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Military Firearm Restoration Corner

Buckshot Mold


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My guess after having cast thousands over the past 25 years. If the heat gets to you through the wood handles the mold it to hot. Gets to hot to handle, let it cool. I've never worked with a mold that big but usually molds cool down from to hot to just right in about a minute or less. Maybe a bit longer for the large, multi cavity mold.

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I wear a glove on my right hand, safety glasses and shoes I don't mind ruining. I used to have an apron made of floor carpet but it turned ripe. If you're going to water drop your castings. Load the top of the bucket with Styrofoam packing pellets. The pellets prevent water splashing into the smelting pot.

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I've used a RCBS cast iron pot on a gasoline camp stove. I prefer the smaller electric melting pot. Lee and Lyman, I think, have identical ones. I used the Lee since the mid 70's, when it finally went bad on me and I replaced it with the Lyman last year. have the big Lee pot also, but I don't care for it. It leaks. I may just need to run it dry and clean it all up real well. Anyway, the smaller pot does fine.

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Lee has a few low cost electric pots that do the job. From what I've seen on the CastBoolit board. Lee's are often called leak o matic. I've never worked on a Lee pot but when my RCBS starts dripping I disassemble it and clean the valve. Last time steel wool wouldn't remove the build-up. From a web recommendation I heated the needle portion up as hot as I could get it then the crud was easily removed with coarse steel wool.

 

I lucked into my RCBS lead pot and some other casting accessories from a yard sale. The seller was trying to raise money to bail his wife out of jail for passing bad checks. He was also selling a class 3 Mac-10 but it was way out of my toy budget. I've had the used RCBS pot since the mid 80's. Only time it failed was due to operator error. I spilled molten lead on the cord. RCBS wanted a small fortune plus shipping. I took it to a small appliance repair shop. Think I paid 6 or 7 bucks.

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Tony find yourself a location outside or if melting lead in an enclosed area put up a couple fans to keep it well vented. If you put a fan directly on the pot you'll have trouble maintaining the temperature. I do my casting on my carport and turn fans on full blast until it quits smoking. Using wheel weights every now and then I wind up with a tire valve in the mix. The rubber, oil, grease and what ever winds up with the weights creates a stomach turning stench. Since lead/antimony wheel weights are being phased out of existence. I have to inspect each and every weight now to cull the zinc. A slow process but I keep the junk and stench out of the mix. Watch for zinc weights as it only takes one to ruin the entire mix. Steel weights wont melt.

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