Tips and advice

[carbine86]

I am just starting out with reloading/casting havent even reloaded yet my wife told me i cant buy anything else after i bought my lee reloading kit. Any tips for an easy way to get free or extremely cheap lead for casting. And would it be ok to use a cast iron pot on a hot plate for any melting/smelting i may need to do thanks in advance for any help guys(and gals i know there are a few out there).

[country gent]

A cast iron pot is fine for casting or a steel pot pan, stay away from aluminum. A stand and wood fire with a shop vac for a blower to help the burn will create more than enough heat. A weed burner also will work. A turkey frier stand and burner also. A ladle and stand to work off of is all else thats needed. MAke sure your set up is solid stable and capable of holding the wieght you will have. As to sources of lead all you can do is look around scrap yards tire shops contractors ( roofing building)

[texasbigcat]

Try going to a metal scrap yard the price is about .25 to .50 cents a lb.

[BrassMagnet]

My turkey frier fell apart. Lead is a lot heavier than grease! One of my buddies welded a frame around the legs and it is a lot sturdier now.
I'm sure glad it didn't have a bunch of molten lead in it when it failed!

[leeggen]

Hey brassmagnet how is the apprentice doing, last we heard he was getting ready to leave for awhile. Hope he is doing well
CD

[Lead Fred]

Keep that pot and heat source outside.
I get all my lead from a local scrap yard

A good ladle is a deep metal spoon. I use several spoons while casting.

[kbstenberg]

About the cheapest lead. If you can mine the berms your local range is about the cheapest. Just your time. Other than your tools.

[BrassMagnet]

Hey brassmagnet how is the apprentice doing, last we heard he was getting ready to leave for awhile. Hope he is doing well
CD

He is enjoying college last I heard. It's still to early to hear about grades.

[Stephen Cohen]

My first casting was done on a little camp gas stove, in fact I did that for years. Im not sure I would want to do it on the same hot plate you cook your food on though, as said a couple spoons one to remove dross and one as a ladle. You can bend a bit of a pouring spout on one side to make it easier. You can make a good ladle with a steel pipe cap and drill a hole and tap it for a tip off an old pop rivet gun and weld a rod on it as a handle. Don't rush your first time out, take your time and you will have no accidents. I should point out when I started, I had no way to test the heat of my molten lead, I used a piece of news paper folded in half, dipped it into lead for count of two and removed, it should be a straw colour, if it bursts into flames, your melt is too hot and you need to change your under wear, ask how I know.

[BrassMagnet]

Here are some of my tips and advice which are germane to this thread. I will bring the older thread to the top because there are so many great tips and great advice in the entire thread!

If you are starting out and you are buying factory ammo to shoot until you get enough brass to make reloading worthwhile, you will never get to reloading! Buy tools, brass, primers, powder, Get Coaching, and get started reloading.

Teamwork/Partners is a good way to afford the tools to start. I recommend not sharing ownership of a specific tool, but rather you buy some of the tools and your partner buys some of the tools so that together you have a reasonably complete set and can start saving immediately! Then you can add tools to add capability before you eventually head your separate ways with complete outfits.

Learn on someone else's equipment, with coaching, so you learn for free what equipment will allow you the production quantity and quality which will satisfy you so you don't ever need to upgrade to better or faster equipment.

Never worry about where the BrassMagnet finds his brass...unless you are on the same range he is!

[carbine86]

Brass wise i pick up brass daily at my local member only range. About 200 - 300 pieces of mixed brass each week ive already traded brass for die sets ofm45acp and 223 rem

[Wayne Smith]

Post your location. You might be surprised how close some of us might be.

[carbine86]

I live in southeastern wisconsin

[Der SchizKoph]

Best thing i ever did for a lead source was make friends/ work with a bunch of plumbers. Service plumbers come across lead in the form of roof flashings, cast iron pipe joints, and some of the older toilet flanges. They also regularly use 95% tin for their solder on copper pipes. Every plumber I have ever worked with drips that **** like water. Its not much, but every bit helps. Cultivating sources like this takes time and sometimes an expenditure of adult beverages but has proven extremely valuable to me. Recently got me 20+ pounds of pure lead used for drywall and some bricks of pure that weigh over 20# each. Cost me the gas to pick it up. Hvac guys are another good one for their empty freon jugs, cut the top off and they can make great smelting pots on the cheap.

[carbine86]

I guess ill have to talk to my sister boyfriend as he is a master plumber

[myg30]

If you use an electric hot plate, make sure its the open coil type. you can find them at good will store, wally world, walgreens and maybe dollar stores they run about $9.95 new. The only trouble is when its real cold out the wind will make it slow for the heater to melt lead in a small cast iron pot with a lid on it. A home made shield around it helps a lot.
While at goodwill, look around for pewter. Read about the use of it in the lead casting section. You might find more casters there also looking for pewter as well.
Good luck and be safe ! Always ware your protection !

Mike

[CastingFool]

I once cleaned up some scrap lead and wheel weights in a tin can on an open fire. Got the wood going pretty good, then waited till it burned down some, placed the tin can full of lead in the center, then piled the coals around the tincan, making sure the coals didn't get inside. After I could see the lead was melted, I threw in some candle wax, and scraped the dross out with a spoon. I picked up the tincan with a pair of visegrips and poured the lead into an ingot mold.