Do you know what this is?

[roysha]

I know what it is and how it works but was curious if very many folks here have ever seen one. To me it is an interesting bit of bullet casting "history" although it is not really all that old.

Don't ask me why but you need to go to post #5 to see what I'm talking about. Computers=Black Magic, heavy on the black!

[Winger Ed.]

I need a hint.
Is it bigger than a bread box?

[marlin39a]

Not seeing anything.

[Der Gebirgsjager]

No photo?

[roysha]

Well. dang.

The photo showed up in the preview. It magically disappeared! I'll try again. Ok, is that better?

[roysha]

I need a hint.
Is it bigger than a bread box?

Nope. Maybe an oleo tub.:D

[Bazoo]

Prototype bottom dripper using the 4lb pot.

[rancher1913]

the back ground confusion makes it hard for me to discern detail

[rancher1913]

maybe a fix for the drip-a-matic, heavy weight on the close pin and a counter weight on the activator arm.

[Mike W1]

I've never seen a 4 lb. pot in the flesh but it doesn't look as deep as my 10 lb ones so that likely is what it is. Several years back LBT had pots rigged to pour a soft nose bullet and then I believe you poured the rest of the cavity with a harder alloy. Never saw a picture of that either so it's a SWAG on my part. I use a similar weight on my valve rods, seems to help a bit.

[Winger Ed.]

Sure looks like it was made by Lee, or one of their pots that was modified.

[roysha]

Mike W1 and his SWAG of it being an LBT soft nose bullet caster pot is correct.

Back in the 80s, or around that time frame, there were a lot of folks trying to make cast bullets be like jacketed bullets in performance. There were many, shall we say, innovative, methods attempted and as far as I know they all failed. There was the Lyman two part bullet that got glued together, this LBT system, some folks were making various shapes of "expanders" to fit into cast HP bullet noses, and who knows what all else. Very interesting times.

Anyway the LBT system worked like this. One needed two pots, the LBT pot for pure lead and another pot for whatever alloy one wanted to use for the main part of the bullet. If you look closely on the "Z" shaped bar under the large weight, on the right, a small tab/lever can be seen attached to the "Z" bar and touching the cylindrical weight on the bottom. The knob on the "Z" bar on the right side would be lifted up till the left end of the "Z" bar hit the top of the pot. With the mold in place under the spout, the knob would be released/dropped and the tab/lever would lift the cylindrical weight for an instant allowing a "squirt" of pure lead to enter the mold. The mold would then immediately be placed under the second pot and the cavity filled in the normal manner. Theoretically, if one moved with superhuman speed, AND everything was VERY hot, the two parts would "melt" together to form a bullet with a very soft nose for expansion and a hard body for dealing with the rifling, hot gases and penetration. If you look closely at the knob on the right end of the "Z" bar you can see the set screw that allowed the knob to be moved to adjust the amount of "squirt" that went into the mold for the soft nose. The "squirts" were surprisingly uniform, generally within 1/10 +/- of a grain.

I believe I finally succeeded in making some useable bullets but about 90% were rejects because the metals would not fuse together. I tried all sorts of things but never really had a lot of success so pretty much gave it up. The pot has set on the shelf of my casting room all these years and the other day while I was moving some stuff around I saw it and thought it might be of some interest to some of the folks here on CastBoolits.

Of course the pot can be used in the conventional manner by just depressing the knob on the "Z" bar. It is a LEE pot and I think it is perhaps the 4lb version of yesteryear but I really am not sure about that. However, because of the large weight, it does NOT drip.:D

[obssd1958]

For anyone reading here that wants to pursue soft-point boolit making using a tested procedure - there is some good reading at this link:

http://castboolits.gunloads.com/showthread.php?53234-BruceB-s-Cast-Softpoints-(as-of-MAY-2009)

Bruce B was a pioneer of this procedure, and had a lot of time and effort into making it work.

Don

[ACC]

Well. dang.

The photo showed up in the preview. It magically disappeared! I'll try again. Ok, is that better?

That is a kit bashed Lee pot. Back in the late 70's early 80's this guy would come to gun shows and adapt a Lee 4LB pot to bottom pour. It took him about ten minutes and most of them would leak like a screen on a submarine. My brother bought one cause it was cheap. Not so cheap when it didn't work. I think the guy charged like five bucks.

ACC

[hwilliam01]

Is it a flux capacitor???

[ACC]

Is it a flux capacitor???

No it's the Omega 13!

ACC