AmericanLongRifles Forums
General discussion => Black Powder Shooting => Topic started by: yip on February 23, 2014, 12:29:14 AM
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which one bottom pour or dip, which do you guys suggest? I've been dipping for years but want something less messy. any help?
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I'm a dipper, I usualy have a mess anyway and I think I get more uniform balls when I dip. I tried the bottom pour and it would not seal shut sometimes and empty the whole pot onto my casting bench which just added to the mess.
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Dip for the same reason as smylee grouch.
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Bottom. More control. Leave the thermostat set and no fussing w a burner getting the right temp. I let lead puddle and run off cutter plate to minimize cooling caused cavities.
Cleaning helps a lot. I let the pot get low,pour some ingots and clean the pot including the plug and spout. Very little problem with dribble or large leak. Occasionally when get dribbles just twist the plug w a screwdriver.
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Another Dipper here.
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Dip out of a bottom pour pot! Sealed it up when we couldn't get it to stop dripping no matter what we tried. Small dipper with the spout. I like the control better and let the lead pile up or run over to help with the air bubbles. Mold .386, .440, .535, and a few .600.
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I used to use a bottom pour lee pot, finally leaked to much, still have it and any suggestions re how to clean or sort the leaks out\\? I then used a home made bottom pour ladel for years, really good for minnies. Now have a lovely antique lead ladle, probabley for pouring babbet type bearings, and it is good. Would prefer the lee pot for minnies though.
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I have a lee bottom pour pot, yes the drip can be a pain some times, but I can produce good balls whith it. The pot needs drained and thoroughly cleaned on occasion, but it works just fine by me BJH
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If you have a Lyman type dipper ( the dipper is ball like with a round tube like spigot), you find that all of your bullets round ball/conical/bullets are much more consistent .
Especially if the dipper is full with each pour.
I have used a bottom pour for several years, and found that the products were all over the place as far as individual weights were concerned, not to mention the leaking of the pot, the splash burns while pouring.
While casting, if you put your recovery tray just inside a cardboard box turned side ways, most of the sprue cuttings will go in the box, of which you can recover as you take a break in each casting session.
I have found that the ladle type dipper is not as good as the round ball type ladle.
With the bottom pour, and ladle you do not get consistent head on each pour.
The Lyman type dipper is not too good with gang moulds, not enough lead in it.
If you are using gang moulds, I would suppose the bottom pour is better.
I have not seen gang moulds producing consistent results.
I hope this helps.
Fred
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I'm with Standing Bear. I've cast countless thousands by dipping and by bottom pour. I do well using both methods and get fine quality ball/bullet. Decades ago I settled on bottom pour. Even with dripping I can cast at a faster rate and get equal quality balls.
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I ladle pour so I don't have shrinkage voids.
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Either way works, and can produce equally-good results, if you fine-tune your techniques for the method used. That means some time with a good scale weighing the end-product, and some experimenting (especially with larger/heavier balls). I'm in the bottom-pour camp, and use an RCBS bottom-pour pot.
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I still have the Lee bottom pour I bought close to 40 years ago. The dripping turned to a small stream and nothing stopped it until a screw plugged it and I got an old Ideal ball-type ladle. Lyman and RCBS still make 'em, I believe. I can't do anything worthwhile with a spoon-type ladle.
Lee lost me when they dropped single cavity molds. Still use the ones I have, but won't buy doubles.
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do you flux the bottom pour? I flux when I dip, but do you flux bottom pour? I heard of guys using kitty litter on top of their lead, to keep heat constant, and being impurities float to the top no fluxing is necessity. is this true?
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I have cast balls both ways. Had a plumbers pot and propane tank set up when I dipped but prefer the bottom pour. I found that if you keep the pot and plunger clean there is a minnimum of dripping. A tuna fish can catches the drip and I put it back into the pot periodicaly I do flux my lead wether dipping or pouring.
Mark
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Do those roundballs smell like tuna then Mark??? ;) Prelubed with fish oil.
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I use a two-stage process to flux the lead.
First, I refine/conglomerate my various scrap lead to clean it up. This gets fluxed and stirred several times, before being cast into standard ingots. Once the lead goes into the casting pot and is melted, I flux with fine sawdust--I use the stuff that accumulates under my bandsaw--and stir. The sawdust "charcoal" is left on the top of the pot. I flux again any time I add lead to the pot.
I tend to cast "hot" (800-825 degrees). Particularly on larger balls or conicals, I have a space of about 1-1.5" between the spout and the sprue plate. I aim the stream of lead to hit just on the edge of the opening in the sprue plate. I also leave a sizable sprue on the top of the sprue plate, as a reservoir to be drawn on as the lead in the cavity cools. This all contributes to consistent mould fill-out and avoiding shrinkage voids.
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Bruce,
That's how you can tell your balls from someone else'. Nuff said!
Mark
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Im a dipper from way back. Molten lead and snuff!
topknot
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THE BEVELS RAN A BUNCH OF TEST ON ROUND BALLS .CAME OUT WAY AHEAD TO USE DIPPER FOR TARGET BALLS.DON GETZ AND JOHN SAID TAKE ALL THE AUTO POUR OFF AND DRILL AND TAP THE BOOTOM PUT ALLEN HEAD SCREW IN .USED IT FOR LOT OF YEARS. NOTHING MAKES YOU MADER THAN HAVE A NICE 15 LBS OF MOTLEN LEAD AND A PIECE OF SLAG GETS CAUGHT IN THE AUTO POUR.WILL NOT LET IT CLOSE. HAD IT HAPPEN WAY TO MANY TIMES.
DAG
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which one bottom pour or dip, which do you guys suggest? I've been dipping for years but want something less messy. any help?
Far longer life and less problems with a dipper pot.
Better product too.
Dan
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The two Lee bottom pour pots that I use seem to do best when I hold the mould in contact with the spout AND allow a nice puddle to form on the cut-off plate.
Don't use kitty litter to flux - don't believe in fluxing, period - because I don't want my cat near the pot. ;D
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i agree with dan .what I use now is a single cast iron burner that hooks up to a 20 lb propaine tank. their is a valve on burner to adjust heat. I brought a 5 inch deep by 10 inch round cast iron pot at swap meet..melts in nothing flat best heat control. had under 45 bucks in the whole thing not counting tank.get your scrap put in flux and you can turn 100 lbs of clean ingots out in nothing flat.another guy I know uses a coleman stove he brought a yard sale. use lyman spout dipper for balls and a old big lead wippers dipper for ingots.
dag
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Got a lee bottom pour. Had it 30 yrs with no trouble to speak of accept when it gets dirty just give it a good clean. When it finally dies I will replace it with another ;D
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Dipper here. Get far smaller weight spreads than back when I bottom poured.
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Not trying to derail this topic, but when I try and cast balls using my Larry Callahan .585 mold I get a hole in the ball where the metal runs in. Don't have this problem with my smaller molds made by Larry or with modern made molds. What am I doing wrong? I've been casting bullets/RB for 42 years and never had this problem. Thanks.
Tom Black
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Not trying to derail this topic, but when I try and cast balls using my Larry Callahan .585 mold I get a hole in the ball where the metal runs in. Don't have this problem with my smaller molds made by Larry or with modern made molds. What am I doing wrong? I've been casting bullets/RB for 42 years and never had this problem. Thanks.
Tom Black
Pour more metal onto the sprue. The contraction when the ball cools is causing the voids.
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Pete,
Thank you sir. I'll have to give that a try.
Tom Black
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Far longer life and less problems with a dipper pot.
Better product too.
I've noticed the problems with bottom pour and have a good mind to convert it for that reason alone.
I don't understand why the this might improve the results. Could you explain a little?
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the thing I can't understand is, with a bottom pour pot, impurities should float to the top, keeping the pour clear. only letting the pot go low would contaminate the spout. just my thinking...........yip
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When I was still shooting those chunk gun matches, we always used a pot and a ladle. I would hold the mould on a slight
angle and pour a whole ladle full of lead right into the hole, the excess would run off of the mould. By doing it this way we
would get more uniform balls. I would than weigh the balls and would keep the ones that were within a few tenth's. I also
did the same pour method while using a double cavity mould. When weighed, each hole would throw a slightly different ball.
..........Don
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yip- you get a slag chip that will go to bottom.you would think the darn thing would melt but it don't.fluxing and skimming will not remove them it don't happen often but when you clean a leaking bottom pour out their it is.more I think about it it probably a steel or little piece of iron that forms the slag chip.
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I've have owned two bottom pour pots, and currently use one of them. I dip out of it though, because it, like its predecessor, is an accident waiting to happen. I rarely have had a casting session that didn't end well before I reach my goal, because the pot either plugs up, or decided to spew hot lead all over the shop. I also pour .58 cal. minis, and 12 ga. balls, that tend to come out wrinkled when poured from my bottom pour pot, due to the small size of the hole in the bottom of the pot. A big dipper is much better.
Hungry Horse
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I used to bottom pour for all of them, but when the periodic leaking finally got me totally frustrated, along with having too many "out of weight" limitations, I went to dipping. Now, almost EVERY one of my casts (unless I short-pour), bullets or balls are within my 1/2gr. parameters - been doing this for a long time.
Dipping does give a superior end product.
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well, looks like dipping is the way to go. now I'm looking for a large dipping pot.
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Far longer life and less problems with a dipper pot.
Better product too.
I've noticed the problems with bottom pour and have a good mind to convert it for that reason alone.
I don't understand why the this might improve the results. Could you explain a little?
Its far more uniform to pour bullets with a ladle the "head pressure" is the same. I would not carry a free bottom pour home if I had to use it. If I could sell it to someone yes. Use? Nope.
But to get uniform results the caster has to develop a system the produces good bullets then use it. I never add metal other than the sprues to the pot. I try to cast the whole pot full in one setting, if I need that many. If I have to walk away for more than a very few minutes I break the batch of bullets into before and after the break batches for weighing.
Dan
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Not trying to derail this topic, but when I try and cast balls using my Larry Callahan .585 mold I get a hole in the ball where the metal runs in. Don't have this problem with my smaller molds made by Larry or with modern made molds. What am I doing wrong? I've been casting bullets/RB for 42 years and never had this problem. Thanks.
Tom Black
Bag moulds are bag moulds.
I have not used one since I was a kid. Several reasons I will not enumerate here.
You need enough molten metal at the sprue that the shrinkage taking place can pull this metal into the void.
Bag moulds usually don't have a good provision for this. Bigger the ball the more metal is needed. This is why I make SURE I have a large puddle on top of the sprue plate and that is stays liquid for a few seconds after I remove the ladle.
Dan
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i too like to dip tried the bottom drain as much , doesn't seem to make much difference in the speed or quality of the process,like most of you all said it's still a messy process, keep pouring