A lead furnace

[DMCasts]

Been doing the old school way of using a six cavity Lee mold for 45 acp over a flame burner but now would like to graduate up to one of the electric type such an RCBS mag furnace.

Also went from single stage press to a Dillon 550 so any input on what type of electric melt pot i should go with??


Thank You!

[Mike W1]

RCBS definitely comes to mind but I'd still build a PID controller for it. However what I'd buy is a Lee 20 and put a PID on it and likely modify it a bit like Dikman did. Heck of a lot less money involved.

[engineer401]

For price, Lee. For quality and ease of use, RCBS. I started with a Lee citing cost. Eventually I decided to buy the RCBS and never looked back. The hard part for me was to justify the cost. It was worth it. I gave my Lee furnace to someone who is starting out. It still works.

[newrib]

I have a LEE 20 pound bottom pour and a Lyman big dipper along with a LEE 5 pound for pure lead. They are all good once you couple them with a PID. I would think a RCBS would be the way to go, if you want to spend the $$

[OuchHot!]

I have one of the very early pro-melts and frankly the thermostat has a pretty sizeable dead band. That wasn't a problem for most iron molds but as my mold collection improved a PID became very useful. The rcbs always had a issue with the spigot freezing but wrapping it with insulation helped. It does dribble a little but not something I worry about. I have used a friend's pro-melt and it is just like mine. My lee 20# bottom pour got the PID early on and dribbles more than the RCBS but not enough to worry me. People like to jump in about the perceived excellence of all things RCBS, and my failure as a human for not demanding warranty, but they actually told me that as an electric product the warranty was not valid. Both are very functional pots. I truly have no complaint with either but the fact that the lee is 1/5 the cost is hard to ignore. I use a waage for ladle use and it is a very fine pot.

[OuchHot!]

an a 'nother thing! If I were starting out now, I would tend toward several pots. This might not be useful to you, but I shoot BP and smokeless rifle and pistol and find several alloys useful. I don't like having to drain a pot to change alloy. PID are so cheap that I would consider several used pots or the lee pots.

[DMCasts]

Thanx For Your Help.

[dikman]

All comes down to money (of course) and how much you want to spend. The Lee is very good value, and as Mike said I modified mine extensively. Coupled with a PID it's a delight to use, with NO drips. But it was a lot of work. The RCBS costs more and works very well - again with a PID - but doesn't need to be modified much (I just added a shelf for supporting the mold as I couldn't hack that rod support they use).

Or there is the new Lyman Mag 25, with builtin PID, but that is very much an unknown quantity, reliability-wise, at the moment.