Hard to argue with even Beagle there on the equipment. He has it down pretty tight.
Personally I have my pot sitting on the end of an old table we used back when we did woodworking. It is a bit lower than I would really like but hey it works. I usually wear some starched work pants when I pour as the lead slides right off of them. Just like if you were welding. I'm not saying you can pour it on your leg, but the little splatters like Beagle is referring to roll right off like buckshot.
I also wear leather topped boots. I don't like doing the Hokie Pokie period, much less when trying to shake a hot piece of lead off my foot.
I wear a pair of thick leather work gloves which are very pliable and soft. They give me pretty good feeling as to what I am doing and make it very easy to cut the sprues using my right hand. I will tell you this however, don't grab and hold onto the mold even with a gloved hand. The wooden handles are there for a reason use them. The heat soaks in....and when it does, you WILL get rid of everything you are holding onto as your shucking the gloves.
My biggest problem is that I spent a number of years fitting pipe and welding. As such the feeling in my hands is not quite as heat sensitive as most folks. Usually by the time I FEEL it things are well beyond where they should be. So I have to be careful with what I use and how I use it to avoid having issues later one.
As for the face shield, yep I have one and I DO use it when I am smelting more than any other time unless maybe while grinding something. When I dump my cutoffs I put one hand over the pot and dump from the far side so that any splatter is contained by the gloved hand and if it DOES splash it is usually away from me. After you get things going you will find what works for you the best. Just be careful as you go, and pay attention to common sense. If you think it will hurt, it probably will. If you want a simple demonstration, just go fry up a half pound of bacon in just your skivvy's, then figure that the lead will be about three times hotter, and if you slap it when it hits, it smears. Nuff Said.
When you start talking about alloy, well a LOT of different blends will work. You simply have to play with it to find what works best. Similar to the alloy I use for my HP's, a ton of folks use a pure lead to tin alloy. Mine starts off around a 1/3/96, and then I blend in some tin and some pure to bring the tin and antimony into check. I have found that with them being pretty much even, I get a good pouring alloy which has hardness that is needed but is also very pliable and tough. This allows it to expand rather than shatter. That said, I haven't got a clue as to how it will work out with my rifle bullets as I haven't started playing with them just yet. My goal is to start on them sometime this year, but my list of things to get done seems to be longer than the time I have to do them. I have two long range rifles I REALLY need to work up loads for before I get started on the cast loads.
With the link above and with all of the stickies posted on Castboolits there is enough reading there for several years of research, trust me I have been working on it for nearly three and haven't gotten to the bottom of the stack yet. Start out with learning how to check your rifles for fit and function first. Slugging your bore and such are all covered on CB's stickys.
Then research the molds folks have had the best luck with. While your reading through that take notes on the alloy they used as well. Stick with the simple stuff first and work from there. You will be miles ahead, and once you get started things will start to click into place. You will find yourself thinking, hey I need to check on this and be able to go straight to it. This is the benefit of doing the research first. Yes you can ASK about things, but if your not sure what your asking about you will get umteen different answers and none of them might be what your looking for.