VE6AB Technical
Lead Smelter
Well on a small scale that is!
So what you find me doing is casting 45 caliber lead balls for use in my 45 caliber blackpowder rifle. Lately I have been out and about with my Hawkens rifle, and I began to run low on lead balls, so today I took the time to cast more of them.
Now if you haven't melted lead before, the molten lead is extremely hot and you don't want it splashing on you. I am wearing leather gloves, a face safety shield, and boots with no skin exposed anywhere.
Once the furnace was brought up to temperature, and I had placed several ingots of lead into the melting pot, and as I fed the melting pot, I placed my ladle and ball mold into the molten lead to bring them up to temperature.
Initially the mold was not quite hot enough and the first few balls were slightly cold seen in the photo, the balls with a frosted finish. Those were dropped back into the pot for recasting.
While working with molten lead you should be melting lead outside in the open air, or have a fan pulling the fumes away so that you don't breath the fumes in.
I have had a lot of experience casting bullets as at one time I was a handgun fan, and I spent a lot of time at the range firing my handguns with ammo I handloaded with lead wadcutter bullets that I cast keeping the costs down. At the time I was using a Saco lead melting furnace that was much more automated for casting large quantity of lead bullets.
The lead wadcutters were then put through a Lyman bullet sizer of the correct caliber, and the bullets then put through a lubricator so as not to lead the rifling in the barrels of my handguns.
The Plains Rifle......
https://www.jerryclement.ca/MachineShop/Projects-In-Metal/n-6JCfP/i-FdGHfK9
