The casting gods were with me today.

[opentop]

I have a Lee pro 4-20 I bought less than a year ago, and the dang thing kept dripping on me, so I gave up on it and continued to cast with a ladle.

Last night I was bound and determined to make that LEE bottom dribble work and wouldn’t you know it, it never gave me one problem! (Must have had to let it season in the garage for a year).

I had such good luck last night that I decided to give it another try today. I went to the garage, turned on my hot plate, place two Lee six cavity molds on it. I then plugged the pot in, turned it all the way up, and started filling it with ingots.

Once the melt was up to temp, I fluxed it with bee’s wax and started pouring. Both molds filled out perfectly the first pour. I cut the spurs, applied bull shop plate lube and dumped the boolits.

I got into such a rhythm by alternating molds than things went flawlessly and before you know it. I was out of alloy in the pot.

All this in less than 2 hours from start to finish. Plus I have a pile of over 800 boolits!

Now I think I will elevate the 4-20 on the bench so I don’t have to bend over to line the spout and mold up.

I wanted to share this as every little trick I learnt, I learnt from this site. I want to thank every one for sharing their knowledge. Keep up the good work!

[JSnover]

I started casting at the same time as a good friend of mine and I don't know know how many times one of us has asked the other, "Hey, remember when [insert your favorite glitch here] kept happening? What did you do about that?" And the answer is "I dunno. It just stopped."
Glad to hear your Lee pot has seen The Light. Mine did the same thing; Dribbled all over and then straightened out all by itself.

[454PB]

If you do a search, you'll find all kinds of handy hints on prevention and cure of leaks with Lee bottom draw pots.

My methods include keeping a dental pick nearby to clear the spout from below, and cleaning the metering rod every 100 pounds of boolits. Dross and slag builds up on that rod and prevents a good seal.

I don't even remove the rod on the Pro-4-20, I simply remove the lifting linkage and attach my corless drill to the top of the rod. About 30 seconds of spinning while holding the rod against the seat cleans both the rod and the seat.

[Gunslinger]

I had the same problem. I found that f I keep the alloy clean it doesn't happen. Or well it stopped dripping after I started scraping the sides and buttom more than i used to.

[Crash_Corrigan]

A trip to Harbor Freight will glean a small set of chinese made vice grips. Perfect for attaching to that rod that sticks up from the bottom of the pot. Apply that rod and it adds enuf weight to the rod to ensure a good seal and prevent drips.

Been doing that for 15 years and it works great. If ya get a dribble then just rotate that pair of vice grips and it will seal the hole just great. I have a 15 year old 4-20 and a 3 year old 4-20. I put the old one on a shelf above the younger one and melt my ingots on top and run the hot alloy thru a piece of channel steel into the pot of the younger. I keep on casting and do not worry about cooling down the alloy below casting temperatures.

When I am in the rythym of a good casting session I keep ingots on the rim of the top pot and whenever the level of the bottom pot goes below 1/3 I add more to get the level up to 3/4 on the bottom pot. This provides an even pressure on the alloy flow from the bottom pot and I can keep those Lee 6 bangers hot and working hard.

In one marathon session of casting 200 GR .252 Lee SWC boolits I ended up with over a 10 inch pile on the bottom of my 5 gallon bucket which warmed up the water to more than lukewarm. I never did bother to count that bunch but I would guess that made more than 2,000 boolits.

What I do know is that it took me two weeks to lube/size these babies with my SAECO lubricizer with white label Carnuba Red and they would not fit into 3 ammo cans. This activity coincided with my watching the boob tube while sizing boolits on a little tv table with my SAECO bolted on it.

The resulting buncha boolits when assembled with brass and Clays powder and Winchester SP primers more than filled 7 ammo cans and provided a lot of fun on the firing line.

I have yet to figure out which activity gives me more pleasure.....smelting, molding or assembling the rounds or shooting them. All I know is that it sure beats working for a living.

[quasi]

I fixed my Lee pot by buying an RCBS pot.

[mustanggt]

I have 3 Lee pots. 1st one I got was a 10# model. Dripped all the time. Knew it would from reading this forum. Used a paper clip to keep the flow going and just put an ingot mould underneath it. Works. Now I use 2, 20#'s. They don't leak 99% of the time. Use one for Hardball alloy and the other for 20-1 alloy for BPCR. Nice thing about the 20# pot is its big enough to get a dipper in it for my real big moulds, ie. 535gr. That seems to work better than the bottom pour for getting consistency from bullet to bullet. Can't beat the price of the Lee pot and they work great. I've made thousands of bullets with them and have been very happy with the accuracy of making my own. Lots of satisfaction.

[WHITETAIL]

I have a Lyman 20 pounder.
I leaks now and then.
So I put a small tin under the spout.
If it leaks when I am doing somthing.
I just put it back in the pot.
No big deal.:redneck: