What's your hourly average using a 20# bottom pour pot?

[robpete]

Just curious. I've ladle casted for the past five years and recently switched to a pro-melt.

[BruceB]

With my Pro-Melt, it's no great trick to produce 400-500 per hour with a 2-cavity mould, and 800-1000 with a four cavity job.

This requires some thought and technique, but many members here have followed my routine with success.

I'm jiggered if I can find the article I wrote on the subject; perhaps some kind soul knows where it can be found.

[imashooter2]

Not using BruceB's speed casting method, I generally get around 500 an hour with a Lee 6 cavity and 240 with a deuce.

[dragon813gt]

It depends on the mold more than anything. Close to 1k an hour with a MP 45acp mold. But only a few hundred with one of his 30 cal molds. I don't cast for speed so I'd say 500 an hour is about average across all molds.

[telebasher]

For my purposes casting is as much fun as shooting, and just like shooting accuracy and consistency is my main goal. Each mould has it's own rythym to cast good bullets. I cast 22's on up to 45's and 11 different round balls for my black powder guns. I have single cavity , double cavity, four cavity and six cavity with several hollowpoint moulds for good measure. I've been casting for over forty years and am still learning, but speed has never been a requirement, only good , accurate projectiles.

[JonB_in_Glencoe]

When the going gets good, I suppose I can get near the 500 per hour with a Lee six cavity mold. I have the 358-125 RF that fits that catagory.

Now with troublesome 2 cav 'rifle' molds, it's probably more like 50 'good' boolits per hour. I have a Lyman 266469 that will NOT even do that good...it's a sticky wicket.

[btroj]

Hard to say, I don't cast by time as much as by pot full. I can get 500 38 bullets from a pot full in under an hour.

[mdi]

Wow, I'm slow compared to you guys. I use mostly double cavity molds and usually stop when I have a little more than a 1 qt. container full of .44 cal bullets. I cast/reload/shoot for fun so I don't count much of anything (boolits per hour, reloads per hour, pennies per round, or rounds per lb. of powder or lead).:razz:

[1Shirt]

With small blts (55 gr) and a 6 cav mold, can get maybe 750-800 an hour. With 125 gr. and a 6 cav mold can get better than 600. The larger the blt, the faster the pot empties, and time is lost filling the pot again unless you have a second pot. A double cav 500 gr mold will empty my 20 pounder in fairly short order.
1Shirt!

[robpete]

I'm getting about 500 200gr 45's. Haven't casted much of anything else in large volumes. The biggest problem that I see so far is the re-filling the pot and waiting for it to melt takes too damn long. I was also dealing with nozzle freeze issues, but you guys helped me through that one. Thanks for that.

Bruce, I'd love to read your speed casting article. If you find it, please let me know

[fecmech]

I'm usually casting with 4 and 6 cav molds and the RCBS Pro melt. I use BruceB's wet rag spru cooling method and probably average about 700-800 per hour with .35 and .45 molds. I'm not really racing and could go faster but this is a comfortable pace. I had a friend who had a reloading business that averaged over 1000/hr for long periods using 2 H&G 4 cavs and a Saeco 1000 watt furnace.

[Bzcraig]

Wow, I'm slow compared to you guys. I use mostly double cavity molds and usually stop when I have a little more than a 1 qt. container full of .44 cal bullets. I cast/reload/shoot for fun so I don't count much of anything (boolits per hour, reloads per hour, pennies per round, or rounds per lb. of powder or lead).:razz:

This describes me as well.

[Mike W1]

I have a copy of it. Could it be sent via PM or do I need your email to get it to you?



With my Pro-Melt, it's no great trick to produce 400-500 per hour with a 2-cavity mould, and 800-1000 with a four cavity job.

This requires some thought and technique, but many members here have followed my routine with success.

I'm jiggered if I can find the article I wrote on the subject; perhaps some kind soul knows where it can be found.

[BruceB]

Okay, I found it.

For the "Speedcasting" article, go to Google and search for "speedcasting".

Near the top of the list that appears is "BruceB's Speedcasting Method". Click on that, and there it is!

The method works very well for me.

[shoot-n-lead]

Generally, I get about 500 per hour once I get started...but there are some molds that will not cooperate.

[rintinglen]

2 cavity molds I get 240-300, 4 cavity molds 400+, 6 cavity 500-600. the big molds could go faster if I could keep the pot filled, but when you are dropping a half pound a minute, as my 5 cavity 230 grain NOE 44 wc will do, it is hard to keep up.

[BruceB]

[QUOTE=rintinglen; when you are dropping a half pound a minute, as my 5 cavity 230 grain NOE 44 wc will do, it is hard to keep up.[/QUOTE]

That pot is wasting huge amounts of heat, which escapes out the top.

To take advantage of that waste heat, make some sort of arrangement to position several ingots on top of the pot where they can pre-heat. As soon as the pot's level is low enough to accept another ingot, add one to the melt and place another cold ingot on top of the pot to commence heating.

Add the ingots to the melt in order of hottest-first. With my RCBS pot, I NEVER have to stop casting as I add 3-pound HOT ingots to the melt. (The ingots are cast in an angle-iron mould 11,5" long, which allows them to fit neatly in a .50-caliber ammo can.)

This is just one factor in the "speedcasting" method. I use a 4-cavity Lyman 45-230 mould (452374) without trouble, so your setup should do about as well. That mould, along with the Pro-Melt, can deliver up to 1000 bullets per hour when I'm perking along efficiently.

[JakeBlanton]

I don't measure my throughput in bullets per hour, but rather in bullets per beer. :)

[geargnasher]

I'm not intending to enter any speed-casting competitions, so I never bothered to keep close track. For the sake of conversation I suppose I usually cast at a rate of about 225 pours per hour, but never really produce that many boolits because I'm not a machine, and my pot has a finite capacity that coincides with what my butt can bear with most moulds and calibers. The fellows that run two six-cavity moulds wide-open for hours on end and produce thousands a day by hand astonish me.

As an aside, with the right ladle and casting setup, it's easily possible to equal bottom-pour efficiency with a pot and ladle, and it often produces better boolits. I don't do that often because I prefer to cast indoors in the AC.

Gear

[Three44s]

I don't measure boolit through put.

And as others have pointed out, there is a wide range of output that's tied to the many factors about a particular casting session. If you are getting lots of good quality boolits at a high rate of production, then bully for you ...... but as the weight of the slug raises ...... you pot runs dry and there is fluxing to attend to ....... your rate goes down.

Everything I cast and keep ...... is kept for a particular purpose ....... and that purpose is my "payout". A few samples of a particular boolit if it was "well earned" ...... is just as pleasing to me as a HUGE pile of slugs that came easy and don't require much planning or forethought.

Three 44s

[luky-dude]

BruceB I would like to see a picture of your --arrangement--that will hold multiple 11.5 in. bars over the pot. I sounds like a ever good idea but what you got???

[robpete]

84292
Not quite 3 lb ingots, but.......

[10mmShooter]

Wow you guys are really fast or maybe I'm too picky about my quality. All my molds are 2cav, and I cast with two 2-cav molds most of the time sometimes 3 molds and I can even do 4 moulds at the same time but this does not equal increased production. When I've done a timed run I can produce 275-350 bullets per hour all day long(I usually only cast when I can cast all day meaning 8am to about 3pm with an 30 min break for lunch) in 155g/38 or 180g/10mm or 255g/.44. But this is doing QC while casting. So when I'm done, I have for most part no rejects to be culled out during sizing/lubing operation, I just lubed/sized 500 .44 bullets this weekend and only rejected 9 bullets due to quality issues.


Arent they pretty :):):)
84321

[robpete]

Honestly 10mm, I get very few rejects with bottom pouring. I'm new to it, but I have to think that poor quality from bottom pouring is something of a myth. I used Bruce's speed casting method to drop over 1'400 9mm's today. I also QC as I go. There were very few. Maybe a dozen or so. I get more than that with ladle casting. Maybe I'm a fluke...being new to the bottom pour, but for me the proof is in the pudding.

[BruceB]

BruceB I would like to see a picture of your --arrangement--that will hold multiple 11.5 in. bars over the pot. I sounds like a ever good idea but what you got???

The RCBS pot has a large flat top.

I simply place four or five of those 11.5" ingots right across the opening of the pot. Since they are triangular in cross-section from the angle-iron ingot mould, they sit there in a nicely-stable row. As a result, I need NO special equipment for this process.

They are positioned there even during the heating-up process, and hence are hot by the time I'm ready to start casting. This also saves a lot of heat, and speeds-up the melting of the alloy in the pot (acts like a lid.)

During the casting run, I add a hot ingot to the pot as soon as there's room for one. The melt never cools to the point that I have to stop casting. I do NOT bother fluxing at all during a casting run, so having the pot covered is not an inconvenience.

As the front-most (hottest) ingot is placed in the pot, the row of ingots is moved forward and a cold one added to the back of the row to start warming up.

I'm sure that a cooking-type rack such as is used in a roaster pan in the oven could be adapted over the melt in other furnaces for pre-heating ingots. Might even find one at a Goodwill store.

[luky-dude]

Thanks Bruce now i get it. That would work better than the muffen pans I have been gathering. Long and narrow like that, can you lower them in with a gloved hand and they just melt down?

[robpete]

I lowered them with my gloved hand. I added three 1 pound ingots at a time. Works like a charm. I casted for two and a half hours straight!

[BruceB]

Yeah, well....after quite a few years of just putting the hot ingots in with a gloved hand, I had a near-disaster. Search for "tsunami" to see why we can NOT get complacent or careless around this stuff! The thread is called "the lead tsunami".

It sure as blazes was a wake-up call for me, and I've paid a lot closer attention since that incident. Still do it the same way, but on high alert...

[luky-dude]

So you did't ride the wave--well then you got to hang-on to her where she starts to kick. Thanks for the help again guys--think I'm going the make angle iron moulds, drop one in at a time as needed. Hopefully I'll get started casting this winter.

[rsrocket1]

Once I got the setup right (ergonomic placement of everything is very important), I typically get 400-500/hour at a very leisurely pace while listening to the radio. I now water drop my bullets not necessarily for harness, but it eliminates the need to scootch the bullets over on a towel and prevent a big hot lead pile up. That breaks the pace and slows things down when you are producing bullets at such a high rate. I also drop the sprue (one big continuous chunk) directly back into the pot. Reduces the number of times I need to stop everything and dump a bunch of solid lead into the pot and wait for the temperature to get back up.

My typical session runs about 2 hours and the whole thing from set up to clean up is about 3 hours.