Well, I finally got around to casting bullets yesterday after years of wanting to do so. Except none were never actually cast yesterday.
The reasons for the long delay are many. I work too many hours. Hopefully that’s changing soon, but for now, and for many years, I worked too much. Which means I really didn’t have time to cast bullets. I had enough available supply of bullets and working too much means little time to shoot, and so I went through them slowly. Also, not as much time to reload. If I had a backyard shooting range, I would shoot a lot more…but I don’t.
And, my wife can’t be around when I cast bullets.
Yesterday was the day great things were supposed to happen. I began with adding an outlet for the burglar alarm. An additional one was needed, as the new system installed over the summer needed an additional plug and had been plugged into the strip since the summer. With one plug needed and two in an outlet and this being within cords length of my RCBS Pro Melt pot—time to start casting!
Plugged in melting pot, turned on fan, blew circuit! Well, circuit breaker in fuse box didn’t turn off, turned it on and off and nothing. I will put in new outlets, I won’t put a new circuit breaker in a fuse box. Had to call an electrician the first time ever in 11 years here. Pained me to do it! Turns out that it was a GFCI outlet in the garage that had blown, not the circuit breaker. It cost me $228.21 to find that out. Plugged melting pot back in and used another outlet, tripped GFCI outlet again. Electrician stated brand new (turns out I got it from Midway in 2016) has a short. It’s really commendable of RCBS to replace this after all these years but they said they would, as it’s unused and I retrieved my Midway receipt online.
But, how much energy does a melting pot use—so I don’t have a repeat of the above? Well, that won’t happen again, as I’ll not forget about the GFCI outlet in the garage. Also, I might have reacted abruptly yesterday as I made the mistake of telling my wife I replaced the outlet and then proceeded to blow a circuit breaker—those of you who are married can already hear the “see, I told you so”.
The electrician confirmed my work was not the problem. In fact better than what was originally installed in an 11 year old house. I attach wire to the screws which is a superior method to the backstab approach when this house was built 11 years ago (not a fan of new construction!).
So, when the new pot arrives, the circuit breaker is 15 amps. On this circuit are three outside outlets, none of which are in use. The GFCI box in the garage, with one plug containing something to do with the battery for the alarm, and then four outlets in the basement, one for a never in use sump pump, one for the water heater, and I’ll have the fan plugged into this and running as well, and then 3 plugged in cords relating to the burglar alarm in two separate outlets, the second outlet having been added yesterday, and the fourth unused plug for the melting pot.
The additional great news is the backstab outlets really don’t last more than 20 or 25 years, so guess what I get to think about doing over the next decade or so? Surprise answer here: maybe sell the place, LOL! Easy enough to replace them, but an irritation nonetheless, and yet more incentive to purchase a place that’s existing, more soundly built, and might have land for my own shooting range!