Bottom Pour Failures???

[BrushBuster]

Well I've been doing what any newbie should do; combing the past posts for details and general information before purchasing equipment. There's great advice to be found there, but one thing in particular is still unresolved for me. Why do some very experienced casters dislike the bottom pour furnaces? Few details are provided, just expressions of frustration and disappointment. I've found a number of posts that explain in detail why the bottom pour concept is a good one, and proponents that swear by them. It would seem that metallurgically they should deliver a superior product, why specifically don't they work for some?

My thinking at this point is that if I were to purchase one, I would cover all bases by getting one large enough (20 lb.) to allow me to ladle cast as well. I would also melt and flux my wheelweights in a separate pot until I could deliver a clean ingot to the casting pot. Is this the key to trouble-free bottom pour casting? :-?
BrushBuster

[Bman]

BB, I am far from as experienced as many on this board. In my experience the bottom pour is much better. I can cast faster and have no more rejects (usually fewer) over ladel casting. I've been casting about 5 years and until very recently all with a ladel. It may be that you can ladel pour a more consistent boolit over a bottom pour pot. If top accuracy is your goal which ever method you make consistent boolits with will be best.

BTW I use a Lee 10lb bottom pour and the only thing I have trouble with is the drip o matic function. That and keeping it full.

[Blacktail 8541]

I can not answer your question, as i have the same one myself! I went and bought a RCBS pro melt which is a bottom pour. I bought it knowing iI needed a furnace and could use it either way, as a bottom pour or to ladel cast. Now I should have my bases covered no matter which way I end up going. I have smelted a few hundered pounds of wheel weights in a 6 QT stainless steel pan on a colman stove while I put together a dedicated outfit to smelt. s So my ingots are seperated from the main casting pot already. I will also use another pot to do any alloy blending. Might be over kill with that many steps but I should have pretty cean alloy to work with.

[imashooter2]

My experiences with bottom pour have all been with a 10 pound Lee. I ladle cast with complete satisfaction for years before I bought a bottom pour. I find that the Lee pot does not put out enough heat to keep up with the demands of a 6 cavity 180 or 150 grain mold. I also have much more difficulty controlling the flow and keeping the stream filling one cavity at a time on multiple cavity molds. To complicate things further, the flow changes rapidly as pot level goes down. Using single cavity molds, it works fine and I get few rejections. On multiple cavity molds, I get way too many. Ladle pouring is much easier to control and, for me anyway, the product is much more consistent. I will say that the bottom pour electric furnace is way more convenient than firing up the Coleman to ladle.

[David R]

RCBS has an adjustment for flow. Bottom pour is faster, and I would compare my boolits to any dipper boolits.

I have a lee 10 lb. drip 0 Matic. Its way too slow with the heat. Melt some lead, pour a few, top it up and wait.

I have done both, but not used the ladel in many years.

David

[44man]

The heat problem is very common. Those that have good luck with the bottom pour are lucky to have a pot that gets hot. I have seen many Lyman and RCBS pots that do not get hot enough even with the thermostat removed.
The other problem is any tiny obstruction in the hole will ruin the quality of your boolits. It is very hard to keep clean. Much easier to clean out the hole in a ladle by tapping the handle rod on a vise or something.
I have cast with the ladle for over 50 years and will continue to do so. I might get 1 or 2 rejects for every 200 boolits.
The big, commercial bottom pour pots work but it seems to be an after thought with the small pots we use.

[carpetman]

I used a cast iron pot and ladle for many years and switched to a Lee bottom pour and instantly liked it infinitly better. I am not a Lee fan and have not really cared for most of their other products that I have tried. Their furnaces seem to be a good buy. Some drip from time to time but no major problem. Cant see that bullet quality suffered.

[44man]

I have two Lee pots and several other makes. Believe it or not, the Lee's are great pots.

[nighthunter]

I've only been casting for about 35 years so I might not have the experience of some on this board. I started casting with the dipper system and got very good bullets. Years later a friend loaned me a Lyman bottom pour pot and I was quite impressed with the increase in bullet production and I got very good bullets. I have since owned 2 of the Lee Dripomatic 10 pound pots and currently use the Lee Pro 4-20 Dripomatic pot. In the last 2 months I've probably cast about 50,000 bullets. I cast during the cold winter months and shoot in the warm months. Some of you guys whine a little bit too much about the Lee Dripomatic. Clean out you pot once in a while. I completely drain mine and clean with a wire brush occasionally. It makes it a whole lot easier to flux out the impurities of your alloy. Plus ..... Remember this ...... A REAL MAN CATCHES THE DRIP IN HIS MOLD.
Nighthunter

[wills]

“My thinking at this point is that if I were to purchase one, I would cover all bases by getting one large enough (20 lb.) to allow me to ladle cast as well.”

Either way, get the 20 lb pot. If you ladle, you cant get all the lead out of the bottom of the pot. If your pot holds 10 pounds, you can only get to about 7 or eight pounds with the ladle before you refill. If your boolits are 400+ grains you don’t get many from ten pounds

“I would also melt and flux my wheelweights in a separate pot until I could deliver a clean ingot to the casting pot. Is this the key to trouble-free bottom pour casting “

You should do this regardless of whether you bottom pour or ladle.

[BigCheese]

Recently switched to RCBS Pro-Melt for use with 6-cavity 200 gr. bullet molds. When adding more metal, there was a delay waiting for the melt to come up to temperature. I now use my old 20 lb. SAECO furnace to premelt and flux the scrap, and ladle the molten lead into the bottom pour furnace. This really speeds up the process and also helps keep the RCBS furnace cleaner.

[nighthunter]

You definately want to smelt your WW in a seperate operation. Cleaning WW in a bottom pour pot leaves a whole lot to be desired. You still need to flux your melt in your casting pot before casting and I'll nearly guarantee that you will wonder how all that dirt got left in the ingots. I use a piece of oak board to stir my melt and work carbon into the mixture. I completely stir and mix my melt from the bottom to the top. I then work the dross against the side of the pot till all I have left is an accumulation of dirt with no metal present then I use a spoon to seperate this from the melt. Works well for me.
Nighthunter

[Lloyd Smale]

casted the first 10 years i casted with a ladle and switched to a bottom pour and never looked back. If you get a good bottom pour like a lyman,rcbs, or magma you can make just as good of bullets as a ladle caster and about double your casting output.

[357tex]

I cast for many years with a dipper 3 years ago got a lee bottom pour.Don't even know where my dipper is now. [smilie=l:

[Johnch]

I gave a Lee 10 lb pot away , driped when new and I could never get it to quit !

I cast with a Lee 20 lb Bottom pour pot
But for most of my casting o biger bullets I run a hot plate with a SS pan on it to add to the Lee pot to keep up .
I run 6 hole Lee molds in 44 and 45 that are 300+ grains each , drains even the 20 lb pot fast .

:castmine:
Johnch

[44man]

I use a cast iron pot and a plumbers furnace to melt and clean all the WW's to make ingots. You never want to use a casting pot for this. Even an old stainless pot and a Coleman stove will do this job. Keep the crud out of your casting operation.
I usually just go through one pot of lead in a session so I don't need to add more lead. (using a ladle so I don't need head pressure.) I put back the sprues after so many boolits and that does not change the temperature at all. A quick flux and back to casting. If I was making a whole lot of boolits, I would have a second pot going to add to the first, but then again, why not unplug the first one and move to the second one? With a bottom pour, it works fine to keep the level even by pouring in more melted lead. Depends on what you are doing as to how you should do it. (That sounds dumb!)

[BrushBuster]

Yeah 44man, maybe it sounded dumb, but it made great sense. What does that say about me? Your all very generous with your advice. Thanks a lot.

I just ordered a Lee Pro-4 20lb. furnace. The price was right, and the reviews were good for this lower grade unit.

[MTWeatherman]

I use a 20lb Lee bottom pour. It leaks...and yours will likely do the same eventually. I don't consider it to be a major issue...I put an ingot mould under the spout to catch the drips and use a screwdriver to turn the valve rod occasionally(as recommended by Lee) to temporarily halt them. When the dripping gets too bad, I drain the pot and clean (and sometimes lap) the rod seat and its good for awhile again.

I used a ladle before getting the pot and bullet production went way up once I got the pot...much, much faster. It turns out good bullets in general but will say that a case can be made for using a ladle too. Some moulds just seem to work better with a pressure fill and I have much better control in doing that with a ladle than with the pot...pressure is just too variable with the pot because it depends on the volume of lead. So, get both since the ladle is relatively inexpensive. Note: the Lee ladle doesn't work well as pressure filling, you need the Lyman or RCBS for that.

Yes, dirt is the main cause of a dripping pot...its mainly caused by crud buildup on the rod seat. A partial solution is to keep your alloy as clean as possible. That means never...ever use the pot for smelting wheel weights or range lead. Use something else for smelting and try to get the ingots as clean as possible. It is only a partial solution, because you'll never get the lead clean enough to prevent eventual buildup of some crud in the pot and on the valve rod seat. Just expect it unless you are using virgin alloy.

[jon leary]

I haven't been casting long but have an old saeco 11 lb bottom pour. It was dripping so I tried lapping the valve and that made it worse, so I tookout the valve rod and lightly peened a small mushroom on the end then put the rod back in the valve agive it a light tap to seat it. No more drips. Jon

[Junior1942]

I have two 10lb Lee bottom pour pots. One is for ww alloy, and the other one is for pure lead alloy. The only thing I would change is, I wish I had two 20lb Lee bottom pour pots.

[w30wcf]

I have 2 Lee 10lb. pots and an RCBS 20 lb. pot.

I keep Linotype in one of the Lee's and 50/1 alloy in the other which has the stem removed and the spout plugged for dipper use.

THe RCBS contains w.w. + 2% tin alloy which I make 80+% of my bullets from.
I have had this pot for 15 years or so and am happy that it has never leaked.
Superior performance by design.

I find that the dipper will produce better bullets in my 400 - 500 gr. .45-70 molds. Other than that, I have found that the bottom pour's will produce bullets of equal quality for everything else that I cast.

w30wcf

[Newtire]

Yeah 44man, maybe it sounded dumb, but it made great sense. What does that say about me? Your all very generous with your advice. Thanks a lot.

I just ordered a Lee Pro-4 20lb. furnace. The price was right, and the reviews were good for this lower grade unit.

Hi BB,
As many mentioned the leaking Lee feature, I just want to say, I'll bet yours leaks too at first. Make sure you start it up on a surface that can stand the temperature of molten lead! I gave away my first 10 lb. pot because of that and used a Coleman with large wood handled spoons from thrift store and cast many many bullets that way out of a top loading Wagner 25 lb. frying pan. Along sometime last year, I bought the Lee 20 lb. and after the initial panick watching it leak, I more or less twisted & turned that needle valve enough to the point where it doesn't leak hardly ever now. I'd say after the third casting session of screwing around with it, you will get the needle to fit the seat and it will probably work. If it were about 40 lbs, would be better I'd say. Those 6-cavity moulds from the group buy sure keep you busy. I do great with that 20 lb. pot though and just throw in a couple "muffin-ingots" every 20 pours or so. If I were to top dip again, I would go back to the frying pan as the Lee pot is too small in diameter to stick my spoon in there. I like the way that stream of lead fills the mould cavities out of the bottom pour and don't plan on using the Coleman for much else except melting down wheelweights anymore. (Just my $2.00 worth)

[Cloudpeak]

I was going to buy a Lee bottom pour and then decided against it. I'd been using a Lyman cast iron pot and dipper. The Lyman pot was too small so I bought a cast iron pot, 7" in dia. and 5 inches tall for use on my Coleman. It sure seems to hold a lot of lead and was $15.00. I already owned the Coleman. I don't have to worry about small capacity, leaking valves or burned out heating elements and this set up is in keeping with my goals---cheap.

I also don't render WW's and cast in different operations anymore. I melt the WW, clean them up and cast. This saves handling the WW's twice and heating the metal up twice. When I'm done casting, I pour the remainder into ingots. I just seems to me that this is a more effecient use of time and energy costs.

Cloudpeak

[Nrut]

BB... I use a Lee 10 & 20 pounder ....I like them both but like Jr. would wish I had two 20 pounders....I have a screw driver and a vise grip with a small piece of mechanics wire in the jaws to address the drip if that becomes an issue.....The 20 pounder will peg my Lyman casting thermometer (I would advise to buy one of these also) at 1000* so not having enough heat is a non-issue with this pot....I use NEI flux which seems to work good....have fun .....mic

[shooter575]

Gee-wiz,You guys don't leave much room to coment here. I use 2 Lee 20 lb pots.One dipper pot for pure lead.A dripomatic for aloy. I use the RCBS dipper.For casting 500 gr minnes and .690 RB I gave up on bottom pouring minnes.Cut my rejects from 30% to about 5%.Bad thing on dipping is the amount of oxide you get on the surface.I need to scrape it off every 3 lb or so. Also lead temp goes up as the pot gets lower.I refill at half way mark.
A 40 lb bottom pour that did not leak,Has replaceable stem and seat,Keeps temp at all levels that cost under a c note is what I want! Build it and I will buy!!!

[454PB]

Those of us that started casting when young and poor (pour?) had to start with the old pot and dipper. The bottom draw pots cost enough to buy a bunch of moulds, sizers, dies etc. I bought one of the Lee 10 pound bottom draws soon after they came on the market, and it was such an improvement over the dipper, I stayed with it. I still have the first Lee pot with the spout brazed closed for alloying, and both a 10 and 20 pound bottom draw pot for casting. I've never had any trouble with the Lee pots, and between them, they have melted several tons of alloy. I've been kicking around the idea of getting an RCBS 20 pounder, just to see what I've been missing. If it holds up as well as the Lee pots, I'll be happy.

Not sure if I can even find my dipper.....