need new leadpot, suggestions?

[cooncrazy]

the old lee leadpot is on its last legs, any thing out there better?

 

[Juice Jaws]

I use the Lee Bottom Pour 10 lb. pot, I like it.

 

[8 BORE]

If you can find an old Lyman cast iron pot for sale. They were the best. I still have mine, but its old. Maybe someone has one for sale.

 

[Carbon 6]

I use the Lee Bottom Pour 10 lb. pot, I like it.

Same here, best value for the money with a decent production rate. In my opinion
My current one is 20 years old, that means it cost me about $1.50 a year when I bought it.

 

[necchi]

the old lee leadpot is on its last legs, any thing out there better?

Which Lee pot do you have that's on it's last leg?
Do you, or are you used to a bottom pour or do you dip?

 

[cooncrazy]

bottom pour. I got it in the early 80's! figure mabe there is a better design out now.

 

[necchi]

Wow, 30+ years with that one pot? That say's something not only about the pot, but your care for it.
Wish I could help ya,, but I'm an iron pot/coleman stove/dipper kind of guy.
But I'm gonna watch this thread,, I might wanna up-grade too.

 

[jackley]

If you want the best of the best get a Waage. But for us common folk a old saaco and a Lee, I got at yard sales. both were bottom pours. But they both started leaking so bad I plugged them and use them as dippers now.
Jerry

 

[jrdavis]

you can get one of these for around $50.00

 

[bud in pa]

I just bought a cast iron dipping pot off of ebay for $13.95. It looks like it will hold 10 lbs. which is adequate for my smoothbore.

 

[fleener]

I have a Waage and love it. I would buy another one without hesitation. I have a Lee bottom pour that is collecting dust under my work bench.

I think for me that that the Waage has a very good thermostat that keeps a uniform lead temp.

I cast mostly conicals for shooting competitions and try to keep my weight spread as small as possible.

It might be what I have learned over the years, but my bullet casting improved greatly with the Waage vs. the bottom pour pot.

I leave the dipper full of lead on top of my mold fill hole for a fast 5 second count. The small head pressure of the lead I think helps fill out my molds.


Fleener

 

[ZUG]

the old lee leadpot is on its last legs, any thing out there better?

You do know that Lee stands behind their products - call them and see what they have to say. If that Lee pot worked for 30 years and just now is giving you trouble I'd stick with the Lee. I prefer a dip pot myself. I had a Lee bottom pour pot and it leaked - sold it then went to two 40 pound cast iron plumber pots over a 20 pound propane tank when I was shooting the Bullseye course of fire with modern handguns. When I moved to another state for my job I no longer shot Bullseye and went back to a Lee 20 pound dip pot for my casting work.

 

[oldwolf]

Before Christmas I bought from a local guy a used LEE 20 lb Production Pot bottom pour. Just yesterday I fired it up and began melting a bunch of lead I have stored up over the years, plan to pour it all into ingots. Since I have only single projectile molds, it quickly became apparent that it will be easier to continue to use my dipper for casting projectiles. The bottom pour will work okay for ingot casting. I still have my old LEE cast iron pot that I used over a camp stove, will keep that for backup I suppose.

Do you recommend a lead thermometer, seems it might be useful for consistency.

 

[Ames]

I bought one of the Lyman big dippers and it's great for the money. I only cast about 1K round ball per year so dipping works fine. If I were casting 10K or more I would move up to a Waage, but can't justify the bucks for my small needs.

 

[fleener]

The thermometer is great for when I started casting with the bottom pour pot.

Now with the wage I never use it. I have my dial set and never move it. I also use a hot plate to pre warm my molds. Most of my casting is with steel molds and for conicals. The hot plate was a great addition. I can start casting good bullets with the first one

 

[oldwolf]

I also use a hot plate to pre warm my molds. Most of my casting is with steel molds and for conicals. The hot plate was a great addition. I can start casting good bullets with the first one

Agreed, pre-heating molds is important. In fact, the manual for my LEE pot says to set the mold on top of the pot while it is heating up in order to preheat the soon-to-be-used mold.

 

[cooncrazy]

rooting thru the net, I found a site that folks had the same problem with the lee pot as I do. guess I gotta take it apart and do a little lapping on the seat and rod.

 

[Don Steele]

I use the LEE "Pro4" 20 lb bottom pour pot. You'll read a lot of comments about how it drips lead and I can verify that it happens. To minimize that problem it is critical that the lead you put in the pot be very clean. In other words....unless you're buying pure lead ingots from a reliable supplier (e.g.: Rotometals for example) CLEAN your raw material in another pot then pour the CLEAN metal into some kind of ingot molds that can be fed directly into your LEE pot when you want to cast. Any "unknown" lead I acquire gets melted and pre-cleaned in a cast iron pot on a Coleman stove before being made into ingots for casting in my LEE. Even so, you will still have some "issues" with drips, but not (IMHO) to the point of tossing the LEE for something else. Periodic emptying and cleaning is also required. Frequency of that task depends upon how often you use it, and how dirty the lead you put in it is.
I DEFINITELY recommend a thermometer. I run roundballs at 800 degrees F. I'm one of those folks who weighs every ball so I can verify the consistency of my procedure. I'm getting excellent precision with very few throw-outs, especially so if I let the mold come completely up to temperature before beginning to cast. One last note for folks using a bottom pour pot. I've found that once the metal is up to temperature, cleaned one last time and I'm ready to go...putting a "field expedient" cover over the pot really helps. I make mine up out of heavy duty Aluminium foil, folded over several times to provide some thickness, then "fitted" over the open top of the pot.
Hope this helps.

 

[fleener]

Don:

with you lee pot, are you able to leave the thermostat set on the same setting every time or do you have to adjust it for each session?

Thanks for the idea on the tin foil, I have not done that yet. I usually take the time for the pot to heat up to clean up the shop. But I hate cleaning up the shop.

Fleener

 

[oldwolf]

It never hurts to review the operating manual of your LEE bottom pour furnace.

https://leeprecision.com/cgi-data/instruct/EL3469.pdf