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Thread: bottom pour or ladle?

  1. #41
    Banned
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    HeavyMetal with ladle pouring making better bullets!
    With a bottom pour, you can “pressure pour” Hold the mold up to the spout and do as good if not better than ladle pouring until the mold is up to it’s optimum operating temperature [ this is something you need to find out for each mold, mold temp in relation to alloy temp for type of alloy and rate of casting] then you can pour/drop the lead normally.

    With ladle pour you always have the same lead pressure for every pour, but I find with bottom pour if you don’t let the pot get to low it doesn’t matter.

    I also started with a Ladle then quickly went to bottom pour because bottom pour eliminates having to worry about any dross. I actually like to leave a layer of pine sawdust dross on top of my pot (some use clay kitty litter) to help prevent oxidation and prevent splashing when returning your sprues and really ugly boolits to the pot.


    " have arthritis in my hands"

    With arthritis bottom pour has less movement you may want to look at this for your sprue opening
    http://castboolits.gunloads.com/show...e-opening-jigs

    "There is no wrong answer. There is only what works for you."
    It’s like the “great debate between Chevy/Ford/Dodge--- developed personal preferance

    I've used a Lee 4-20 for many years, we've become intimately acquainted. It works well enough for me with a PID that I have not felt the need to "upgrade?" to a more expensive pot.

  2. #42
    Boolit Grand Master

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    Things speed up with practice. The more you do a task the faster you do it. With bullet casting its not just the movements to open close pour but also the cooling set up time of the molten materials. Using 2 moulds greatly offsets this cooling time since one mould is cooling while the other is being filled. The big thing to speed is having everything arrange for comfort, then as short a movement as possible and everything being done in order. The getting used to the set-up to the point its done with out thought. My shelf is on the side of the pot I fill the first mould and set on the shelf fill second and set it beside the first pick up the first and tapper the sprue container is setting next to the shelf and cut sprue. bullet catch pan is next to it and drop bullets close mould and fill repeat. Once this becomes a learned movement your doing everything by memory not thought. Another way to speed things up is to pad the catch bin with several towels then when the pile becomes large pick up the top towel by the four corners and set aside leaving the next to use. As above casting with 2 2 cavity moulds ( 550 grn 45cal and 400 grn 40 cal) I have run 50 lbs of bullets in 4-4 1/2 hours. Setting up for the least movement and in order makes a big difference. Then getting to the memory run point.

  3. #43
    Boolit Master
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    May 2012
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    I'm one of those who bottom pours revolver bullets and ladle pours rifle bullets. When everything is up to temp I can pretty much ladle pour within 1 grain weight of any size and weight bullet with around a 3%-5% loss. I have never been able to do that bottom pouring. For short range, 100 yards and closer, I don't believe handgun bullets need to be as close as rifle bullets shot to much farther distances. When my son and I were shooting SA revolvers out to 500 yards and more I ladle poured those bullets and weighed them as well. These days a course of 50 bullets, weighed and sorted, is about all I do as I have zero need for thousands of bullets in any caliber.

    As has been mentioned, we all find what works for us.
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  4. #44
    Boolit Buddy
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    Jan 2018
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    Browsing through this thread made me realize casting is similar to life in general, in that decisions made early on for better or for worse shape one's future.

    I would speculate that many bottom-pouring casters began with ladles and one or two cavity molds, so they have experience of both worlds. I upgraded from a Lyman pot over a Coleman camp stove to a basic Saeco pot, from which I ladled. Four decades later I am still trying to wear out that pot, which has made me a de facto ladler, which in turn has influenced me to buy two cavity molds. Someone just beginning casting might be wise to byyte the boolit and pay the premium for higher capacity molds and a big bottom pour pot, in that it might save countless hours of labor.

  5. #45
    Boolit Master
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    Personally I avoid 2 cavity molds whenever possible and seldom !!! use the ones I do have. Even my 465gr Wide Flat Nose bullet mold for my 45/70 is a 4 cavity mold.

    They are also aluminum.

    All molds ordered in recent years are at least 4 cavity (have one 5 cavity from Accurate molds) and then there are the lee 6 cavity molds.

    The lee molds are a clear step down in quality, but I buy them to use for rapid production for what I call "banger bullets", bullets for handgun shooting where the distance is close and the shooting pace RAPID. Maximum rate of production at minimal cost. 3 hours with 3 - .40 caliber six cavity molds does indeed product a big pile of bullets.

    With the exception of when casting for my 45/70 where a different alloy is used, I cast with 2 - 3 molds at a time, cycling between them and able to cast 40 +/- lbs. of bullets before the old Coleman stove runs out of fuel, somewhere about 3 hours. By the time I have cast for 2 1/2 - 3 hours, I've had enough for one session but have many bullets to show for my efforts.

    Crusty Deary Ol'Coot

  6. #46
    Boolit Master

    Mike W1's Avatar
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    My wife says I like gadgets (and she's right). When you get right down to it you're just pouring hot metal thru a hole into a hole and sooner or later if you stay at it you'll probably figure out some method that works for you.

    Mine's evolved over the years mostly from tips from other casters and have adopted to my own needs. I may not NEED a PID but wouldn't be without anymore. Have built 4 units that control 2 pots, a hot plate and my RCBS LAM2. Could have gotten by with fewer but had fun building them so that was worth something I guess.

    Shelves, racks for spoons, etc and handy places to dump bullets, a cooling fan and shelf to set the mould on. It allows me to flip a few switches and everything's there in a concentrated area and at the right temperature. I've measured mould temperatures, weighed bullets and made notes of what works and am at the point of just being out of things to try. Last thing I added were the Puck lites which were worthwhile. But I can easily make all the bullets I need for the year in my little winter sessions with my DC moulds with very little effort. Makes it pretty much a fun endeavor not a chore.

    I remember using the ladle back in '76 with a pot fired by a plumber furnace. I wouldn't any more go back to that then a ladle caster would go bottom pour. Like it's been said go with what works.
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    Mike

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  7. #47
    Boolit Master
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    I like your two pot set up there, Mike W1. I'm thinking of doing something like that with my Lee 4-20 and the old US made ProMelt I'm fixing up.

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Abbreviations used in Reloading

BP Bronze Point IMR Improved Military Rifle PTD Pointed
BR Bench Rest M Magnum RN Round Nose
BT Boat Tail PL Power-Lokt SP Soft Point
C Compressed Charge PR Primer SPCL Soft Point "Core-Lokt"
HP Hollow Point PSPCL Pointed Soft Point "Core Lokt" C.O.L. Cartridge Overall Length
PSP Pointed Soft Point Spz Spitzer Point SBT Spitzer Boat Tail
LRN Lead Round Nose LWC Lead Wad Cutter LSWC Lead Semi Wad Cutter
GC Gas Check