What pot temp for 24 lead/1 tin?

[Irascible]

Having some trouble filling out a LOOONG 400+ gr Lyman Snover 40 cal. bullet. Any hints?

[leftiye]

Start hot - hot enough to frost the boolits. Then reduce the lead temp until it casts good boolits the way you like them. Molds and alloys varying as they do, no one could guess what temp that might turn out to be. Or start at 600 degrees and work up. Better still, get a mold heater, and an IR thermometer, and get your mold temp during casting above 327 degrees then work up.

[powderburnerr]

when you cast the big bullets you need about 750 minimum this will allow about a 7 second liquid spru and this is necessary to get consistant bullet weights............Dean

[Hayfield]

Irasc. I shoot that bullet in my 40-65 Sharps over 62 grs Swiss 1 1/2. 25:1 alloy @ 750F. 412.5 grs weight. I only pressure ladle anything over 335 grs and pour a generous sprue. The sprue will take care of what the mould will need to fill out. A bullet that big really sucks it down. I tried to bottom spout pour once. A complete waste of time.

[Irascible]

Hayfield,
Do you mean a bottom pour ladel or pot was a waste of time?

[powderburnerr]

some will argue but with big long bullets it is hard to get the weight varience down to under a 1/2 gn with a bottom pour pot , they will make good bullets but the weight will be a lot wider spread.....Dean.

[Hayfield]

Irasc. Sorry but I don't really understand your question. I'm not familiar with a 'bottom pour ladle'. With me it's either bottom pour OR ladle. As a matter of fact, my ladle pot doesn't even have a bottom spout. My bottom pour pots are relagated to Ly #2 and the 30 cal range of bullets. As powderburner said above, my bullets were all over the place as far as weights go when I tried to bottom pour. A good night of casting should give you 100 bullets plus or minus 3/10 grains or so with a ladle held tight to the sprue hole, slow turn for count of 5 and hold for 3 counts more.

[Irascible]

I have 2 ladles. A Lyman and a Rowel bottom pour ladle from "The Antimony Man". The bottom pour ladle has a passage from the bottom of the ladle up to the top, so that when you pour, the lead comes from the bottom of the ladle and is free of floating impurities.

[floodgate]

Many years back, someone - I think it was Cramer - made a dipper with a long handle and a cup roughly the shape of a plastic powder funnel with a spigot sticking down out of the bottom. There was a thumb lever along the handle linked to a stop plunger; pushing down with your thumb lifted the plunger and let lead pour down through the spout, into the mould. This would have been a true "bottom pour ladle".

floodgate

[Hayfield]

Irasc. Forget that bottom pour thing. That's probably for smelting ingots. I'm going to assume that the Lyman ladle is the type with a lip on the top to hold a pool of alloy while it was seeping into the mould through the sprue. I guess in that position it would be a 'bottom pour' ladle too. But anyway, that's what you want to use to fill a big bullet mold.
Floodgate. Makes me think back to those old time oil fillers that pap had for the tractors.