Real World Production for a session?

[Canuck Bob]

I'm a greenhorn and was hoping to get an idea on ladle production rates, please.

I want to cast for my 32 Special to start. How many 170-180 gr bullets per session can a practiced, not highly skilled, caster achieve with a two cavity mold and ladle? The pace will be designed for good bullets not high production. I'm asking about the whole session from set-up to clean up?

Here's my speculated plan. I think a Waage pot and ladle is financially doable. For my needs it is a Cadillac setup. I have committed myself to cast bullet shooting as jacketed is just too expensive and for the hobby factor. This is to be sure this setup will meet my long term needs for 4 rifles. My time is tight and a Saturday afternoon casting session once a month is workable.

[ku4hx]

I'm a greenhorn and was hoping to get an idea on ladle production rates, please.

I want to cast for my 32 Special to start. How many 170-180 gr bullets per session can a practiced, not highly skilled, caster achieve with a two cavity mold and ladle? The pace will be designed for good bullets not high production. I'm asking about the whole session from set-up to clean up?

Here's my speculated plan. I think a Waage pot and ladle is financially doable. For my needs it is a Cadillac setup. I have committed myself to cast bullet shooting as jacketed is just too expensive and for the hobby factor. This is to be sure this setup will meet my long term needs for 4 rifles. My time is tight and a Saturday afternoon casting session once a month is workable.

The number of boolits I cast in a session is a variable; a function of boolit weight. In a single session I generally cast about 25 pounds which works out to about 1,400 124 grain 9mm and about 760 230 grain 45 ACP slugs. At 175 grains I get 1,000 boolits give or take a few.

Being retired I never get in a hurry any more and I can have all the sessions my back can stand as often as I want. Many years ago I do remember one marathon session where I cast, I seem to recall, some 3,500 boolits. Those were my competition days and they've long passed mostly by choice. I'm a firm believer in quality over quantity, but when you have a 20# pot full of alloy, a couple of six cavity molds and ingots on the warmer you may as well make hay while the sun shines and your back holds out. A session "cradle to grave" is oh, 4-5 hours. Like I said, I don't get in a hurry and schedules for me are a thing of the past .

And, I hate to be the bearer of bad news, but once a month on a Saturday afternoon is a pipe dream ... never happen. Once you've made a few good quality boolits and sent them downrange, once per month will never be enough. It'll be fine for paying bills maybe, but you'll never settle for that for casting.

[Canuck Bob]

Well ku4hx you described my attitude perfectly. I too like the hobby time but want to get some production when I do set up. Dry hay is important after all and my back should be ok for 4-5 hours still! Your numbers far exceed my needs. Thanks a bunch.

[stubshaft]

For me casting is a necessity and therapy. In a one hour period I could easily cast three pours per minute with a cull rate of less than 8% at a leisurely rate or roughly 330 boolits. The deciding factor is the weight of the boolit as the larger ones take longer to freeze.

[DragoonDrake]

I like to run two molds at a time. I don't care about how many cavities as much. I just try to use similar weights. Two weeks ago, I ran 3 molds over 3 hours. ( molds A & B hour 1, Molds B & C hour 2, molds A & C hour 3). The molds were for 357 and were 125, 155, and 170 grains. I do use a bottom pour LEE and though I did not count how many I produced, I did go through about 30 pounds of lead ( figure 155 grains for ease and that gives you 1350 bullets, which is what I figured I have from the piles). So about 450 an hour.

[Mk42gunner]

Being retired I never get in a hurry any more and I can have all the sessions my back can stand as often as I want.

When things go right and the boolits are falling from the mold, it is hard to stop sometimes. when things aren't going as good, it is easy to stop after a couple of hundred boolits.

Each casting session gives me a different amount of boolits, I just try to keep the quality up; there isn't much sense in casting rejects. If my back gets to bothering me, I can alwys come back another day to cast more.

I usually have more boolits already cast than I have brass anyway, so I am mainly casting for future use.

Robert

[runfiverun]

i am thinking 4-5 hrs start to stop and a couple of breaks during the session.
you should get 7-900 quality boolits in a session making 3 pours and dumps a minute.
casting is the easy part for me.
checking and lubesizing is like torture, as i am culling bad boolits, shaping the bases, making things square, and then seating the check and lube/sizing.

[Bullet Caster]

I just cast 434 155 gn. .312 in 3 hours today. That's about it for one tank of gas since I use my Coleman campstove and an iron pot. That's about 144/hr. without many rejects. I go for quality rather than quantity. I'm like Mk42gunner in that I have many more castings than I have brass. I've already reloaded all my brass except for the AK-47 which I don't presently have dies for. They're next on the list to buy whenever (if ever) funds become available. So my casting sessions that I do now is for future loadings. BC

[Al_sway]

It really depends on what you want to do and how much you want to cast. I often cast in smaller batches due to time pressures and my needs.
For example, I need some more .30 cal, 150 grain bullets. A half hour to set up my table, and melt the pot of lead. While melting I can get out the mould (s), my protective clothing, and the rest.
I often cast just the one pot of metal, or about an hour, whichever comes first. At that point I should have about a 100+ good bullets. About 15 minutes to put it all away.

[grouch]

Similar to ALSWAY - my stuff stays set up, so it takes about 15 min. to melt my 9 lb pot of alloy, I cast for an hour or until the pot gets low. With a single cavity mold I get well over 100 .30 cal. bullets. After they're weighed, (+/- 0.2gr) with luck 100 or so remain.
Grouch

[mpmarty]

I just last weekend cast for about an hour and produced 150 usable 350gr .460 boolits. In that hour about 20 minutes were "wasted" waiting for the pot to come up to temp.

[WD2A7X3]

I do about 200-250 per hour, mainly limited by the temp of the mold (needing to let it cool a coupld seconds even on a low temp setting).

Start is just tossing lead in the pot then coming back 20 min later. During the 20 min I clean the molds, lube, and re-smoke if nessicary. So maybe 1.5 hours for 200 bullets taking your time.

Clean up is about the same, turn it off, come back when it's cool and put it away.

The only other two things I setup and take down are a bucket of water with a towel and an old cookie sheet that I use to catch the sprue cuttings. So those take about a minute to setup and put back inside on a shelf.

I'm not sure what a Waage pot costs, but it's hard to beat a $65 Lee 4-20. I've never cast with a laddle since I started with a bottom pour, but I can't ever see myself using one now that I'm spoiled. You can cast as fast as your mold temp allows and no need to set your beaterstick down and pick a laddle up every pour, I just keep my stick in my hand and use 1 finger to pour the lead.

[cbrick]

Depends completely on the individual. For me there is nothing in my loading room that I do for speed, probably explains why I have no progressive press. I have never counted pours per minute or loaded rounds per minute/hour & have no idea, I go by mold temp and what's falling out of the mold and what I need.

The only bullet I currently cast in larger numbers is the 35 cal 188 gr silhouette for my FA 357 Mag. I try to get 500-600 from the same 40 pound pot of alloy and mostly that's in two, sometimes three casting sessions. Everything else I usually need 100, maybe 200 at a time & that's what I cast in that session.

So the bottom line is that I cast/load whatever it is I need at the time. Time? Dunno but I can say that retirement is wonderful.

You won't go wrong with the Waage pot and it's not uncommon for me to get more acceptable bullets with a ladle than bottom pouring, simply fewer rejects. I think if you get that setup Bob will be a happy camper

Rick

[Forrest r]

Any more I'm good for about 400 pours/pulls of the handle, it doesn't matter if it's a single, double, 4 cavity or 6 cavity mold. I use a Lee IV 10# melting pot & an iron skillet/gas turkey cookrer base combo to keep 35 to 40# of lead on the side melted & ready to refill my 10# pot for the 4 & 6 cavity molds. Basically 3 to 4 hours & I'm done for the day.

[C.F.Plinker]

My routine is to get the pot out and fill it with the sprues from the previous session and about 10 pounds of ingots. Leave a couple of more on the top of the pot to warm up. Go have lunch or dinner while they melt. You don't say what your heat source is. You can probable put the mold and spare ingots near it to get them warmed up.

When the lead is melted add the warm ingots if necessary to top the pot off. Start the clock here. Get the molds that I will be using out, put them on top of the pot to start warming, and set up the water bucket if I am water dropping. Once the lead has all melted I flux the pot and start casting. For me the session ends when the pot is empty. This usually takes about an hour and a half from when the clock started. When I am done I have about 10 to 11 pounds of boolits and the same amount of sprues. At 175 grains for a boolit this amounts to about 400 boolits in a session. If I water dropped them they lay out on old papers to dry. Then less than 15 minutes to put them in old coffee cans and put everything back unless I am going to do another session.

Like you, I use 2 or 3 cavity molds. It's probably a little quicker to use the bottom pour pot than ladle dipping. I would figure on 2 hours for dipping instead of the hour and a half it takes to bottom pour. As always YMMV. One thing that can have a bigger effect on the casting rate is how the molds are behaving that day. On some days everything just seems to flow and on other days I need to stop and start all over the next day. Some molds just seem to cast faster than others and you get to know which ones they are pretty quick.

[1Shirt]

I just go with what works. If I am casting 22HP's, about 150 at a time is all I can take. If a 2 cay for 22's, about 250-300 (if I am using two double cavs at the same time). About a 20lb. pot full if I am using a 6 cav. mold for any blt weighing 150 or above. I water drop everything for convenience, and normally think that about 2 hours is as long as I want one casting session. I also like to size and lube on the same day.
1Shirt!

[ku4hx]

Well ku4hx you described my attitude perfectly. I too like the hobby time but want to get some production when I do set up. Dry hay is important after all and my back should be ok for 4-5 hours still! Your numbers far exceed my needs. Thanks a bunch.

I hear ya! There are times I just can't hold my mouth right, the moon's in the wrong phase and boolits come out looking like some alien from another dimension shed them while passing through.

That's when it's time to quit and start over another day.

[Bret4207]

For me with a a 2 banger and ladle, once things are up to heat, I figure to average 4-5 pours a minute. Mind you I have a 40ish lbs pot so it' tends to last a long time. I get bored long before I get tired with a 2 banger. 250 an hour should be a snapper with a decent mould. With a problem mould...eh, not so much. But still, I've seen people that claim they only get 100 or so an hour with a 2 banger. I;m betting they spend a lot of time staring at fresh cast boolits, drinking a beverage, tuning the radio, taking the melt temp, frickin' around with their high dollar respirators and leather welding outfits, checking for stray teardrops from angels falling into the pot, things like that. If you want production, get the melt up to temp and CAST! If the mould heats up too much then use the Bruce B Speed Casting method and cool the sprue with a damp cloth.

Get in gear and go!

[Yance]

Casting is my "meditation" so no need to try to hurry, especially casting my BPCR 500 grainers. I usually get around 100 GOOD boolits an hour, inspecting and culling the few rejects as I go.

I learned several years ago that I have a much lower reject rate ladle casting, and the 500+ grainers are just about impossible for me to cast with a bottom pour.

Bottom line, enjoy casting, don't try to run "production". This is a "slow" game. Store bought hardcast bulk packs are for the "spray 'n' pray" crowd.

[Blammer]

In one hour today I cast about 200 45acp boolits from a 5C mould and I was taking my time.