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Thread: Ladle Casting - how many cavities can you pour?

  1. #21
    Boolit Master
    winelover's Avatar
    Join Date
    Apr 2009
    Location
    North Central Arkansas
    Posts
    2,403
    All my ladle casting is done with a Rowell #2.............more than enough lead for the largest moulds. I prefer no larger than a five cavity. The mould will fit diameter, wise, inside the top of the pot. This way, excess poured alloy makes it back into the pot. IME, one can never pour too much alloy. Keeps the mould and sprew plate up to proper casting temperature. When the mould is operating correctly.............a glove hand is all that necessary to cut the sprew.

    Winelover

  2. #22
    Boolit Master
    Join Date
    Feb 2012
    Location
    N. IL. Kankakee County
    Posts
    806
    I cannot speak to consistency, I cast handgun plinking and most of my issues are gunk on mold related.
    Never bothered measuring enough to generate a real bell curve plot, but spot checked average is +/- 1gr, any more than that and I have gunk on the mold faces.

    I just use a kitchen soup ladle, 50 cents from the thrift store, just picked up a second one a few weeks ago.
    Scorched the plastic handle on my original last year, it was left frozen in a pot of lead.
    I must have cranked the heat up high next session and it got scorched while melting the pot.
    Oh well, 10 cents a year, no complaints, and it still works, but I don’t trust the handle.
    It holds less than 2lbs full, I need a little of a second pour to fill my 2lb muffin tin molds.

    Holds plenty of lead to fill a lee 6cav 230gr 452 mold, large sprue, and have lead left in the ladle.

    I pour over my pot and just let excess run back into the pot if I feel I need to heat the mold/sprue plate some more when starting or after taking a break.

    So I would vote for a larger ladle, I sure wouldn’t want to use a smaller one.


    Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

  3. #23
    Boolit Bub SirNomad's Avatar
    Join Date
    May 2016
    Location
    Tucson, AZ
    Posts
    51
    With my ladle, which is pretty small, I can do 3 cavities, so I have to use two ladles full for each 6-cavity mold. It doesn't seem to slow me down much. I use my left hand for my ladle, so the nice bottom-pour rotometals ladles don't work for me, I don't need to be clumsy when using molten lead.

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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