5th Smelt.

[1longshot]

No that is not the last fish I finished eating before this post!

Well in my ever constant quest to become a bullet caster I seem to find smelting the cheapest and most frequent of activities I have accomplished thus far. I don't have a furnace yet. I have one mold from NOE that requires gas checks. I have couple of group buys I am waiting on and a whole lot of other equipment that I am planning on getting. I am sure that list will be endless[smilie=6:

For now however I am reserving my time accumulating lead. It has been fun. I added about 126lbs give or take to my stash yesterday. I am feeling very fortunate.

The question I have is: When melting I am using a large cast iron Lodge pot. It will do approx 130lbs in WW alloy in one homo-genius melt. When checking the temperature with my RCBS thermometer the dial reads just below 600 when all is melted. Is this normal?

[frankenfab]

That's just fine. It keeps you well away from the Zinc melting point. I smelted 632 lbs. yesterday, and my pot ran from 600 to 700 degrees the whole time. I only empty half the pot and then add more WW.

I monitor the temp and try too creep it up as I go along, to speed things up. I find that what you have to watch for is that the temperature of the pot will climb rapidly after you get all the clips out. If it getss too hot, you get the gold colored layer on top. So I keep all my stuff close together, pour my ingots, and quickly get some of the larger wheel weights in to the pot to keep the temp from spiking. I also do that to keep splashing to a minimum when I pour a coffee can of WW in immediately afterward.

[runfiverun]

630 is the melting point of pure lead.
being under that tells you you got tin/antimony in the mix.
it also keeps all the bad from melting.
i like to turn my alloy temp up after it's all melted and do the flux then turn it back down for the pouring.

[Doc Highwall]

runfiverun, I just noticed your avatar. I hope are those are No1 wife's legs and not yours. Nice legs any ways.
:kidding: