furnace or pot casting

[DeadWood]

Was curious how many casters still use a pot/other instead of a furnace? For those who have used both can you post Pro's and Con's of why you prefer one over the other.

i was thinking how the casters did it back in the day and or present without an electrical supply. Over the fire, read many use coleman stove or other gas source.

Is it alright to leave the lead in the pot/furnace once your done casting for this session not knowing when you will cast next? or do you pour it back into a ingot mold?

[R.C. Hatter]

:coffee:Many here on the forum use furnaces, many use pots, I can well recall my days making boolits over a gas kitchen stove, over a fire, and over a Coleman stove. It depends on individual circumstances, i.e. one's budget, location, personal preference,
equipment on hand, the volume of boolits required, or any combination thereof. As to leaving lead in the pot, as opposed to casting into ingots, I cast ingots because the next casting session may require a different alloy.

[DeadWood]

Are you able to get most of alloy out? This is the info i'm looking for as i will be starting to cast for ML with soft lead and have a list of calibers i want to work on that will require a harder alloy. And knowing that i will be going back and forth didn't figure that once i go back to cast for the ML and if there was a small amount of WW alloy left in the furnace it would hurt my ML boolits.

Or should one completly wash/clean the furnace if changing lead alloy's?

[Le Loup Solitaire]

Both methods produce good bullets. A bottom pour is faster. As for empying the pot or not....old advice was to leave some melt in the bottom when casting was over as the lead left there would help start the next melt a bit easier. In the case of a bottom pour the idea was advanced that some lead on the bottom would hold the valve rod immobile and prevent any damage to it or the valve. As to the use of different alloys; if it is a critical issue for whatever reason then you do not want to contaminae or dilute one alloy with another so then you will have to clean the pot.....which is a good idea to do regularly anyway. I use WW with 2% for everything I cast so don't worry about that. For a thorough discussion of Ladle casting vs bottom pour, an excellent article was written by Jim Carmichael and published in "The Art of bullet Casting" which is still available thru Wolf Publishing. There's also a lot of good reading in that book related to the hobby. LLS

[mooman76]

I used a pot for allot of years and switched over a couple years ago mainly because of ease. I would cast from a coleman stove or the stove in the house but only when there was nobody else around. Now I work the same schedule as the wife so that isn't practical.

Advantages of the pot was it is cheap and a simple way to get started. You don't need a power source. When done I leave the pot full but if I want to switch lead alloy I could just flip over the pot and the cold lead would dump out. The temperature is more of a steady temp since it doesn't turn on and off.

Advantages of the furnace and mine is top pour is it simplcity. I just plug it in anywhere I have a power source so it is a little more portable. Less of a fire hazard.

I leave the lead in the pot in both the pot or the furnace.