Just JUMPED in

[huntnfish72]

Ok got 5 gallon bucket of wheel weights (free) ordered a pro 4 20 lb melter. Can borrow 45 molds. What else do I need?

[MtGun44]

Lubrisizer or the more basic equipment to lubricate and size, pan lubing and then
pushing through a Lee push-thru sizer is real cheap if funds are tight.

At that point, you are ready to load some up and try them.

What gun and cartridge? If 1911 & .45 ACP, size to .452 and go. I
recommend a 200 SWC if you have a choice, H&G 68 (or clone) or
Lyman 452460 are excellent molds to start with.

Bill

[huntnfish72]

Shooting an xd 45. And the mold is a 230 grn round nose. He uses lee alox for lube. This ok?

[Friends call me Pac]

"He uses lee alox for lube. This ok? "

I tried Lee alox straight and it is messy. Do a search in the lube section for 45-45-10 mix and I bet you will be a lot happier. I know I was.

[John Allen]

Also do not forget leather and to never put cold lead into a pot.

[Wayne Smith]

Woah! Slow down. You DO NOT want to process raw ww's in a Lee pot. That's how they become drip-o-matics. You need a heat source and a pot to melt those down, clean them, and cast into ingots small enough to go into the lee pot. There are any number of options for a heat source for this but gas seems to be most popular. A stainless steel kitchen cook pot is adequate, from there up to a cast iron pot over a turkey fryer.

Once you have this done and have clean lead you are ready to heat up the Lee pot. Not before.

[Cane_man]

thermometer for the Lee D-o-M pot

[Bent Ramrod]

A ladle, and a hammer handle to knock sprues off.

[sirgknight]

All you need are a few simple and cheap tools. I use the burner from my fish cooker (about 18,000 btu) and an old cast post that I found at a flea market. The spoon with the slots is used to skim the clips and junk from the fluxed lead. The large ladle is great for pouring the lead into the muffin pan. The muffin pan holds (24) 1/2 lb ingots, which are perfect for dropping into the casting pot, and is cheap at wallyworld. Yard sales and flea markets are great places to look for these kind of items also. I flux the wheel weights on initial meltdown and flux again during my casting sessions. This assures me of clean alloy.

[Wayne Smith]

As you can see, you are just getting started in what can become a consuming hobby.

[Cherokee]

Never put raw metal into the Lee pot. Always melt, flux, flux, flux in a separate pot. Pour into ingots of clean metal that will fit in the Lee pot. Welcome to the fun....

[huntnfish72]

How do u flux? With Wat? I melted ww down and scooped out clips and sludge. Got in 5 lb ingots. What should I flux wit?

[Love Life]

You are off to a good start. You have asked many good questions. The answers lie in the "Stickies" that are at the top of the appropriate subforum.

Flux with wax or saw dust. If using sawdust make sure you let it char before stirring it in.

Straight LLA is fine. I used it quite a bit in the 454 casull. My alloy was 1:1 lino/pure, and sized to fit correctly. I then loaded it over a spooky amount of 2400.

Did you check our wheel weights to make sure none were zinc?

[huntnfish72]

How would I know if they were zinc

[Love Life]

Check the lead alloys sub forum.

[littlejack]

+ 1 on the sawdust. Go to work on a piece of pine or fir with your saw, and get lots of flux free.
Jack

[sirgknight]

If you have already melted down your ww's and made ingots then you have gone past the fluxing stage. You can re-melt your ingots and then flux but the best time to do it is when you do the initial melting. All you do is skim off all of the clips and miscellaneous wheelweights that didn't melt. Those are the zinc or iron weights in your batch and they are useless for making bullets. Iron and zinc require a much hotter temperature to melt. Once you have skimmed those off of the lead you then flux it in the melted state. A lot of us have personal preferences as to what we use to flux. Personally, I use wax....more specifically, I use broken pieces of old candles. I drop a piece about the size of my thumbnail down on top of the molten lead. BE CAREFUL, if the lead is hot enough it will ignite itself when the wax starts melting, so be careful to watch for this combustion to happen. I always drop the candle pieces on the melted lead and ignite it myself with a long-shafted butane lighter, like the kind you would use to light a grill. Don't worry, the lead will not burn. As the fire is burning on top of the lead you will need to stir the pot to keep the tin from forming at the top of the lead. The tin is good to keep in the alloy. You can stir with a stick, a stiff dowel, a hammer handle or, like me, you can use a long-handled spoon. Once the fire goes out there will be burnt particles floating on top of the lead, most of it black from the burn. This is called fluxing, and this is what you skim off of the surface of the lead. Once you have completely skimmed off the junk, the remaining lead will look like a shinning mirror and this is what you pour to make your ingots.

CAUTION: Molten lead is very dangerous. Always use good, sturdy, dependable components. A spilled pot of melted lead could be a real disaster and could maim you for life or worse. My personal safety standards include wearing long pants and boots and safety glasses during all of my melting sessions; I always use gloves (a standard pair of welding gloves that come almost half way up my arm) when transferring molten lead; I never melt lead around any kind of water source and do not allow your sweat to drop into the melted pot; breathing the smoke of the melting lead is not very healthy so I always melt ww's in a well ventilated area...outdoors. If you just use good ol common sense you will have a lot of fun with this hobby.

[MTtimberline]

I have used many different kinds of flux with what was available. Mostly what has been mentioned. Sawdust, pieces of candle wax, broken crayons. Lately I have been using a ball of old bullet lube from cleaning the lubrasizer and it has been working really well for fluxing the pot.

[MtGun44]

Forget the thermometer.

Bill

[Dannix]

Ok got 5 gallon bucket of wheel weights (free) ordered a pro 4 20 lb melter. Can borrow 45 molds. What else do I need?
I'd highly recommend a hotplate and a cheap iron thermometer e.g. Coverite.

Also, make sure to not cut the sprue too soon else the lead smears and things get messy real quick. For you are trying to speed up because the mold is too cool, put the mould back onto the plate instead until it's hot enough.

I would also seriously consider getting a PID. I consider Frozone's immersion PID one of the best investments I've made in this hobby.

[MtGun44]

If you lube with bullplate lube like you should, cutting the sprue plate will
never smear. You can cut when it is very soft without problems.

Bill

[Wayne Smith]

You also need to PM the Bullshop and get some Sprue plate lube. It is absolutely magic for the top of your mold.