Lee Precision Melter (does it have a spout?)

greg11

greg11

CGN frequent flyer
Rating - 97.3%
36   1   0
Location
Drayton Valley AB
Sorry no spout on that model.

I started with a Lee Production Pot 4-20. It is known as the LeeKoMatic as the spout does drip but there are some cures for that.

If you are not there already then take a look at the Cast Boolits website.
 
Forget the bottom pour models.

I have both.

The bottom pour does not do well with large weight bullets. It leaks. I get about 25 percent success.

Compared to my large pot ladle system where I get 85% or better success.

Please the ones without the bottom pour are cheaper.
 
Go for a larger 20lb pot. If you start casting a lot you'll find the smaller pots to be inconvienient in several ways. You need to refill more often, this brings the temp down and you won't get consistant results, or you have to wait longer to get back up to temp.

I bought the Lee Production Pot IV but wish I had started with the Lee 4-20, both bottom pour. I don't find the dripping to be a big problem, and it can be prevented by only using clean alloy in the pot (melt your scrap lead first in something else), and corrected as described in the manual. You can also ladle case easier out of the larger pot if you wish to do so on larger boolits.

The 4-20 20lb Lee can be had for $58

You may also want to check out the forums at Cast Boolits.
 
Get a bottom pour. I have poured a pile of bullets from two of the smaller Lee bottom pour pots. Keep the spout clean. I keep a screwdriver close by, and when it gets persnickety, I just turn the slotted head of the needle a few times.

I have a 20 lb. pot I haven't used yet. I keep one of the 10 lb. pots for melting wheelweights and the other for actually pouring bullets.

Of course, according to some, you can't actually pour bullets using a Lee pot, or do anything using any Lee equipment, but I didn't know that for the first 20 years, until I got on the internet....:p

Using nice clean ingots will go a long, long ways to having good pouring sessions. That's why I keep one pot for doing up ingots. Having a bunch of dirt and crap in your material doesn't have much to do with using any particular brand of equipment.
 
Bottom pour works fine for me up to about 300 gr bullets then i find that ladling works better. Best to go for a 20 lb pot either way, but whatever, just get casting. You will be amazed how much money you will be saving. hrmphhh lol.
 
The cheaper pot you would use a ladle.

I have the Production Pot IV ($75 i think) and it has the bottom pour spout controlled by a little arm on the side, it works fine. It can easily keep up with 160gr double cavity molds. Not sure but I think it holds 10lbs.

It does not have enough wattage to keep up to a 6 cavity 140gr mold. Just as my mold gets nicely up to temperature the pot is empty. I think it may work better if i added more lead (12oz muffins) at a regular interval (say every 35 bullets)

The Pot IV does work for melting wheel weights, but it's slow and a bit of a pain to dig out the steel clips. Also the rod that controls the outlet in the bottom runs diagonally down to the bottom of the pot, this makes it a pain to stir the pot and scoop out the droth. The larger pot I think has the spout control rod running vertically.

In hind sight I should have spent the bucks and got the larger lee pot. The Other brands didn't look like the features justified the cost.
 
Well what I did last night was use a cast iron frying pan on a coleman propane stove and a cheapo stainless spoon to cast lee 1oz slugs.

Worked like a charm. I'm just curious as to crunching the number on using propane. I'd imagine electric would end up being a lot cheaper than using propane. Especially if I'm using the little coleman stove cylenders. I'm waiting to see if I'm going to stick with this setup for a while before I buy the $40 30lb tank adapter.

I was melting wheel weights and getting some very good results. I think I was getting a "feel" for the lead. It was cold out, probably -5 or so, and the lead was developing a skin on the top as snow was landing on the lead and melting. However, the lead seemed to pour off of the spoon from "under the skin" on top of the spoon. I made 87 slugs with no real problems and still have about 1/8th of a propane cylender left (I bought a 3 pack for $15).

I'm pretty impressed. It's fun as hell to play around with liquid lead too. I liked the shallowness of the frying pan because it made getting the steel clamps out of the lead easier. Some of the weights were zinc, too, so the shallowness made it easy to spot the zinc ones and yank em out.

I'm really struggling on what equipment to buy. I'd really prefer to just run a pot or pan on a hotplate. I was at walmart and found a 1000W (open coil) hotplate but I don't know if it would get up to temp or not. Apparently the 1000W units do so with little problems though... Any advice on hotplates?
 
I only use hot plates to warm up mold/s, and an RCBS production pot, 800 watts, 22 lb. cap., I use it for both bottom pour and ladle casting. The inner pot is Stainless steel so it should last a long time, and doesn't leak, same old story though, you get what you pay for.
 
Why does the lee 20lb'er leak & the rcbs doesn't? They seen very similar in design. Good call for rcbs to make the pot out of stainless, my old lee 10lb'er is rusty( left it in the garage) but still working after 8yrs.
 
Lee couldn't make theirs perfect or the other brands would'nt be able to justify their higher prices.

All kidding aside many people have lapped the inside of the Lee and along with using clean lead only (melt your WW's elsewhere!) have little to no drips. I find mine never dripped much, and less so without the dirty wheel weights in it.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top Bottom