Lee 4-20 Woes from NIB, need advice.

[Capnjack98]

Sooo decided to finally upgrade from dipping outta my Lyman bigdipper, and happen to see a Lee 4-20 sitting on the shelf at Cabelas. Grabbing it and heading home I was pumped to try out bottom pour goodness!!

Ya not so much. Heated it up with about 10#. While waiting for the melt I had a "new to me" H.G.130 on the hotplate ready for the maiden voyage.

The melt starts running outta the spout, so I start adjusting the screw on top. It continues to pour outta the spout with the adjustment screw all the way to one end to the other. Finally I get it to stop by just wildly turning the screw. Lifting the knob to see if it would pour, nothing.

Trying the adj. screw it starts pouring out again and lifting the knob does nothing. Thinking maybe theres debris from the factory up in the spout, I took a paperclip and went up into the spout. I could feel it lifting the mechanism and here comes the melt, and its not stopping again.

basically there seems to be no rhyme or reason to the adjustment screw at all, and it just dumps out when it feels like it with the lift knob not doing a damnthing during any of it.

I really need some help on this one, or im just going to send the heap back.

[VHoward]

I would empty it of all lead and go exchange it for a less defective one. Or get a refund and save your money up for an RCBS Promelt.

[Capnjack98]

Update... I shoulda waited to whine on here and took the thing apart first. It was debris in pour spout clogging the works up.

I took cleaned it up best I could, melted some new clean pb into it and now it works like a champ!! Im truly excited! Thanx for the replys.

[Shiloh]

I use a paper clip to keep the spout clean. Do it with gloves though. You are messing with the business end of a heated pot full of metal.

Shiloh

[Zacf16]

I got mine in Dec, and had absolutely no problems keeping the spout clean...since it didn't come with a valve rod to start with. I guess the quality guy at Lee was on vacation the day mine rolled off the line.

After getting the rod in the mail from Lee, I have found that it likes to back out (every 10-15 mins) and starts dripping a bit. A 1/2 turn of the screw fixes that, though.