I need a new pot

[Lead melter]

Allright,

Now is the time for opinions and recommendations. Let 'em fly.

For the past few years I have been using a Lee pot, forgot the model number, but it has 4" clearance beneath the spout, and holds about 10 pounds alloy. It might still give years of good service, but it has so much junk in it that the pour spout clogs a lot. I have scrubbed the pot over and over again with a 4" wire brush attached to a drill. It helps a while, but soon the junk comes back. I have even tried boiling the junk out with soapy water...same story. What I need, I feel, is a new, clean pot to keep out the junk.

Now, would you gents like to offer up some advice? By another Lee? Lyman? RCBS? Bottom pour or ladle? Cast iron pot or stainless steel? Make my own pot from a turkey fryer or hotplate? If you have photos of any handmade pot, please include.

Anyone got a used one for sale at a bargain basement price? :mrgreen: I don't think there is another caster for about 50 miles, so a yard sale find is out of the question.

:Fire:

[VTDW]

Your next pot will do the same thing bro. Keep on cleaning and using the one you have and try a smaller wire wheel. On the other hand, if you are like me you Need a new one anyway eh?:mrgreen:

Dave

[XBT]

I started out with a plumbers torch heating a small pot set up on some bricks, then went to a Coleman stove. After that came a series of Lee pots like yours, which lasted OK and were worth the money, but eventually failed for one reason or another. Recently I bought a RCBS Pro Melt, which was pricey but is very nice to use and a great improvement over the Lee pots. I like the RCBS Pro Melt better than anything else I have used.

All pots were bottom pour, which I prefer.

[Three44s]

Where is this crud coming from in the first place?

I use a big lead pot ........ no bottom pour and smelt and resmelt my WW's and get the alloy real clean before I ever advance to casting from my bottom pours.

And as to crud ....... I learned the hard way that Marvelux and I ............ DON'T SEE EYE TO EYE!

I use boolit lube to flux with.

Yes it smokes but BYE BYE crud!

Three 44s

[dromia]

I've given up on the Lees for bottom pouring I have two a 10 and a 16 lber, both of them are used exclusively for dipping with the spouts blocked off, the eternal leaking was taking more time to fettle than I was spending casting.

For bottom pour I got an RCBS Pro Melt and love it, its more expensive than the Lee but I feel it is worth every penny, better construction, better ergonomics, holds 20lbs easily and just work as advertised. I'm thinking of getting another one for holding a harder alloy to save draining and refilling when I need different alloys.

I was thinking of getting a Magma 40 lber but their prices have gone silly.

Basically anything up to around .30 cal for smokeless powder I bottom pour, over that for BP and the softer pure lead tin alloys I dip.

[hammerhead357]

I have 5 rcbs pro-melts and have never had a problem with them unless I did something wrong. The only Lee I ever had burned up the first day of use. I didn't even try to get them to fix it so thats my fault. I have used Saeco pot also but not for over 20 years so can't say anything about their products now. I never used a Lyman pot but have heard good about them. I think it will all come down to what you think you need.
I would like to have one of the Magma 90 lb. pot but can't justify the expense since I just cast for myself and my boys.....Wes

[omgb]

The serious BPCR shooters all swear by an industrial pot made by Wage. It costs about $125, holds 20 lbs of metal and is temp adjustable. I'm still using my 20 lb Lee pot but...... when it goes, enter the Wage

[wills]

Waage, if you will use the search feature, i think i posted a picture. It is not on the waage website, you have to e mail them.

[robertbank]

+1 on the RCBS Pro Melter. I now use my Lee 10# pot reversed hung over my RCBS for preheating metal and all my spru cuts. The old Dripomatic serves a useful purpose. I posted pics here of the setup and is similar to others I have seen here.

Take Care

Bob

[Jon K]

Waage pot model #K4757 25 lb price now is $140 shipped, recently just added one to my line up. You have to call them to order as it is not online or in price list.

http://i94.photobucket.com/albums/l101/Jon_K_2006/DSC_0005-2.jpg

http://i94.photobucket.com/albums/l101/Jon_K_2006/DSC_0004-3.jpg

Jon

[VTDW]

Unless I missed is somewhere no one really has answered your question but Three44s has a valid question as I do. A new pot will not solve your problem. I try really hard to flux and stir properly and still manage to get some crud in my Lee pot on occasion.

Dave

[Castinoff]

I agree that a new pot won't solve your problem about crud in the alloy. That aside, I guess it boils down to what you want and can afford. I hear a lot of opinions about Lee pots. That tells me that there are a LOT of Lee pots out there. Folks call them drip-o-matics and the like but as for me, I've been very satisfied with the two that I have owned (a 10 lb. and now a 20 lb.) and I've never had a bad problem with the drips. At least not a problem that couldn't be fixed easily. I guess if I were to cast a LOT of boolits (say more than about 300 per week) maybe I could better understand the casters that don't seem to like the Lee pots.

[grumpy one]

I am satisfied rather than happy with my Lee 10 lb bottom pour because I make a point of living with it. It drips, but so what? I have a lot more sprues to remelt than I do drips, it just all goes back in. It also gets its spout clogged occasionally, but I just keep a long piece of small diameter bent spring steel handy. When it doesn't pour cleanly through the spout, I just push the spring steel in from the bottom while lifting the pour lever, then withdraw the spring steel and watch the pour. If necessary, repeat. The dislodged crud comes out with the metal and joins some of the more recent drips on the base plate. When it is pouring properly, resume casting. If the flow rate drops off again, repeat the procedure. I guess on average it happens to me no more than once an hour, and probably a bit less than that.

I don't scratch around inside the pot with metal objects because it just makes the surface rougher and increases future crud-catching. When I finish casting I let it cool off, loosen the crud on the bottom of the pot with a stick or whatever, and turn it upside down. The whole set of crud-and-alloy - maybe an ounce or two altogether - just falls out. It goes in with the WW awaiting smelting - no point in putting crud back into the bullet casting pot.

[robertbank]

I bought my Lee when I started back into casting anumber of years ago. Why did I buy a RCBS pot. Simple. The damn Lee pot leaked! Oh I could clean it out every other time I sat down to cast but the thing would start dripping again in short order.

As a per-heater for my RCBS it works great. Drip, drip all you want pot. All those drips fall into my Pro Melter that doesn't drip.

For a guy starting out on a limited budget they do the job but eventually you get tired of playing around with the thing. Why Lee hasn't changed the angle of the draw plug on the 10# pots I will never know. Guess I could ask him if I really wanted to know the answer.

Take Care

Bob

[Ken O]

For your getting crud, a different brand pot ain't going to make the problem go away. I use a wooden shim to scrape my pot while I'm casting. At any lumberyard or Home depot they sell bundles of these shims used for installing doors for about $3. When you add lead, just scrape the sides and botom. You are smelting into ingots first aren't you? Not to be a smarta$$, but there have been some who try dumping wheelweights right into the pot to cast.

As for the Lee drip, I have a Lee 10 pounder that dripped quite a bit, not a big deal. My 20 pounder doesn't/never did leak. Maybe I just got lucky.

[Lead melter]

Jon K,

Do you have a telephone number for Waage? Does this pot come rigged for 220V? I can do 110V or 220V, but prefer 220.

Thanks a bunch.

[creekwalker]

Good questions about the Waage furnace. They carry a 40# electric furnace on their web site but w/o a picture or clearer understaing about it I'm reluctant to purchase one yet. The 25# pot sure looks nice though.

Creekwalker

[TAWILDCATT]

they sell to the trade as they say.they really are a commercial product.wonder if they make the RCBS and LYMAN pots[smilie=1::-D

[omgb]

The Waage pot ( I finally corrected my spelling) is most defenately a life-time purchase. Unless you used it all day, every day for years, you will not burn this puppy out.

A lot of casters who cast large bullets, those in excess of 40 cal and 350 grains, prefer to use a ladel rather than a bottom pour. The claim is that you get better fill-out and a more consistant weight when you pour from a dipper into the mould. I think the lower head (pressure of the lead column into the mould) and the lack of contact with the air tends to eliminate bubbles and other voids. For me, bottom pour is faster in pistol bullets but dipping is the way to go for BPCR with 500 grain bullets. I made up my mind this past week, I'm retiring my 20 lb Lees and buying a Waage for Christmas.

[Crash_Corrigan]

LEAD MELTER: What are you fluxing with? Try some of the California
Flake Flux. Beats Marvelux to he&& and gone. Cheap and smells great! It also does a fine job of removing the crud from the alloy.

[shooter575]

I have two of the Lee 20 #.One a bottom pour and the other a bottom pour.As most of my casting is 350 gr and up with pure pb I used the dipper pot.The other one started to give me fits so pluged the hole with big sheetmetal screw and dip the little ones now also
As a dipper pot the Lee 20 lb unit is hard to beat for the 50 bucks or so.