Are Lee Pots just garbage?

[high standard 40]

I don't consider Lee products to be the best on the market but many of their products do fill a cost effective alternative to better engineered offerings. I like their 6 cavity molds for my guns with a larger appetite. I have a few other assorted Lee products that I use and like, especially my older Auto Prime. As far as Lee pots, I have a Mag 20 that is dedicated to COWW alloy. After I lapped the control rod and spout and added a PID, it functions just as well as my RCBS pot.

[mtnman31]

I've got a Lee and an RCBS Pro-Melt. I got the Lee when I started out and now use it for nothing but pure lead. I got the RCBS used not too long after I got the Lee. While the RCBS works better, the Lee is still reliable and I haven't had any real problems. It drips a little bit more than the RCBS but not enough to consider it junk. I don't keep a thermometer in the melt so can't comment on how well either of them hold a steady temp. I keep both my pots clean and NEVER smelt in them. Only clean alloy goes in either of my pots. A clean pot will work better, regardless of what brand it is. Like has been mentioned, Lee is at one end of the spectrum on price point. Someone buying a Lee shouldn't expect it to work like a pot costing 3-4 times as much. If an affordable Lee is what gets a new person started in casting, fantastic. If someone's been at it a while and doesn't like the Lee or can't make it work well, save those pennies and get a better furnace.

[lightman]

Quote; Are Lee pots just garbage; Quote

I wouldn't call them garbage. I have 2 and sometimes 3 buddies that come over to cast in my shop. We'll set our pots up on my work bench and cast together while we visit. The guy with the Lee pot tinkers with his pot more than the rest of us. He keeps a small pile of tools next to him like a screwdriver, allen wrench and a bent paperclip.He's constantly poking and probing at the spout. We also melt our scrap lead together so we're all casting with the same quality of lead. He also keeps an ingot mold under his pot while he is refilling it or waiting on the lead to melt. At the end of the day he has slightly fewer bullets than the rest of us have.

The Lee guy has less money invested than the rest of us and he is happy to tinker with his pot, for the price difference. He's probably melted hundreds or maybe thousands of pounds of lead in his pot. So is it garbage? No its not! It is lesser expensive than our pots and has lesser performance.

[bangerjim]

Smelting means using heat to extract metal from ore; we don't do that. For some reason many of today's cast bullet shooters (wrongly) call the melting of stray bits of lead based alloys in a pot "smelting".

Are Lee's simple melting pots the mechanical equals to those costing several times more? No, but that doesn't matter at all to most of us.

I've been bullet casting for about 55 years and have happily used one of the original Lee bottom pour melting pots for some thirty of those years; if it falls apart today I'll sigh, smile and get another one tomorrow. It appears I'm not the only one who feels that way about Lee's comparatively inexpensive pots; are we just too stupid to know what we're doing???

2nd's on that! We do NOT smelt anything! All we do is simply remelt already smelted/processed metal products in our teeny little pots. I have said that for years, but nobody ever changes.

And when one of my 3 Lee pots dies, I will just by another one just like it. They are excellent products, if properly maintained, for the very small price they cost.

If it were not for Lee and their cost-effective pots, many of us on here would not have been casting for years! I certainly would never melt and cast Pb over a Coleman stove or wood campfire.

banger

[bangerjim]

Quote; Are Lee pots just garbage; Quote

I wouldn't call them garbage. I have 2 and sometimes 3 buddies that come over to cast in my shop. We'll set our pots up on my work bench and cast together while we visit. The guy with the Lee pot tinkers with his pot more than the rest of us. He keeps a small pile of tools next to him like a screwdriver, allen wrench and a bent paperclip.He's constantly poking and probing at the spout. We also melt our scrap lead together so we're all casting with the same quality of lead. He also keeps an ingot mold under his pot while he is refilling it or waiting on the lead to melt. At the end of the day he has slightly fewer bullets than the rest of us have.

The Lee guy has less money invested than the rest of us and he is happy to tinker with his pot, for the price difference. He's probably melted hundreds or maybe thousands of pounds of lead in his pot. So is it garbage? No its not! It is lesser expensive than our pots and has lesser performance.

I have never done any of the things you describe above. I keep my pots clean of any debris in the bottom and have only had maybe a few drips over the years. The amount of service is equivalent to the knowledge and common sense the user has.

I would put my many thousands of perfect cast boolits over the years up against anyone running a $600-800 pot any day.

After all, they all go splat on the other end! Who cares what pot they came from?

banger

[pacomdiver]

i tried mine last weekend, well it started dripping again after about 1/2 hour of casting and it progressed to a drip about every 3 seconds, so it will sit over a bucket like before. i completely drained it after i was done, no junk or debris in the spout since it never was fully run down

[Stephen Cohen]

I fail to see the problem with Lee Pots and to some extent their moulds. I have had a Lee 20 LB pot for some years and have put over 400KG of lead through it in that time. The price we pay for Lee products should reflect that they may need a bit of a tickle up at times, I give all my lee moulds the attention they need to bring them up to par, I also do the same with my Lee pot and keep it clean and well serviced. I just spent two days casting a variety of projectiles which used up over 50KG of lead ingots with no problems. If one uses clean lead one should have no problems in my view. I agree that a Lee mould is not an RCBS or Lyman but my firearms dont realise that. In this world we get what we pay for and must not expect a Ferrari at a Ford price. I for one am thankful that a company like Lee is out there for us financially disadvantaged old guys. Regards Stephen

[Mal Paso]

This is the Energizer Bunny of threads, keeps going and ...

I would still be using 2 Lee 4-20s but they weren't fireproof (not the pot's fault). I never liked the temperature control so I brazed thermocouples into the bottom and used PID control. I was casting about 15,000 a year then and got a 2nd pot on sale for backup. I probably cast 100,000+ between the 2 with no big problems. If I had a drip issue I'd set that pot aside, keep casting and clean later. The Lee 4-20 is a very good deal especially on sale.

I am running Pro Melts now 1 old, 1 new. I finally got the drips fixed on the new one LOL. That extra capacity (25LBS) is really nice and it's my favorite now. I bought the old one while waiting 6 months for the new one and have it for backup.

If I had to start over and with Pro Melts off the market I would probably get Lee again. I spent way too much time finding, buying, waiting, then fixing Pro Melts. I coulda been casting. LOL

[luv44mag]

5 months ago i added my lee pot to the garbage bin...used it for a few years..... bottom pour rod always messed up .. I have seen some that are threaded but mine had a stupid round head screw that fit into a slot on the rod and it never stayed put it was a bad design ... have the new Lyman Mag 25 now and love it

[murf205]

I remember 40 yrs ago when I ordered my Lee 10 pounder, I had just gotten married to MamaMurf and I had a Midsouth catalogue on my coffee table that I was thumbing through when I noticed the casting section. I had had a lot of trouble with a Lyman pot burning elements out and I remarked to her that I was going to order one of the Lee pots and to be on the lookout for the UPS driver. She said "what in heavens name are you going to do with that thing?" Poor girl, if she had only known what she was in for 40 yrs later!

[toallmy]

5 months ago i added my lee pot to the garbage bin...used it for a few years..... bottom pour rod always messed up .. I have seen some that are threaded but mine had a stupid round head screw that fit into a slot on the rod and it never stayed put it was a bad design ... have the new Lyman Mag 25 now and love it

I picked up a older lee 20 with that stile valve and it was horrible , but Lee does sell the parts to upgrade it .

[kenblacksmith]

Use my Lee pot to make ingots from WW. works awesome for that.

[Walks]

I have a Lee 10lb #4. Drip O'matic. It's somewhere out in the garage. it dripped faster then i could pour lead out of it. Lee C.S. was no help.
maybe someday I'll come across it and give it to some one I hate.

[Alferd Packer]

I have LEE, and Lyman bottom pour.
If your melt gets anything in it, it will find it's way to the spout and interfere with the needle reseating to close off spout.
When you flux a bottom pour, you have to stir the top and skim with a spoon or skimmer tool.
NO deep stirring. It's ok to deep stir when first melted and before you flux.
But once you flux clean mix, no more deep stirring.just light stirring and pour the molds.open the spout full open, then close the same way.Don't let the spout dribble at the start nor at the close.
You have to start with ingot metal that you heated and deep stirred and fluxed and poured out for casting later in a bottom pour pot.
Now casting with a ladle, you can ignore all that and melt wheel weights, lead with dirt and crap in it and flux with oily sawdust and skim off the drosss and start casting dipped bullets.
But a bottom pour will not tolerate any trash and that wire whip sitting in there just contributes to making the pot leak.
You need to baby a bottom pour by cleaning out the pot and the needle and the spout after every casting session.
With dipped bullets. You can let the pot harden and leave it full. Bottom pour needs to be babied.
Yep, dipped bullets are a lot less trouble, but when you get a bottom pour going your way, you can cast bullets all nite long and make a million of them.
You will poop out on dipped bullets long before that happens.
Start with lead ingots that have been previously cleaned and fluxed and skimmed in another pot.
The LEE will pour with the best of them.
But the Lyman, and RCBS will start leaking with dirty melt clogging the spout. The only thing when its clogged is to finish moulding or dump that pot into ingots and clean the pot.
But save those ingots to be fluxed and cleaned.
You can contaminate a pot of clean metal by letting it get hot and fluxing and deep stirring the flux.
The commercial fluxes can keep the pour spout clean on a bottom pour, but that oily sawdust will combine with the dross and clog up the spout. It only takes a small stubborn chunk that will drive you nuts.
This is just imho.
I am still learning and do not claim to know too much . Just passing along my pitiful opinion. Hope it helps..🐥

[murf205]

This discussion reminds me of the Chevy-Ford thing. I cant get one of them to get me out of sight and some others put 400k miles on the other. One thing everybody seems to agree on. The Old RCBS Pro Melts were/are the best furnace for the $.

[rintinglen]

The Lee 4-20 can be very good. Lap the rod into the hole and add some weight to the top of the rod. Never leaks.

+1. I have had three, 2x 20# and 1 10 #. The 10 lb'er was the only one that I had trouble with leakage, that angled rod would jam open if the least bit of refuse got in there. The 20 lb'ers more vertical set up works better, especially if you do as described above. .

[gnappi]

I have a very old RCBS pro melt that's still working after some 25 years. When it goes belly up I'll try the newer model but I won't like the silly price.

[1hole]

I know for sure that Lee's lead pots are junk. Ditto their presses, dies, scale, powder measures, case trimmers, molds, etc. I know it because I've read it so often.

Of course I must admit that all of my own Lee stuff works fine (When used correctly, but then nothing works very well when used incorrectly does it?) but I'm still quite sure Lee's stuff is all junk because I've read it so many times on line and all those web gurus couldn't be wrong, right?

[Drm50]

I have no use for Lee products. I’ve had many most I got on trades and think they are mostly cheap junk. Having said that I have a Lee pot that I bought new in 1976. I did put a new element in it about 15yrs ago. I run through a lot of lead in period from 76 to 92. Was in business and made fishing tackle and bullets constantly. When slow in shop I was pouring something. Meanwhile I went through Lyman & RCBS pots. They were repaired several times. Since I’m no longer in business and selling off most of my loading tools and molds, ect. The old Lee is only pot I’m keeping. So Lee pots are the only product they make I give thumbs up on. The 357 mold I bought same day as pot was junked out in the 80s. I would say their stuff is for beginners or guys not really in deep. The Lee stuff is inexpensive but most items can be picked up used as cheap as new Lee tools.

[curioushooter]

I know for sure that Lee's lead pots are junk. Ditto their presses, dies, scale, powder measures, case trimmers, molds, etc. I know it because I've read it so often.

Of course I must admit that all of my own Lee stuff works fine (When used correctly, but then nothing works very well when used incorrectly does it?) but I'm still quite sure Lee's stuff is all junk because I've read it so many times on line and all those web gurus couldn't be wrong, right?

I started with 100% lee stuff. Because I was poor and like 23 years old and didn't know better than to buy quality stuff once instead of buying garbage once then something quality once. Human lifespans being what they are it pays to buy one good thing once that lasts unless you are an octogenarian or something.

Lee's dies are alright. Their collect neck sizing die is brilliant if if the madrel is ground to the right diameter. I still use their lock-stud and pin case trimming system as it is the best out there in terms of design and is cheap and works. Their 6-cavity mold handle works alright.

But their powder measures are total junk. They spill Win 296/AA1680 and other fine ball powders all over. They are quite simply a joke. I've gotten the plastic and the zinc and the brass ones. That "eastomeric wiper" is a joke. Bough a Hornady Lock-and-Load about a decade ago and never looked back. Their scale is similarly laughable. If you like taking 5 minutes to get something to balance it is fine but my time is worth more than that.

Their molds are junk too. I have about 20 of them. They are better now than they used to be finally accepting that you need real aliment pins on the 2-cavity types. But they are still made of an inferior very soft (chewing gum I call it) aluminum. Still use thin warpy sprue plates that get loose. Still use janky cheap handles on their two cavity models. The cavity finish is OK...not great. Often they are undersized. And many of their designs are just dumb IMO. They'd be better off just copying Lyman's or RCBS's or SAECO's.

I have their pot because I figure its job is to heat up lead. It does do that. But really there is more to it. A good pot heats lead rapidly to a precise temperature under a variety of external conditions and holds it there. It also dispenses lead neatly and rapidly for good mold fill. The lee pot only accomplishes the first job here reasonably well--it does get up to about 800 degrees if you give it enough time.

If you screw around with the pot and modify it and work out all its kinks it works reasonably well provided you clean it after every use. I gave mine a good cleaning and removed pin from the pocket and scrubbed out the "well" that the pin rides in. Why Lee uses a conical pocket for a half-sphere ended rod is beyond me...probably cheaper to make it that way than use a properly sized round well. But whatever.

When the thing finally dies I will not be getting another.

Regarding using a dipper. Many of my mold are 4 holers or more. And I like to cast hot because most of my molds are brass and some hollopoints. I've tried dipping with that stupid Lee dipper (I don't have a good dipper like Lyman's) and it was infuriating and miserable making me wonder how it works for anybody. Maybe with one or two cavity molds of small or medium bores it is fine but not with much else.