Santa was Early!

[Griff]

The new Lyman Mag25 arrived. My old Lyman Mag 20, purchased in the mid '80s was giving up the ghost. Wouldn't heat right. I sent it off to get rebuilt, but you can't buy the heating element. The guy I sent it to, offered to buy it from me for his spare parts... And I applied the price to one of his electronic temp controllers to use with a new Lee Pro IV I'll use for casting pure lead round balls. It's always been a hassle to empty a pot of an alloy and the refill with pure lead for muzzleloading balls.


The Lyman Mag25

I put about 12 lbs of cold WW ally ingots in the pot, set the temp to 700ºF and within 30 minutes was casting bullets.

Still not quite perfect, but better.

After lubing and sizing, loaded about 50 rounds.


I like this new pot. I'm sure I'll like the Pro IV when I get the PID Controller also.

I read several stories of, "I heard the new Mag25 has problems"... but nothing specific. I did find one negative. There's no "on/off" swtich. You plug it in to start, and unplug to turn it off.

But, it heats much quicker than my old Mag 20, tho' it's been so long since that was new, maybe I just became used to how slow it'd become.

But, after casting about a 25-30 bullets, it seems to hold the heat well, as I added about 10 more lbs to the pot, the temp dropped to around 650ºF and took about 10 minutes to come back up to the set temp again. It never went over about 6 degrees above the 700º and never dropped below 698º once it'd reached full temp.

Tonite I'm going to search for an inline switch, then tomorrow I'll actually time the performance and cast a bunch more of these 45-225-CAV bullets. They're casting fairly consistently, as after lubing and sizing they're running 237 ±2 grains. I'll also take my camera and get some actual pics.

[Sixgun]

Nice furnace Griff! It looks pretty much to be patterned after the RCBS which I have extensively used since 1998 with no issues, unlike the three poorly designed Lyman's XX's I burned up in about the same amount of time previously to the purchase of the RCBS. I see your new Lyman holds 5 more pounds than the RCBS. Lyman sure did a nice upgrade and will most likely outlive most of us here. Can I have it?

One thing nice about having the tools, raw material, and knowledge about making bullets....you can shoot as much as you want cheaply or until the cows come home.

As for an early Santa, well, my mother always told me since I was a little kid that you can have Christmas everyday if you play your cards right. -----6

[Griff]

No, you can't have it. Seems impolite to give away a gift. Wait... since I provide all the money to pay the bills, even if the Mrs. ordered it, did I still buy it for myself?

You musta had some kinda bad karma goin' on to have 3 Lymans go bad. My only previous casting pot, a Lyman Mag20 took 30 years to give it up! Or maybe I don't cast as much as you!

I looked seriously at the RCBS, but the lever is on the "wrong" side for me...

[plowboy 45]

Thats nice, and handy to
Now, would you be interested in castin a few to sell

PLOWBOY

[Griff]

Thats nice, and handy to
Now, would you be interested in castin a few to sell

PLOWBOY

For a hobbyist, hand casting is far too time consuming for any sort of commercial sales. Now... if you'd like a few to try...

[Griff]

Spent the day casting... leisurely. It was nice to see the variance in temp as I dropped in another lb of Pb to make up for usage... Adding 1 lb. to a nearly full pot cause the temp to register ~20º drop. Add 2 lbs. and it'd drop about 35º. I took my time, casting from one 2 cavity mold (RCBS 45-225-CAV), and ended up with a full 1lb Hodgdon powder container (the old cardboard type), plus another hundred that I lubed & sized, then loaded up in new Starline cases & 6.5 grains of RedDot. Should be somewhere south of 1400 fps from my 24" Uberti! I might chronograph a few on Monday... tomorrow I'm going to a cowboy action match and shoot the ones I loaded up with 29grains of Goex "Cartridge"!



This is the smokeless stuff... the BP stuff looks very similar...

[Rube Burrows]

Very nice Griff. Looks like you will be having all kinds of fun now.

[Chuck 100 yd]

Nice! Enjoy your new toy!

[samb]

Nice Gift. Enjoy your shoot tomorrow.

Merry Christmas!

[samb]

How did the Sunday shoot go?

[Griff]

How did the Sunday shoot go?

Went on Sat. Forgot my earplugs, glad I have spares in the truck... forgot my gunbelt, holsters & top pair of 1851s. Had the backups, but the #2 back up (a Signature Series) had a problem. Ended up shooting last four stages with my SAAs... 1873 worked like a work horse, and the TTN 1878 side-x-side worked like a charm! I missed a couple of shots... but when you're going for the brim of the hat... these things happen!