Casted my first bullets today!

T

taylorce1

New member
Got my Lee 10lb pot yesterday from my buddy and melted down some WW's last night and got the lead cleaned up and poured into ingots. So I pulled out my new Lee mould this morning and gave it a good scrubbing with Dawn and a tooth brush and got it cleaned up. Let it set in the sun to dry while I started my ingots melting in the pot.

Once my lead got up to temp I fluxed it again with some candle wax, skimmed off the dross and got ready to pour. Forgot to preheat my mould so I set it in the pot to let it warm up, fluxed again and poured a few bullets. I ran about 50 bullets and was able to save a little over half of them.

I came out with 26 bullets from my Lee 170 gran FNGC mould. After the bullets all cooled I weighed the ones I kept and they all weighed in around 173.5 grains +/- .3 grains and were .311 across the bands. I'm going to lube them up tonight and size them and seat the gas checks after I get home from work tomorrow.

I'm using the Lee sizing systme with liquid Alox to size and seat gas checks. I know this isn't the prefered lube for this type of bullet but I don't feel like pan lubing these. I hope to get some money after my wedding in Sep to have enough to by a lube sizer either a Lyman or RCBS.
 
You are going to want the lube heater with the sizer/luber for that bullet even with Alox. My 170 gr GCFP's did not want to cycle thru the machine without bending the small/tall bullet, even water quenched. Once I got the heater they size with normal effort and retain form.
 
Welcome! I started casting a few years ago, low volume kinda guy, but it is great. I also use the lee LLA and push through sizer with no problem, for 9mm, 38Spl and 7.62x39mm cast boolits.
castboolits.gunloads.com is a great resource.
 
GP100man, I didn't burn any fingers but my gloves got a little hot in a couple of places. I'm already looking for a new pot, my little 10 lb pot just isn't cutting it. It drips all the time after the first use and the stream dribbles at times. Not complaining really because I got it for free, but I was warned about it needing to be cleaned all the time. I just figured I'd get to cast 3-4 sessions without having to tear it down and cleaning it.

Still think I'm going to enjoy this hobby!

BTW the GP 100 .357 Mag is my gals favorite revolver, she named hers Bessie!
 
One trick with the Lee 10#, don't fill it all the way with lead. Let it drain down to 1/2 or slightly less and it will be able to control the temp a lot better that way.

Dripping can be stopped by turning the screw at the top. Still a tad annoying though.
 
Lee pots

If your meltin dirty lead in the lee pot , STOP !

I reread ya post & I can`t tell if your smeltin in the lee or in a different STEEL pot , clean ya lead in a different STEEL pot.

I usually flux 3-4 times !!

Empty it completely & clean it out , then take some lappin compound & lap the plunger to the spout , just be sure to lay it at the same angle as it operates .

Then get ya a pair of small visegrip pliers & clamp em on the handle to add weight to the handle .

Anyways this will help but not stop the drip , even the hi end pots drip a little .
 
I'm not smelting in the Lee pot, I've got a larger steel pot on a turkey fryer that does my smelting work. I'm only putting back the reject bullets and sprues directly into the Lee pot. Other than that it is ingots that I've cleaned going into that pot.

I've tried turning the screw on top to get it to slow the drip and that isn't what is really bothering me. The inconsistant flow out of the spout has me bothered more than anything else. I'll try the half full method and see if that works better but it sure is a lot harder to flux the pot when it is only half full.

Thanks for the replies.
 
Welcome to the asylum, taylorce1! Only have one casting session under my belt so it's all new and exciting to me. Hoping to cast some BPCR boolits this weekend and scored a source of WW's for revolver boolits today so life is good!
 
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