Ladle Pour with Lee Six Cavity Mold

[Ranch Dog]

I had a customer as this: "I use a standard Lee melter without the bottom pour. I just ladle the lead into the mold. Do the six cavity molds work well in this way?"

If never ladle poured a mold, any advice I can pass along?

[Freightman]

If you pour one cavity, drop the boolit pour two and drop, three and drop up to six and do it as fast as necessary it works fine.

[Dutch4122]

Tell your customer that he will need a ladle with enough capacity to fill all six cavities in one pour. I use a Rowell Ladle and it works great with Lee six cavity molds casting any design above 160 grains weight. Lighter boolit designs cut in six cavity mold blocks can usually be cast with the smaller RCBS/Lyman ladles.

Hope this helps,

[Aaron]

What Dutch said...

[mooman76]

+2 what dutch said. Very difficult to do fast enough if you don't have a big enough ladle. Speed is a big factor with the big multi cavity moulds. An improvised ladle will work too like a small soup or gravy ladle from the dollar store. I don't do 6x that much so never spent allot on a ladle.

[Four-Sixty]

Just what is bottom pour?

I use a 6" skillet and a Lyman ladle. I fill two cavities at a time, recharge the ladle, then pour the next two cavities. I could do 3 or 4 cavities if I want to, but I get better fill out when I keep the pressure up. If I keep a moderate tempo, I can turn out boolits fast. A lot of lead ends up as sprue material this way, so it's best to have a good supply of ingots handy to feed the pot. Since I use gas, there is no problems with the melt cooling off too fast. I don't know if electric pots can keep up with the demand or not.

[MikeS]

The Rowell #1 ladle works great for 6 cavity moulds. I normally use a bottom pour pot, but for my pure lead boolits I use a Lyman Big Dipper 10lb pot with a Rowell #1 ladle. I have one of Dick Dastardly's BigLube moulds, and when casting them with pure lead the setup works great, with good fill out even with the huge lube groove in those moulds!

[Mk42gunner]

I've got a GB ~255 grain mold for the .38-55. I have successfully used it with my RCBS ladle. I fill three cavities, then dip the ladle again. It works, not quite as fast as a BP, but the boolits filled out nicely.

Robert

[rintinglen]

Although I've done it, my reject rate runs higher when I ladle the lead in to a big multicavity mold than when I bottom pour. I think I need a bigger ladle, based on what I'm reading above, to get all cavities at once. Filling half, then going for the other half, allows the mold to cool a bit much for best results. Being older and more feeble these days, I mostly bottom pour.