I'm new to reloading/casting and purchased a Lee 10-lb melt pot recently. Yesterday I tried to do a bit of casting (230 grain subsonic bullets for 300 blackout) and used some WWs, a little bit of 50/50 solder, a few lbs of coarse buckshot, and a bit of linotype in the pot to get myself a BN of around 12 according to the calculator. I took the advice of some folks here and used some sawdust to flux with, mixed it in, scooped out the crud at the top and started casting. After a few minutes I started getting a lot of yellow/black crud on top of the mix, so I scooped it off... Thinking maybe I didn't get all the crud out of the mix, I put another tsp or so of sawdust in it, stirred it around, and scooped off the crud. I was left with "clean" lead for another few minutes... until more yellow/black crud started forming on top. I ended up with a 6" wide, 2" high pile of yellow/black powdery crud that I just kept scooping off every few minutes. That can't be right... Was I running the pot to hot and cooking out the tin and antimony? I think I had it on 6 to 6.5 most of the time, fwiw. From what I've read on here, I might have had the pot too hot and was cooking out the tin that I had added earlier. Not sure... I did get nice shiny bullets out of the mold when it didn't cool down too fast...
I finished my casting session with a bit of frustration (spout kept clogging, mold kept getting too cold with all the wind and the 45-degree temps I was casting in) and per recommendations left a bit of lead in the pot, but there's a TON of yellow crud on the inside of the pot now. Is that lead oxide? Can I get it back into lead metal with some flux/beeswax, or am I going to have to clean it off with a wire brush? I tried scrubbing it out with a brillo pad, but that was an effort in futility. Should I worry about it? I figure that's what was causing the spout to get clogged given it's grainy texture.
Any help would be appreciated. Thanks.
- Rob