Time spent melting and then casting?
I'm new to the forum and did not see this addressed in a FAQ - if the answer is there and I missed it, please send me a PM with a link and remove this post.
I've been loading powder coated lead for pistol for almost 2 years now from various online vendors. Local indoor range has offered to sell range scrap at a very discounted price and about the same time, YouTube decided that I really want to watch casting videos. I'm about ready to jump in BUT how much time should I have in mind for melting/making ingots and then for casting the actual bullets (newbie - should I be using the alternate spelling here?). 2 hours chunks of time are very do-able, 3 hours not so much, and 4 hours + would be a rare luxury that I am not sure I would devote to casting.
The first few times for each process with the associated learning curves don't count, what I am curious about is a year after I jump into the hobby, how much time will I be spending to melt (clean, flux, ingot-ize)... call it two 5 gallon buckets of range scrap and then later, how much time to cast hmm... call it 100 bullets (is that a reasonable production goal for a casting session?)
Thanks!
Time spent melting and then casting?
When processing range scrap (1/2 full 5 gallon bucket) I’m dedicating about 2 hours to melt it down into ingots (outdoors, turkey fryer and large cast iron pot). Keep the jackets and recycle them for $$$.
Typical 10 pound pot to heat up and cast the entire pot while recycling the sprue’s back into the pot … just about one hour. (That’s with a 2 banger mold) ( much longer if I’m casting 95gr projectiles vs some 1oz slugs)
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