What's a good ladle?

[mozeppa]

ladles are fine for those who like them...not me.

too much movement .....dip out the lead pour into the mold ...put ladle down...eject the cast boolits...close mold
pick up the ladle ....repeat.

you always put into the ladle what is floating on top of your alloy ...and this goes into the bullets.

with a bottom pour if there is any gunk in your lead it will float it won't get into your bullets if you add lead to the pot when you are getting low ...never run your pot out of lead, or the gunk will get into your bullets and into your pots valve.

here again is the thing....flux flux and flux again.

[triggerhappy243]

mozeppa, where is the like button? LOL I cast larger bullets and like to cast alot of them in a short amount of time. So I flood the tops of my molds to fill the cavities as fast as possible. (large capacity ladle idea).

[Doggonekid]

I have the RCBS ladle and it gave me many years of good service. I retired it about 20 years ago for a bottom pour pot. Never regretted it.

[gwpercle]

Casting tip , keep the ladle submerged in the melt . It dribbles because the lead in the ladle cools just a bit and will not free flow. You have to keep lead in the ladle and the ladle in the pot so this doesn't happen.
I'm a ladler myself , I didn't care for the bottom pour method. Not my cup of tea.
Gary

[wellfedirishman]

Slightly off topic but posting since the OP heard Lee bottom pour pots were no good.

I use 2 Lee pots side by side.
A 20 lb pot to melt the lead and a 10 lb bottom pour pot beside it to actually fill the molds. Whenever the 10 lb pot starts to get low I ladle on 2lbs of lead from the big pot, and replace it with new ingots.

That way I can keep casting quickly even with 5-6 cavity heavy bullet molds. This arrangement works great, I can knock out a thousand bullets in a couple of hours.

[longbow]

I use an old open plumber's ladle. It holds at least a lb. of lead so is really good for large pours like shotgun slugs.

I can pour faster with the ladle than lead flows out of a bottom pour pot so again, good for large volume moulds.

I don't like the Lyman and RCBS style ladles with the little pouring spout, I'll stick with my open ladle. I'll bet triggerhappy's ladle is about the same size and style.

[brassrat]

I am new to this and never ladle and pour from the surface lead and also just hold the mold and make one big pour down the spru plate channel, like the Lyman cover photo, only much closer. The boolets are looking pretty good, whats the problem? I would be there, forever, tilting the mold back and forth on each cavity.

[country gent]

A lot open the spout up on the RCBS and lyman ladles from 3/16" to around .210-.215" with a drill this helps in 2 ways.1) it opens the spouts up for more flow, .020+ thousandths makes a big difference 2) it removes and ridge or burrs restrictions left in the lade spout junction also increasing flow. The rowel bottom pour ladles have a bigger spout but can pressure cast with them easily. The ladle I'm converting to a double spout is going to be around .250 bores with the pipe nipples I'm using. As said above leave the ladle in the pot not setting beside it and keep it hot. Pour deliberately don't try and start slow and increase.