Newbie to volume lead processing questions

[Questor]

I've got enough lead now to be worth making up a big batch of bullets. Trouble is I don't have some of the equipment I need.

I need some way to melt the lead and a pot that will hold about 75 to 100 pounds of lead at a time for the preparation of ingots.

I think I can do this with a propane burner (like a single-burner gas stove) and a steel stew pot. Can you give me an idea of whether this will work, or is there a better way? Cost is a major consideration here. Do you know where I can get a propane burner and about how much it will cost?

[HEAD0001]

75 to 100 pounds at a time?  Man that is some serious casting you are about to do.  Buy a turkey fryer.  Tom.

[Lloyd Smale]

toms idea is about the best. I for the most part use a turkey fryer and a cast iron dutch oven. For really big batches ive got a half a hot water tank that holds about 500 lbs and i put it right on the fire pit and start a good fire. but that route is dirty and hot. But theres nothing faster for making a big batch for me. Someday im going to buiild a double burner fryer on a strudy stand that will handle the hot water tank. Problem is for me any more is i just dont find that much ww at one time anymore and i dont know if its worth the bother. I can do 100 lb batchs on the turkey fryer while im casting and not have to babysit a fire and it ends up being the most time efficient way to do it.

[Questor]

Thanks. I think I'll look into the dutch oven option. It's just for preparing lead, not for casting.

[iiranger]

Sportsmansguide (.com) has had a propane single burner stove (under stove) that has 3 rings in the burner and a control for each ring. Were $29.95 plus shipping (cast iron, not cheap)... Northerntool (.com) also lists them but $39.95.  (Or you can get the 2 burner set up with 2 burners like this.) POINT: You have to have enough heat and concentrate it to get the lead to melt and stay at the right temperature. Camp stoves are lame and will take forever. Plumbers have a melting pot for this, but they are not cheap and you said money was a consideration. (There was an ad in shotgunnews(.com) for plumbers furnaces and lead...) House stoves and kitchen ranges are better, but still not up to this 3 ring level. The turkey fryer (at least the neighbor's I got a close look at) are for temps in the 325 F range. Couple of gallons of oil. No doubt, better than some 7,000 BTU camp stove but will spread the heat out.

You are going to burn some fuel. Propane? Nat. Gas? Oil? Wood? This takes some BTUs. It ain't free these days.

AND, to save/preserve the heat, find yourself a big piece of pipe, concrete or clay, that will fit around your stove/pot. You need to put it up a bit on bricks to let air into the base of the fire, but it will concentrate the heat some and save $$$... Should. If weight is a problem, you could use half of a burned out water heater... here electric is better, thicker insulation... to hold heat... And find a swim suit... You are going to do some sweating... luck

[Graybeard]

Processing lead without adequate protective gear is not a bright move. Forget short sleeves and go with a heavy long sleeve shirt and leather gloves. Make sure you use GOOD eye protection. Take it from one who had a pot explode all over me it's NOT FUN. My gear kept the damage to a minimum but I've still got scars from it but at least I have both eyes still working and yes the glasses had a lot of lead that otherwise would have gotten to them.

[myronman3]

75 to 100 pounds at a time?  Man that is some serious casting you are about to do.  Buy a turkey fryer.  Tom.

that is definitely the way to fly...works great for me.

[myronman3]

and like g.b. said, use the right protective gear. 

[Cheesehead]

I bought a 5 quart stainless stewing pot at Goodwill store for 9 bucks, put it on a turkey fryer, filled it with ww, works better than expected, and cheap. Do not go cheap on protective gear. I do not know what 5 quarts of melted lead weigh, but is is very heavy.

Cheese

[Graybeard]

It is not only very heavy it makes a rather large puddle when the bottom of a cast iron pot opens up splitling it on the ground or in my case on the concrete pad. I personally will NEVER EVER use cast iron for lead again.

Now I'm not sure why my cast iron pot cracked but crack it did. It was old and had been around a good long while but seemed solid enough when I melted the lead in it. Then it just cracked open and all the lead went out the bottom down thru my fire (in this case a charcoal fire) and out onto my concrete parking pad. Quite a mess to clean up but at least no explosion like the time I was burned badly with lead.

I have a steel container that is about 12" cube open at the top only. It was the pot from a linotype machine so was made expressly for the purpose of holding and melting lead and that's what I now use on top of a propane fish cooker. You guys can use the cast iron if you wish but as for me personally I'll never trust it again. One failure from it is enough for me.

[masek77]

GB, cast iron is supposed to be the way to go. Maybe your pot had a hairline crack that contributed to the failure? Ill bet thats what happened. If there was ANY moisture in the crack it would have exploded out and probably busted the pot.

I have been burned with lead also. It is no fun. Mostly I burned my feet and lower legs.

Questor, I use a turkey fryer and a large cast iron pot. Actually I have three of them. The next step up from there is to get one of those 600 pound capacity electric jobs. Those things can go though 10 tons in a single afternoon so for most of us it is overkill. Beside the heating elements alone cost 1500 dollars...

Get some goggles and wear long pants and long sleeve shirts, and one or even two pair of good quality leather gloves. Figure out as much as you can before you start this is not the time to be experimenting with a new way of doing things.

Take care and be safe.

[KYBOY]

I melt my raw lead into ingots with either a SS pr cast pot over a propane burner. I then pour from a Lee production pot.

[jhalcott]

  do not use an aluminum pot ! they can melt at about 1200 degrees. A big puddle of lead from ANY source is some thing to avoid. A large ,deep frying pan will hold an amazing amount of molten lead. A dutch oven seems to be the NORMAL pot for smelting wheel weights around these parts.

[haroldclark]

I have processed a large amount of wheelweights and linotype into ingots using a "crab pot cooker/burner" with a cast iron dutch oven.  I have been doing this process for years and it works.  My dutch oven only holds about 50 pounds of melt.

Harold

[OLDHandgunner]

Whenever I get a batch of wheelweights or lead pipe I just wash it good then let it dry. Then on a rainy day when there's not much going on I fire up the # 20 Lyman pot and melt it down, flux it & clean off impurities then put it into #1 ingots. It don't take much time at all. And you don't have to worry about open flames or getting seriously burned as with the larger amounts. Over the years I have stock piled hundreds & hundreds of pounds of #1 ingots under my work bench up against the basement wall. Once in ingots they don't take up much room at all. When cooled down I mark the end of the ingots with a magic marker: ( WW ) for wheelweights, ( P ) for pure lead or what ever you got for lead. Then when you're ready to mould some bullets you just grab what you need and started making good bullets. And in the winter when it's too cold to mould outdoors, you won't smoke up the house and get the old woman mad because of all the dirty lead. 
She has never let me forget about the time (many moons ago) when melting lead on the gas stove in the kitchen of our old house, I dropped a hot Lyman ingot on the floor. I thought it was pretty neat, a Lyman emblem burned into our kitchen floor, what more could a guy ask for.