Bottom Pour vs Ladle (Cost)

[Area Man]

I'm currently using an RCBS Pro Melt (inherited). Midway lists this new at $345 on sale. I like the capacity but I'm considering switching to ladle method. A similar capacity furnace without the bottom pour ability (Lee Magnum) is only $59.00. Is the difference between these two furnaces really only the ability to bottom pour and hold an additional 2 lbs of alloy? That seems a bit much.

What are your thoughts?

[Littleton Shot Maker]

YES-

killed a few Lee- have not killed the rcbs as easy and the guts are better-- got rid of all of them went to (big auto (BLUE) casting machine) and took their 90 pound pour off and built frame and used that..

for the price of the lee, you can get it - kill it get another one - etc etc in the 70/early 80 it was cheaper to kill it toss it and get a new one than to try to rebuild them, NOT sure now

Bottom pour gives you more controlled pour - get as big a pot you can 40# would be even better- or even a 100# pot do larger batch run -

Those 9/10 pounds pots are not worth the hassle , maybe with tiny bullets like 38, but go to 44-45 300 grns and that pot will run out about the time molds start getting to temp and kicking but- Um- time to stop - reload, wait and then start again.

I have wanted a pour pot that is at least 100-150 #'s dual chamber- pre-melt side that holds 100#s and pour sides holding 50# with 1000 watt element - 3 to 2 combo for total of 5000 watts - that makes for a good long run time and I can stick 20-30-40-75# bricks (ingots) in there if I want...
Look at the elements and the draw you may see one is 500 or 750 watt per element and the other could be 1000 watt per- the typs of element and switch , temp control all that dictate quality and longevity of said pots.

YMMV...it depends where your are in the hobby and how much you want to make, over what period of time each time you sit down...

[bangerjim]

I like my Lee 4-20 bottom pour pots. Never a drip. Ever. And I own a ton of 5 & 6 cavity molds, so ladle pouring is just a total waste of time for me. I get excellent castings by heating the molds up to FULL casting temp on an electric hotplate. Should be a standard procedure with bottom pour or ladle. And any # of cavities!

I would never go back to ladle casting after cranking MANY MANY hundreds of perfect boolits out with my bottom pours.

banger

[Area Man]

...

I would never go back to ladle casting after cranking MANY MANY hundreds of perfect boolits out with my bottom pours.

banger

Do you personally find any difference between pouring "average" sized bullets like a 148gr DEWC or a 500 grain Government?

[bangerjim]

I find pouring anything over 230gn much better with bottom pour......I do NOT run out of good hot lead like with a ladle!

My 300+ gn boolits are super easy to cast with that 18+ pounds of lead over the spout. Mabe if someone is casting teeny weeny 9mm or 223's a ladle would work. Or if you are stuck with 1 and 2 cavity molds? I have a few 1 & 2 cav and really dislike them because they are so slow and labor intensive to end up with a good pile of 4-500 boolits. Takes MUCH more time and labor.

With the bottom pour, you keep filling until the cavities are filled, not when you run out of lead in the ladle. And you tend to keep your melt temp more constant in the bottom pour rather than extracting the lead in a ladle and getting cooling.

I know........ladles have been around for many many years. So have mechanical typewriters and "ice" boxes!

Do what best fits your needs.

banger

[NavyVet1959]

Another option is a bottom pour ladle. I experimented by drilling a hole in the bottom of a stainless condiment ladle and was pleasantly surprised at how well it worked. One of the guys on YouTube tried out my suggestion and he seemed to like it also.


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-ZQQ159QJCo

[country gent]

I ladle cast 40 cal 400 grns and 45 cal 420-550 grns bullets. I used the lee 10 lb pots for awhile one stacked over the other top was pre heat bottom was casting. With the bigger bullets I would be waiting on lead to melt in a long session. I dont think I got as good of fillout and consistancy with the bottom pour as I did when I went to my big pot and ladle casting these bullets. 4-5 hours at the pot eats alot of lead with these bullets. Then the other is I normally have 1-2 friends casting with me from this pot when I cast. Rifle bullets from 300-550 grns. My pot now holds 100+ lbs of alloy with a propane weed burner for heat source. The Lees are good and last a long time the rcbs is better and has better het control as to temp swings if you dont put a PID on the lee. I would use what you have and go from there try ladle and the bottom pour see what works for you. If ladle casting with it you may want it a little lower since you will be working from the top of the pot and not the bottom. Csting the big rifle bullets really drops lead quick. My 550 grn 2 cavity 45 cal mould will empty a 10 lb pot real quick LOL.

[MT Chambers]

For long and /or heavy bullets ladle pouring is supposed to be more consistent as to weight...however you cannot compare the quality of the Lee pots to the RCBS, different worlds, the quality pots will not rust out like the Lees, are usually higher watts, more consistent, etc.

[Tackleberry41]

Some bullets, heavy ones tend to work better with a ladle, while others work well with bottom pour. Been a while since used my bottom pour, ladle works with anything, so tend to stick with it. Not sure about needing some huge capacity pot to cast. Yea big heavy bullets empty a 10lbs pretty easy. But may not need to make that many bullets.

[Area Man]

Well, I definitely prefer long casting sessions even if I'm not shooting a lot, just means I have a large supply of bullets instead of a large supply of lead. Midway had the Lyman big dipper (10lb capacity) for$31. It would have to be horrible to not be worth the gamble. I bet I could figure out a way to marry the two, use my bottom pour to feed the big dipper. Hmm...

[longbow]

I use an old plumber's ladle which holds way more lead than any "normal" boolit casting ladle I have seen and like it a lot especially for large boolits/shotgun slugs.

I had a bottom pour Lee many years ago and didn't like it as much as the ladle. More recently I was casting with a friend's RCBS bottom pour pot and while it was much nicer than the Lee, I still prefer a ladle... large ladle that is. I have used the Lyman ladles and did not like those ~ too small for my liking.

Also, I cast over a propane stove from a cast iron pot (about 25 lbs. capacity).

Different strokes.

Longbow

[Littleton Shot Maker]

the one from rotol looks cool.

[kentuckyshooter]

U wont know till u try. I hated ladel casting at first but once i got the hang of it its rather enjoyable. I ure a propain camp stove. Stanless pot and a stainlers soup ladel i made a pour spout on with my pliers. Hold a lot more melt than the tiny lee ladels i found at my local out door shop.

[GhostHawk]

I tried a bottompour way way back buried in the past. For me it was a disaster.
But I was young and stupid and caused most of the problems myself.

So for 30 plus years I went dirt simple, cas iron fry pan, lyman nipple ladle, and patience.
I did buy an old used lee dipper pot last year and I find I like it. Less cleanup in the kitchen is the big one. Lets me plug in the pot, turn to my computer, watch a hickock45 utube video. The turn back and cast some. I only have 1 6 banger mold, that is the .224 Bator. Everything else is double cavity so no problems running out of lead in the ladle.

I do not cast huge volumes, but I do like to have little 50-100 bullet sessions once or twice a week.

I don't need thousands of rounds a week. Even with my slow pace I have built up quite a store of loaded ammo and boolits over the last 2 years. This week it was 50 rounds of .40sw, lubed, shot 30, cast 40 more boolits, loaded again, labled, ready for range. and 60 rounds of .357 mag 158 gr round nose for my Handi Rifle.

Next week it could be 7.62x39 or .223. As I have lots of empty brass for both to do, and a few more mtm ammo boxes to fill.

Every time I fire it up I find every mold is different, has slight preference differences on how hot it wants to be, how hot it likes the lead, how fast or slow I can cut sprue. The fun part is when I sit down and cast time disappears, thinking changes, I become one with the lead, it is almost zen like.

Then suddenly the pot is empty, arms are tired, hands are hot, and I lube bullets and walk away till next time. Addiction,heck ya. And casting and reading are my drugs of choice. So every morning and evening I look forward to that time when I can read about casting, get new ideas to try. And communicate with others who can understand.

Life is good!

[kentuckyshooter]

I hear ya. Glad i got some place to go where people undestand my crazy need to play with molten lead that could kill me just so i can load my own ammo which could explode in my hand. Most people think im a nutter when i start talking about casting and reloading and even my wife doesnt undestand why i dont save my self the truble and just buy ammo. She tolerates it and even suports me though. Some people just dont undestand but there all of us on here that do. Sorry for the hijack just had a moment of inspiration or was it more mental diareah. Lol.

[jmort]

Ladle pour for me. I have 10 lb and 20 lb Lee meters and got a Waage a few months ago. Glad I got the Waage. Love using ladle pour. To each their own.

[Budzilla 19]

Navy Vet 1959, that's the slickest trick I have seen in a long time! May have to change my modus operandi! Lot easier in my opinion to pour in the mold for sure! Thanks for the tip! Good shooting to you.

[bangerjim]

When referring to "ladle" please do NOT lump that Lee stirring stick (!) into the mix. That is what I use it for. That thing should not even carry the title of ladle! It is a teeny weenie metal spoon.

A real ladle is cast iron, holds a minimum of 3/4-1# of lead and has a bottom/side pour spout. I used an RCBS one at time, but rarely use it anymore. Bottom pour pots are faster, easier, more accurate and just better all around for me.

banger

[tinhorn97062]

FWIW:

I use a cast iron ladle, a small stainless steel saucepan, and my kitchen stove top. Total set-up costed me about $6. I water drop my boolits into a large mixing bowl full of water and have very few rejects.

[Maximumbob54]

FYI, if you do kill a Lee furnace then the parts for them are easy to purchase and replace. I have a down Pro Melt that I have to pay to ship in for repair because I can't get parts for it and they rivet them together so they are a PITA to take apart.

[NavyVet1959]

One problem that I saw with Lee 20 lb pot and the commercial ladles was that it seemed that it would get more difficult to fill the ladle as the level of the lead dropped due to the commercial ladles having a straight handle and the Lee pot being not particularly wide. Plus, I was concerned with most ladles pouring from the top surface f the lead, so they would also be pouring whatever was on the top of the pot. The Rowell ladle poured from the bottom, so I was considering them, but they still had the straight handle issue. Considering the fact that you need to tilt their ladle to pour, if you curved the handle more upwards, it might make for awkward pouring though. So, I thought that a bottom pour ladle with a more vertical handle might be better. I thought about a design where there was a spring loaded pin to plug the bottom pour orifice which you operated with your thumb while holding the ladle, but that seemed a bit complicated and I wasn't sure that I would even *like* ladle pouring, so I decided to just test it out with a hole drilled in a stainless steel condiment ladle. Originally, I went with a 1/16" hole and the speed of the lead stream was too slow, so I upped it to the next size (3/32", I believe) and I flowed a lot better. You end up with a bit larger sprue than with a bottom pour pot, but that extra sprue just helps keep the mold up to temperature. As it turned out, I liked it well enough that I didn't bother continuing on with the design with a spring loaded pin plugging the orifice. The cost of these types of ladles are around $1.00-1.50 at a local restaurant supply store. Just choose a size that fits in your pot and is large enough for all the bullets in your multi-cavity mold plus a bit extra for the lead that flows before you get it to the mold, on the sprue, plus you want some lead leftover since you don't want whatever might be on the surface to go into the mold. It sounds more complex that it is in practice though.

One thing that might be an issue for some people is that the height of the melting pot related to your body needs to be different with the ladle vs bottom pour pot. With a bottom pour pot, I find it more useful if the pot is higher up towards my head since I want to see the lead going into the mold cavity. With a ladle, I am working at the top of the pot, so I need the pot to be lower relative to me. In practice, what this means is that I sit while casting from the bottom pour pot and I stand while casting from the bottom pour ladle. Since my old joints hurt from doing anything for too long, it's nice to be able to switch up from being seated to being standing. If you want to use the bottom pour ladle while seated, from an ergonomic perspective, you're probably going to need to lower your casting pot to the point where the top of the pot is about the height of your elbows. Maybe making a platform out of a couple of cinder blocks would be the right size. You could put it in front of your chair and basically have one leg on each side of the pot. Either that just sit on something taller like a bar stool. :)

All operations with the bottom pour ladle are done over the pot, so there tends to not be any mess of molten lead ending up on other things.

Also, if *somehow* this type of bottom pour ladle ever gets so clogged up that just dunking it in the molten lead doesn't fix it, it would be extremely easy to clean out.

[376Steyr]

A Rowell ladle is a very good thing to have.

[RogerDat]

A Rowell ladle is a very good thing to have.

I would like one of those for casting ingots, I like my Lyman little dipper for casting boolits. Have a couple or three thousand at the bench all from a dipper. I lay some 1/2 inch angle iron pieces across the same propane fish fryer I use for smelting so I could put a smaller pot on it. By smaller I'm guessing around 30# of lead. Does not leak rarely runs out of lead. Plenty of space on the fyer to preheat some ingots.

I would like to get the Lee Magnum Melter as I think I could possibly use indoors or at least benefit from the compact size when I just want to knock out a few, or to try a new mold. I'll think about the 4-20 bottom pour someday but am in no hurry. With a ladle I can pour from anything that will get the lead up to melted temps. From camp fire to hot plate, anything that melts a pot. I'm developing a hand eye coordination and a process. Once I feel I have that developed to where I want. then it will be getting to where I might want to learn to use a bottom pour. Or if I find myself needing the speed - say for a 6 gang .223 mold. Now that might motivate me to spend money on a bottom pour.

I'm using dual or single cavity molds, which are plenty productive for revolver and bolt action. I may purchase some 4 or 6 cavity for auto loaders one of these days.

[gwpercle]

For $60.00 the Lee is worth it. I ladle cast, have the magnum melter and love it.
I also have a decades old (1973 ) small 5 pound melter. Tried the bottom pour pot (1989) and have gone back to open top and ladle casting (2010) with the Magnum Melter.
If you're not a high volume caster, I cast 500 to 1000 or so a month, the Lee pot will work fine. Each of mine have all held up, no repairs needed and even the old one gets used. I only wish I had bought the Magnum Melter in 1989. It heats fast, holds a good supply of metal, has a nice big opening and doesn't cost a lot.
I usually cast with double cavity moulds and the Lyman dipper with side spout.
Gary