .

I will second the lead pot I have 2 5#s and a 20# I cast from and I think Santa Miss is bringing me a bottom pour for Christmas but we'll have to see how that turns out it may cost me a green house .

MacD has great suggestions .

I agree with MacD and RB.

What I'll add is to take your own time and "graduate" to more and "better" equipment (and techniques) as you truly outgrow what you have. The lead pot and thermometer are good places to start. Go slow and get a feel for what works for YOU and do NOT get on a bunch of forums and start trying to implement every last technical suggestion. You'll read fixes and cures before you really understand what you're fixing and curing and end up with many more real problems than the ones you first imagined.

This is one of those the-more-you-learn-the-less-you-know endeavors. I'm not saying it's not good information on (some) forums - just don't get bogged down by it until you encounter a persistent, specific and identifiable problem. It will be overwhelming had have you chasing your tail. One really neat thing about it is that you'll never run out of things to learn.

Jeff is right too .
My casting literally started with a turkey burner cast iron pot and a soup spoon on a stick .
Those short fat pistol bullets got me thinking I was a pro ......... A couple small caliber , 30&32 , rifle moulds fixed that up right quick .

Today some 15 yr into this I cast 19 cal from 22-.690 and occasionally I find myself having forgotten some detail about a particular mould . There are only 65 or so in iron , aluminum and a lone brass , so you can imagine trying to remember this one likes to run slow with hot metal and that one wants to run fast with cooler melts the other wants to be preheated over hot and cool as you go ..........

Mac, RB, Jeff. Sometimes, that beautiful silver stream & those slick looking
molds will have a person pulling there hair out. It will feel like every single thing in the universe plays a part ?? The moon phase, neighborhood black cat, did you step on a crack
in the sidewalk this morning, holding your mouth right ?
When that happens, the best thing I can do is shut down & walk away. Now, the really
aggravating thing is, later that day, or the next, or several days later, fire up & give
it another go & guess what? The Galena Gods smile on you & you can't do anything
but pour perfect, pretty boolits? Maddening, but we love it, that beautiful silver
stuff is very addictive. Best of luck & keep us posted.

I still think the best way to go for someone trying to keep things to a minimum is the Hot Pot-2. I continue to use it for small batches, pouring small-caliber bullets up to the 12 Gauge slugs. You can pour directly from it, no need for a ladle or anything else. I use wooden paint stir sticks to work the alloy and scrape the bottom and side, no need for any fluxing material as the wood on the stick handles it.

My interest in the Hot Pot-2 started as a lark during a period of boredom, and I happened to find something that was very useful.

Ranch Dog wrote:I still think the best way to go for someone trying to keep things to a minimum is the Hot Pot-2............

Wow! I didn't know they still made those!

I never gave it a thought because it seemed too sensible a thing to not have become an obscure item of ephemera and nostalgia. I really need to get one of those.

Four pounds of lead. That's plenty if you're not going for gross volume, like when testing an alloy or just need a hundred 357 bullets or a few hundred 22 bullets - that's even accounting for generous sprues.

I do still have my "soup spoon on a stick," as RB calls his. Now, just I use it to skim the uglies off, stir in wax, scoot hot bullets around and scoop up the occasional wayward sprue. The edge of the spoon fits the screw slot in the top of the metering stem and I can give it a twist as needed to slow down the drips on my LEE bottom-pour pots. It's like a par of my hand and gets used more than any other casting tool I own.

Thanks to everyone for reading and commenting.

A member at Cast Boolits thinks I wasn't going fast enough and the mold was cooling to quickly that last session so I my try one more time with this pot and also maybe to not fill it as full. Then see what happens.

I've seen it said; "The only way to learn to cast bullets, is to cast bullets". I started much like you did with a ss pot but I used a Coleman stove. The main "problem" is temperature control but you can cast a lot of good bullets with practice. I used my camp stove an sauce pan for over a year feeding my 44 Magnums with Lee 240 gr. SWC and pan lubing...