Looking for Bottom pour experience

[4thebrdz]

I have cast for about 2 years. My boolits have come out pretty fair and shoot good. All of my casting was done with a ladle. I got a Lyman Mag20 pot. It works great but I don't think I have made 100 GOOD boolits with it.

Do you hold the mold to the bottom spout or just leave the mold below the spout and fill the cavity? I also need to valve grinding compound to stop the leakage.

[mold maker]

I use both. The bottom pour is faster, especially with multi cav. molds. Large and heavy Boolets seem to fill out better with a ladle.
I think it's more of a personal preferance, according to the molds used, personal comfort, and speed desired, vs quality.
In other words, there is No fixed answer.

[Adam10mm]

I use a bottom pour and keep about a ¾ to a full inch between the spout and the sprue plate. I use the same pot for boolits ranging from 100gr .32 caliber to 500gr .458 caliber. No ladles.

[44man]

HEE, HEE, [smilie=1:welcome to the nut house! I have tried to get good boolits from bottom pours for 51 years and have not been successful for more then a few boolits. Keeping the stupid spout clean, stopping leaks, hitting the perfect temperature for each mold, holding the mold low or putting it against the spout. Swirling the lead around the sprue plate and on and on. What a huge waste of time! :mrgreen:
I cast a 20# pot empty without a single reject using a ladle. I can just keep going without stopping to fix something and having the mold go cold while I fiddle. I don't need a loose leaf binder to tell me what each mold needs because every mold works the same with a ladle. I have not weighed a pile of boolits in many years because I have found it is a waste of time, mine are too close to worry about.
There are those that want 100,000 quick things that have the appearance of a boolit so they can shoot paper at 7 yd's and that is fine. But I demand 500 meter accuracy from my revolvers.
Those commercial bottom pour things work but not the little things we use. Then again, I have never shot a good store bought boolit that gave me accuracy either.
I made molds that are kind of rough, not the super smooth pretty boolits you buy or pour from some great molds, but they shoot into 7/16" at 50 yd's. The reason is the design and casting technique, not the speed of casting.
Plug the hole, take off the crap on top and use a ladle. Be happy like me! :drinks: 100 perfect boolits is better then 100,000,000 scrubs. One killing shot on a deer or 5 shots on steel at 500 meters feels better then dumping 100 rounds without hitting anything means a lot to me.
Watch the flack I get from this answer! :-D Bottom pour casters will NEVER admit to having trouble. Do I detect Hillary voters here? :coffee: Damn, I love to stir the pot.

[felix]

The trick, of course, in using the bottom pour pot is to exactly emulate the ladle pour. If you are clean with the bottom pour, you are not emulating. Bottom pour requires that a mess be made by overfilling the sprue plate dramatically, perhaps dangerously with the smallest of boolits being made. ... felix

[mtgrs737]

I ladle cast for years, until I got a RCBS Pro-Melt off of ebay. I use two Lee six cavity moulds at once to allow cooling time and after Lee-menting the moulds I can produce a small mountain of boolits in very little time. The bottom pour is FAST, I set the mould support and start with the cavity farthest from me and just hold open the valve and push from 1st to last until done. I use a lot of bull plate to keep things from sticking and galling, I can make about 700 boolits in 45 minutes to an hour without working very hard. I have a brand new 20 pound Lee dipper pot and rowel ladle that I may never use, but will keep it around just in case. :castmine:

[VTDW]

Unlike 44Man I do not have any problems with my Lee bottom pour unless the drip bothers you. Or, making an expanded metal shelf to rest the 6 cavity molds on when pouring or resting.:mrgreen: Or hose clamping a contraption to the bottom of the pot that lets me swing a SS measuring cup under the drip while I do something else.:-D Fords vs. Chebys I guess.[smilie=1:

Click on pic to see video
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v354/vtdw1/Casting%20Lubing/th_HPIM0173.jpg (http://smg.photobucket.com/albums/v354/vtdw1/Casting%20Lubing/?action=view&current=HPIM0173.flv)

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v354/vtdw1/Lee%20Press%20Lee%20Pot/HPIM0161.jpg

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v354/vtdw1/Lee%20Press%20Lee%20Pot/HPIM0164.jpg

Dave

[38 Super Auto]

Unlike 44Man I do not have any problems with my Lee bottom pour unless the drip bothers you.


I use a Lee 4 20 bottom pour and I collect the little drip sculptures that form. I doesn't always drip, but when it does, I get some interesting results.

[jonk]

I find the bottom pour works just dandy for all bullets up to about 300 grains; after that I prefer ladles. I also prefer ladling for pure (or nearly so) lead.

That said, I always run mine on its highest temp setting to get good fill out- frosted bullets don't bother me. And getting a 6 cavity mold to temperature requires good pre-heating.

[rbwillnj]

I have both a Lee and an old Lyman bottom pour furnace. I have no problem making good bullets with either but the Lee does drip, and the Lyman has a better mold guide. So now I just use the Lee to heat up make up metal which I ladle into the Lyman when the level gets down about half way.

I rotate through three four cavity Lyman molds which allows the the mold to cool just the right amount by the time its turn comes again. I pour an ample, but not a sloppy sprue. no need to over do it.

Now I do have a couple of BIG H&G molds (8 & 10 Cavity) that I haven't had time to use yet. I don't think I will be able to use the bottom pour pots with them.

[felix]

Preheat? Just pour lead all over them, making sure there is a "handle" of lead to be used to jerk the lead off of the mold while the lead is still not hard. Takes about three cycles to get a Lyman two banger up from room temp to casting temp. Four bangers take about 6-8 cycles. ... felix

[klw]

Decades ago I decided to see which was best, a bottom draining furnace or a ladel. I got a series of moulds, some with a lot of cavities, and cast bullets using both approaches. I consistently got more and better bullets with the bottom draining furnace. I never used a ladel again.\

It is an easy test to repeat. Try it and see what the results are.

[lovedogs]

I think we are all right. I also think it's possible to do well with either. The techniques are just different. It's all a matter of preference and which you want to put forth the effort at mastering. How's that for pleasing everyone? Maybe I oughta take up politics. Naw! I'm too honest for that.

[44man]

Told ya so! :mrgreen::mrgreen::mrgreen::mrgreen: Been there, done that. Thank God for the ladle.
Nope, never change me and the way I cast. I don't need no pan under my pot to catch drips, no paper clips to clean spouts, no 900* pot settings, no lead splatters all over the bench, no fancy rigs under the pot that only works for one or two molds.
Call me old fashioned and stubborn---but then I am old as hell too. :Fire:
Seems to me that heat rises and the lead in the bottom is cooler then what is on top. You need heat coils in the pot bottom, not just on the sides.
If you dump your pot you will find all kinds of crap that doesn't float, where does it try to go? Out of the spout into the mold, that's where. Great stuff to plug spouts too.
Open the spout and watch the lead pour out. Sometimes it is a nice stream and shortly it is a squiggle, corkscrewing all around. Sometimes it is getting hard before it goes into the mold.
Seems to me if you had a VERY thick sprue plate and used a LARGE ladle to pour all the cavities in a large mold, you would get better boolits.
But I like the boolit to pull molten lead from my ladle as it hardens, not from a sprue that hardens before the boolit in the mold does.
Go to a cast iron foundry and see the huge risers used. The metal in the molds pulls from the molten risers, not a little sprue puddle.
I have to wonder why the plastics industry uses injection molds instead of just pouring.
If you pour a boolit and see a BIG dimple pull down in the center of the puddle as it cools, the boolit does not have enough lead in it. Air bubbles for sure.

[4thebrdz]

freakshow gave the answer that I was looking for. Hold the mold 1/2" from the spout. At first it wasn't working out right the I took the ladle to the mold for a few and fooled the mold into thinking I was going back to the ladle. Soon the bottom pour worked just fine. I had 2 doubles going and made a big batch. After adjusting the amount of pour the sprues were nice also I just lifted the handle and poured both cavities. Casting went good and the boolits came out Fine.
Thanks to you all!

[Bass Ackward]

Nope, never change me and the way I cast.


Now what makes you think we want to try? :grin:

We learned our lesson when we failed with " the hat ".

[beagle]

Bottom pouring is an art. I've been bottom pouring for about 50 years...starting with an old Potter Pot.

Nothing tricky about bottom pouring.

Each mould requires a different technique unfortunately. Some moulds want to be close and some want a drop. Some want a lot of metal and some want just a small amount.

I use an inclined board with a screw in it to adjust the drop. Start off with a medium amount of metal flow and adjust from there after about 10 casts.

If the mould appears to get too hot, adjust the drop a bit. If you start getting rounded bases, give it a bit more throttle on the flow screw.

If the bullets get too frosty and you start getting incomplete fillout on the bands, slow down on the casting tempo a bit. Large .45s are real bad about this as most mould blocks are made too small in these calibers to dissipate that much heat.

I'm using two RCBS Pro-Melts and they make darn good bullets with a little tinkering with the variables above.

On the Pro melt furnaces, the stop screw locknut tends to walk and tighten up when you release the handle so be advised to watch for this.

The Lyman Mag 20s seem to be bad about leaking. The onlt fix is to remove the rod, and clean it with crocus cloth and ream the hole with the appropriate sized drill...by hand. Then take a wooden dowel with crocus cloth and round the end and use the crocus cloth to polish the seat a bit. Usually stops leading. Wonder if a stainless steel rod would work better than the one they use?

I also find that a bit of beeswax applied to the rod valve tends run down and loosen any crap clinging to it. Beeswax applied to the spout will be drawn up into the spout and accomplish the same task from below. Flux well and run about a teaspoon out at the bottom. You'll see all kinds of crap in it after the beeswax.

I started out ladle pouring but soon found that it wasn't for me and went the bottom pour route.

Keep at it and good luck./beagle

[HABCAN]

Beagle +1.

[klw]

Wouldn't still have that Potter pot by any chance?

[Bob Jones]

Bottom poured a fair number of bullets, work fine for my simple purposes.

One little trick I finally figured out with my Lee 4-20 pot is that when it starts to drip it's usually a tiny piece of "stuff" stuck in the valve. I take a lead ingot and tap the top of the rod, that crushes the crud and it comes out with the next pour which I just let fall, drip goes away.

[44man]

OK, I will give up and buy a new hat for next season! :mrgreen:
I seem to be reading here about all the ways to cure a problem with the bottom pour, does that mean there are problems?
I have had to put on gloves and dump the pot into ingot molds too many times to clean the spout. I then tried lapping the rod into it and made a REAL dripper. One pot had an exact size drill bit turned by hand to clean it and I made an automatic pour machine from it. The one that worked the best was the Lee rod that is turned with a screwdriver to stop leaks.
Seems as if there is just too much down time with them.
Since I have so many molds and do so much testing, I like to turn everything on, do something else and go back, cast what I need and shut everything off. It is ready to go when I need more of another boolit. I have 3 pots with different alloys in them. When I change an alloy is the only time I have to dump a pot.
Nothing worse then getting the pot to temp and finding out it is not pouring right or leaked all out into a pan or over the bench. I am not going to stand there and watch the pot get hot to make sure the lead stays in it. A tapered brass plug works great! :-D

[VTDW]

44man,

Get a camo hat and rest assured I keep my screwdriver at the ready when I am using my Lee pot.:-D Nice thing about being old pharts is we have earned the right to have and voice our opinions.:drinks:

Dave

[mroliver77]

I use both bottom pour and ladle. I get good results with both. I can speed cast with bottom pour and get boolits that shoot as well as some I babied with a ladle. I cast for my enjoyment and do it my way. I dont care how anybody else does it. I am more than happy to help out a new caster with either or both methods.
I sure get a charge out of casting, loading, shooting and socializing with others with this passion.
J

[xtimberman]

44man, you crack me up!

I've recently posted about bottom spigot plugging on two other threads. I have a fine RCBS Pro-Melt that I've been using since 1980. The bottom spigot started plugging a month after I bought it and eventually sealed itself off. Finally after a few years of negotiating around the upstairs hardware, I removed it all and ladle pour like it was never meant to be a bottom-pour rig. Mine has never needed a tapered brass plug - it's self-sealing.

However, I've cast bullets from some of my friends' bottom-pour rigs that have never plugged - an inferior Lyman and a cheap no-good trouble-free Lee - and I surely would like mine to operate like that. I see magazine pix of gun writers leisurely seated and casting effortlessly from their bottom-pour set-ups and I want to do it just like they do!

Fellas on another thread have convinced me to give up the amateur cobbling and send mine back to RCBS for a proper unplugging. They've assured me that if I do that, all will be well in my bottom-pour casting world. I'm giddy!

After one more marathon casting session, I'm gonna send it back to RCBS. When it returns, I'll report back with testimonials.

xtm

[beagle]

No...fraid not. That went back to it's owner years ago. Too bad they don't still make those little pots./beagle


Wouldn't still have that Potter pot by any chance?