New to casting - What is your recommendation for a casting furnace?

[wdcwdc]

I am going to start to cast bullets. What is your recommendation for a casting furnace? I will be casting 260 & 300 gr bullets, 500 to 1000 at a time

[Bob J]

I use a lee bottom drop 20# casting pot.....  Cheap and functional....  I actually have 4 of them with one for each of the alloys I cast....  Saves me from having to drain them after a session....


Also be aware that I smelt/flux all my raw WW/Lead etc outside in an old dutch oven using a turkey fryer burner....    This ensures that the ingots that I use to feed my casting pots are clean and grit free.... 


Not draining my pots down after a session and keeping my alloys that I feed them clean is key (IMHO) to keeping my pots from suffering from the dreaded "dripping lead" disease.....;- )

[OLDHandgunner]

Burned out my old Lyman bottom feed after 30 yrs a few years back. Have a new Lyman 20lb bottom feed to replace it. The Lyman will last the average shooter a life time. Notice I said the average, I'm not the average. 

[kbstenberg]

If cost is a consideration. The Lee's are the lowest price. But with them come some problems. They tend to slowly drip from the pour spout. But that can be controlled with regular cleaning of the spout, an internal surfaces. I have the Lee Pro 4-20. An to me the dripping is a small inconvieniance.
The RCBS an Lyman melting pots have very little problem with leaks but are also over twice as expensive. I do not have any experience with either
As stated before. You don't want to smelt raw WW in your casting pot.
An If you get cerious about casting. A PID is very usfull in controlling the melt temperature.
Kevin

[hornady]

For what you want to do, I would recommend the Lee 4-20 bottom pour. I have used Lee pots for years. I don’t care what anyone says. The Lee pots are a pain in the butt. I have owned enough to say this as fact. But the Lee pot cost about $60.00. I just bought an RCBS price was $340.00 on sale. It is 10 times the pot any of the Lees I have owned were. But you need to ask your self. Will I cast enough to justify the price of a Lyman or RCBS. Don’t get me wrong the Lee pots work well enough for the money. But for the cheap price you are constantly adjusting drip. Weighing the arm down straightening  slid arm , basically looking for bind points to repair to keep it running smoothly.

[Lloyd Smale]

if you plan on casting that many bullets id skip the lees and spring for a good lyman or better yet an rcbs pot. Youll never regret spending the extra money. the lees are fine if your only going to cast a few times a year. theyll get you by but once youve used a good pot i can guarantee youll never look back at a lee.

[LAH]

I'll agree with Lloyd. Back when Dry Creek was running full force I asked most my customers about lead furnaces. Many had used more than one. The choice by a long shot was the RCBS pot.

[jlchucker]

I agree with Lloyd.  When I started, I bought the Lee 10 pound verion, and several years later went to the 20 pounder.  The 10 pounder served me well for the first several years, and is still working.  I use the 20 pounder for most of my stuff now, but I don't cast 1000 boolits at a time.  If you're going to do volume like that, have the raw material to do those quantities, and the pocketbook to buy a better pot, then you'd be well served to buy something like what Lloyd recommends.  If I were casting in the kind of volumes like you're talking about I'd be giving the RCBS furnace a serious look.  In fact, when my own Lee stuff stops working, the RCBS equipment will be on my own short list for a replacement.

[bilmac]

If you get a Lee get the production pot. It is taller so you can get gang molds and fishing sinker molds under the spout.

 Yup they drip, I think it is because crud builds up in the valve . When mine gets bad enough to get annoying I take a flat blade screwdriver and twist the end of the valve stem a few twists and it stops for awhile.

[Drilling Man]

  I've owned several lead melt pots, the only one that has lasted and worked really well is the RCBS i bought years ago, it still works perfectly.
 
  DM

[twoshooter]

I have had 3 Lee's over a 40 year period, they do drip some but that does not constitute a problem for me. I will never need to cast enough to justify a setup costing several hundred dollars. I also do my initial smelting in a dutch oven and turkey fryer , and keep a pot going in it when I cast. When you cast two 400 to 500 gr bullets at a time, and I alternate molds to keep a steady flow going, the small pots do not go very far, so I clean and flux in the big pot and when the small one gets to 1/4 full I fill it back to 3/4 and go on. I only cast on about 8-10 days a year as the mood strikes me, last time I made about 200 of each of 4 bullets.

[Greg B.]

I have been casting since the 1970's in order to avoid the high cost of factory bullets. If you want high volume check out the Magma stuff. Here you will notice the high cost of equipment. For me I used a cast iron lead pot on an old 2 burner Coleman white gas stove for about 30 years. Then I bought an RCBS bottom pour. I use the gas stove to do my initial smelting of wheel weights in order to get the dirt etc. out of the melt. Otherwise the bottom valve gets plugged up. The second burner gets used to carefully pre heat the molds. A steel plate can be placed on that burner to get better heat distribution for the molds. I am still waiting for the savings to start but I get to shoot a lot more.
 
Check out the Los Angeles Silouette Club and Cast Boolits web sites.
 
Greg B.

[Land_Owner]

If you get a Lee get the production pot. It is taller so you can get gang molds and fishing sinker molds under the spout.

 Yup they drip, I think it is because crud builds up in the valve . When mine gets bad enough to get annoying I take a flat blade screwdriver and twist the end of the valve stem a few twists and it stops for awhile.

I have not tried, nor do I own, fishing sinker moulds, but the RCBS Pro Melt 20# pot has a seemingly generous dimension between the pour spout and the bottom of the unit and it doesn't drip.

When I get the RCBS pot heated up, there is no reason NOT to produce 300 of this 2-cavity mould, 500 of that 6-cavity mould, another 100 or so each of my single cavity moulds and in so doing, over several hours at the pot, I have converted eight [8] 3-pound lead ingots into a thousand handgun bullets in multiple calibers. 

I reload cases no less conservatively and I shoot, when I shoot, to nearly exhaust my current supply of ammunition for that caliber. 

Why?  Because I can...because I like it...because I get better (or think I do) at every outing...because I like to shoot stuff...because it is fun...and my guests and I enjoy it immeasurably. 

Were I to have paid factory boxed ammo price for the same number of rounds that I have cast and reloaded, I would be considerably poorer for not having invested in the best components to "roll my own", I wouldn't shoot nearly as much or as often, and my opinion wouldn't have been flavored through 1-year-plus of reading, casting, questioning, trying, learning and most importantly shooting.

[Rock Home Isle]

I am going to start to cast bullets. What is your recommendation for a casting furnace? I will be casting 260 & 300 gr bullets, 500 to 1000 at a time

At those quantities I'd get the RCBS Pro Melt Furnace and a nice set of molds that will let you cast 6 to 8 projectiles at a time.

[Land_Owner]

You can go back and search for my timid start in boolit casting right here on this GBO Forum (about 6 pages in).  DCrockett, 45-70.gov, AtLaw; OldFart; qujaq59; GB, and others dedicated to casting helped steer me by offering their experience, advice, and most importantly their encouragement.  Once I got started in it, I was HOOKED (as they said I would be).  You will be too.  Do yourself a favor.  Buy the best you can afford.

[Veral]

  I didn't read any of the posts on this subject, because I'm strongly opinionated by 33 years of experiance.   

  The RCBS promelt is guaranteed for life, no questions asked, they send a new on if it quits.  Any arguments.

  I got my first one I believe about 18 years ago, and a second to back it up a year later.  They are both going strong and  there aren't very many people who run one on maximum heat like I do, day after day, often for 16 hour days.   I went through a lee pot every three months using it the same way, for about 10 years.    But don't let that completely discourage you from buying a less expensive pot.  They can last a long time if kept dry, not allowed to overheat, be keeping a thermometer in them and monitoring temp while casting, and keeping them in a good dry place when not in use.
Veral at LBT

[calvon]

I have the Magma Master Pot. It holds 40 pounds of melt. The bottom pour gadget doesn't leak. Its heat control maintains a ten degree swing. Those are the advantages.


It has one disadvantage; it's spendy.


To me it's worth it.