starting from scratch casting

[Hogtamer]

i've resisted casting my own slugs up until now,,just didn't need anything else to do plus they are pretty cheap to buy. But it's winter and my curiousity got the better of me. i've never attempted this so like any modern guy i went to youtube! there,s a guy on there (45LC) who has a series of vids about casting and loading lee slugs. i've proven to myself that the 7/8 key drives work to my satisfaction so that's what i'll be casting and of course, don't want to spend any money. after lots of viewing and reading here i rounded up stuff i have on hand: 1) coleman 1 - burner propane stove (i've got lots of cylinders of gas); 2) heavy porcelain coated 2qt cast iron pot with wooden handle and pour spout; 3) assorted mismatched old buckshot, huge fishing sinkers i used to use in the ocean, some old #4 lead shot.
turned on a small fan to blow fumes away, lit the burner and waited about 15 minutes and shazam! melted lead! per video i put in a little chunk of old candle, got a little flame, stirred it all around, then began skimming and discarding the slag and shazam again! got a nice pot of silver lead. poured into muffin tins from the kitchen and you guessed it! got these spiffy little ingots of lead. cooled for a while and tried to dump them out....lesson #1 i guess, the old baked on oil in the tins formed a bond with the hot lead and it took tin snips and a screwdriver to separate...guess that why you clean with something like brake cleaner to remove any contaminants and suppose that goes for mold as well.
please chime in about proceedure thus far! i'm pretty handy but this is new to me. i plan to buy a lee mold and that's it...$30 bucks will get a new one here and use the same pot and a homemade ladle to pour the slugs. Any problem so far? thing is, the only vids i see use bottom pour pots that i don't have so my question is, can i use a ladle ok for this? seems pretty straightforward: dip, ladle, tap sprue plate, open repeat. i'm not in for mass production, maybe 100 at a time.
don't expect perfection immediately but do in pretty short order. who's going to be gentle with me and tell me what a cheap idiot i am??? and tell me what pitfalls to expect -cold mold for example??- any help appreciated. like i say, i' m pretty handy when i need to be....built this 12 years ago and was equally clueless...400 hard hours to date on her and counting....Attachment 93106

[bangerjim]

Most do NOT recommend lined anything for smelting! The linings can crack and fly around due to the extreme heat...they were not made for our high melt heat. Better with a CI or steel container....for safety reasons. I use CI for smelting over a plumber's furnace.

Use pine sawdust for your melts. It fluxes/reduces (do it 3x) all the good stuff back in. Stir....skim......stir.....skim. On the last flux I use beeswax to reduce anything back in

Your stuck ingots were probably due to using a tin-plated pan!!!!! And not to oil. You melted and "soldered" your ingots to the cups! Cleaning tin plate will only make it stick worse. Use CI if possible or non-tin plated muffin pans. I use only ingot molds from LEE and RCBS because they are designed for molding and resulting ingots stack very well. (ask me about the muffin ingots that met my toes one day because they DO NOT stack at all! Never again. I have melted all those muffins back into nice Lee brick ingots.)

You will need some tin in your melt when you get around to casting. It fills out the mold cavities. And you will want some harder alloy to bring up your hardness above fishing weights! Shot will have some antimony in it for hardness. You definitely need a hardness tester! Or use the poor man's tester....artist pencils. Do a search on here for the charts and how-to.

Ladle casting has been done for a long time! I do both, but prefer my Lee 4-20 bottom pour pots (2 of them for different alloys). Easy and fast to use. Use an RCBS side/bottom casting ladle that holds almost a pound of lead. Kitchen utensils need to stay in the kitchen. You will find out VERY fast what does and does not work for what you want to do.

If you are using the same pot to smelt and cast from.............MAKE SURE it is clean and free of smelting crapola before you melt your clean lead in it! Most of us have separate containers for that.

Pre heat your molds!

Do NOT pound on the sprue handles!!!!!! They should open with a gentle nudge if your mold is up to temp.

Other than that, welcome to the madness! Only time and experience over a hot pot-o-lead will answer your questions.......and generate many more~~~~~~!!

Best of luck!

bangerjim

[longbow]

Hal:

I have used a two burner natural gas stove, two burner Coleman camping stove and now a two burner propane stove for most of my casting career of about 45 years. My pot is an old 25 lb cast iron plumber's pot and my ladle is a steel ladle that holds about 2 lbs. or more of lead. Both were my grandfather's. He didn't cast but he was a plumber.

I used a bottom pour Lee pot for a while but decided I liked the two burner stove and open pot better. Got rid of the Lee pot long ago.

I like ladle pouring and find it is faster and easier especially with larger boolits, balls and shotgun slugs.

When you get that Lee mould, check it out for burrs especially in the core pin groove for the drive key. My 1 oz. had a few burrs but after some gentle work with very fine emery cloth, it casts very well now.

If there are burrs around the cavity it is probably best to do a little Lee-menting (fine lapping).

I will be ordering a 7/8 oz. mould on your recommendation as well so will give that a try as soon as it arrives. As for prepping, I am not one to do the scrubbing with Dawn dish soap, soaking in Varsol or spraying with brake cleaner. I usually inspect my moulds for any burrs and rectify as needed then simply wipe down well with a rag or paper towel then put a little sprue plate lube on then pre-heat until the sprue plate lube just starts to smoke. That is good mould casting temperature.

Not sure about your porcelain pot though, I suspect the porcelain will flake off.

And what bangerjim said... you should not have to beat your sprue plate open. Once things are at proper temperature the sprue plate should cut just solidified alloy very easily. It may take a bit of practice to get mould and lead temperatures in sync but a steady casting rhythm is important. Don't stop to examine each slug. If they are obviously wrinkled then do some more pre-heating. If the sprue puddle stays molten for more than about 5 seconds you are running hot so turn the heat down a bit and/or slow the casting pace a bit.

You will get it sorted out pretty quick.

I really like casting... almost as much as shooting. You pretty much have what you need except a bit of practice so get to it!

Enjoy.

Longbow

[Hogtamer]

thanks for the input guys, ordering mold now!

[bikerbeans]

Nice Boat!

BB

[jmort]

I have always wanted to build a boat. I guess I will have to settle for casting for shotguns. Use pine dust/shavings to flux when smelting.

[Hogtamer]

well that was easy enough! picked up the 7/8 mold on ebay, delivered priority mail for $24.35. lubed it with baby oil (mineral oil) heated up my ingots i made last week, usd a ladle i fashioned from a stainless steel soup ladle, heated mold with a propane torch and let er rip. got a little rhythm going and was amazed that i was dropping slugs that good that quickly. found out i needed to ladle, wait 15 seconds before cutting sprue and dropping to make sure skirts were fully cooled and formed. ok, now to load a few and will post later today.!

[bikerbeans]

Hogtamer,

Might be able to drop them a little quicker if you pile up a couple of old towels to drop them on. The longer you wait to cut the sprue the more force you need which might take its toll on your mold.

I am glad you got into the slug casting business and hope to see your target pics soon.

BB