Old Scribe wrote:GasGuzzler wrote:I put my rejects right back in the pot. Maybe I'm doing it wrong.
I do likewise GG. It's only wrong if it doesn't work for you. When I go to actually reloading, and find a poor cast or whatever I set those aside as they have the lube on them. Those get smelted later by themselves.
I do too, but I also can find rejects at every stage of the bullet prep and reloading process as well. Since my retirement, I've had three slow shooting years, but I still managed to put approximately 5K bullets down range each year (about half of a typical year). Any way you put it that is a lot of bullets being looked at. Personally, I reject a bullet for the slightest flaw. At one time I weighed bullets to obtain uniformity, but I soon realized that what all the oddballs had in common where physical defects that could be caught with the eye. I spent a couple of years testing my assumption, and it proved valid, so I stopped weighing them. It is easiest to catch these small flaws at the sizing or loading bench.
My reject tray has three years worth of accumulation on it. It also includes any bullets I pick up at my berms, chamber casts, and any wheel weights I pick up in parking lots. I had the time yesterday afternoon, so I gave the Hotpot 2 a proper run.
When I started, I wasn't taking the session very seriously as I was cleaning my garage benches during the refills, but I kept after it. I would pour one Lee ingot mold, retaining about half of the Hotpot 2's capacity, and refill it with the scrap. I soon realized that this little melter was more serious than I so I got down to a better cycle to see just what it was capable of producing. So, I'm adding three pounds of material a cycle. I never timed exactly how quick it recovered, but it was quick. Once finished clearing my bench, I was working with my Lyman Lubesizer to complete some bullets and was only cycling ten bullets at a time, so the interval was very quick. The walk was about 30' between the two operations and when I returned the pot was ready to pour.
I finished in 2 and a half hours. The material produced 37 pounds of finished ingots. I didn't think to weigh the slag, but it was significant. That material should be added to the work capacity as the Hotpot 2 had to produce it just like it produced the finished product. Without a doubt, I could cast about 15 lbs of bullets an hour. In terms of a 170-grain 30-30 bullet, that 600 an hour.
When I was reading reviews of the Hotpot 2, the base and its stability were referenced. Before use, I thought how light it was going to be a problem, but in practice, it never moved. It is very light but as soon as the pot is on it is not going anywhere. If one thought it a problem, they could easily attach the base to a board, but I will use it just like it came.
I'm not going to do the large production runs anymore, so I see me using the Hotpot 2 for some of my casting. Without getting into the numbers, I have a bunch of firearms shooting a bunch of different cartridges and my shooting is spread across them. Very few get shot a lot, mainly the pistols, but they all get shot in a year's time. If I run large lots with all the mold designs that I have on the shelf, that is a lot of bullets needing storage. It is easier to store ingots than it is bullets.
