Casting Melt Pots

Anything better than a buffalo chip fire is gravy. You might look into a inverter for the 220 to 120. it might be a trick if not cost prohibitive.

- No text -

A Lyman lead dipper for pouring the lead into the molds. I lubed the bullets by standing them in a pan and pouring melted lube around them. When it set I cut them out using a Kake Cutter, then sized them with an Lyman drive through sizing die and a mallet. I loaded everything with a Lyman 310 Tool and later graduated to the old original Lee Loader. It was slow but I made good ammo.

I use a Coleman 2 burner stove to melt the lead down and make ingots. I also use a 1 burner electric but it's not as hot as the Coleman stove.

You can get started with very little. In Africa I melted the lead on a charcoal fire, dipped it out with a large spoon to cast 30 caliber round balls for the Wrist Rocket Sling shots. Here is one of the missionary kids casting 30 caliber round balls for her sling shot. She was deadly with it.

ON MY MOM'S STOVE. HAVE BEEN USING BOTTOM POUR 20# POTS BOTH LYMAN AND RCBS FOR DECADES. DON'T WANNA GO BACK.

I used plumber's pots and ladle and small stove. One item was a stove working on pumped up gasoline and a blowtorch.

for some work on one of his guns for a Magma 90LB lead pot. It runs on 220 but that's OK. I use it to melt down the recovered bullets that we shoot every day in the shop. When I get a 5 gallon bucket of recovered bullets (about 250 lbs) I spend a few hours melting them down into ingots.

The bullets are covered with sand from the big 55 gallon plastic drum filled with wet sand that we shoot into. I scoop a bunch of the bullets, lead, jackets and all into the big pot.

I put a hunk of wax into the pot for fluxing the mixture. As the wax begins to melt it starts to smoke. I stick a match to it and it flames up. I stir it and when the flame goes out or almost out it is fluxed and the pure lead mixture is covered with all the slag, empty jackets and dirt that floats to the top.



I scoop all the slag, impurities and jackets off and the pure lead mixture is underneath and ready to cast into ingots.



in an afternoon I can usually cast a couple of 5 gallon buckets of recovered bullets, usually 800 to 900 lbs. Cast into 1 lb, 3 lb and 5 lb ingots they are easier to store for later use. I have an RCBS 20LB pot that I can use for the 1 and 3lb ingots. The 5 lb ingots go under my bench in storage and when I need some lead they go back in the big pot for later use or to melt down into the smaller ingots..

I have an old cast iron bean pot that looks like it was used as a humidifier on top of wood burning stove. The interior is covered with rust & I suspect calcium also.

How much effort should be made to clean the interior of the pot before smelting lead?