Lee little casting dipper

Does anyone actually use this thing? I tried it once with a single cavity mold. The bullet had uneven bases even with the spure over flowing..lol

I use the Lee open style for pouring mini-muffin ingots ... I never had much luck with the open dipper and boolit moulds , complete fill out was always problematic . But for actual casting of boolits with a boolit mould I use the Lyman type dipper that has the little side spout and do the pressure casting method . The Lyman Dipper and pressure casting give me the most perfect , or nearly perfect , cast boolits .
I tried bottom pouring pot and found I could make a whole lot of boolits with defects in them ... Gave up on it , gave pot to a fellow member and went back to pressure casting with the Lyman dipper .
Gary

Ah yes I’ve cast thousands of bullets using that little Lee dipper!

I primarily use mine to skim of dross after fluxing in my Lee 10# electric pot (not a bottom pour) - otherwise, my old Lyman/Ideal bottom pour dipper does the real work.

A bottom pour Rowell ladle is better than the Lee spoon.

I also use mine to skim the "crud" after fluxing.

My primary pouring tool. I put a gentle curving bend in mine so that when the 'spoon' is full the handle is up at an angle. Works much better that way. It's practically useless in a straight configuration.

I learned to cast bullets with the Lee lead dipper. The small volume makes the learning curve much steeper because the small volume the dipper held would cool between pot and mold. But I got it to work.
A larger lyman dipper was easier to make good bullets because the volume of molten alloy in the dipper would not cool as quickly.
I used the tools I could afford at the time.
now with a good pot, external P.I.D. (Set as a thermostat and not fine tuned), a hotplate to prewarm molds, and quality cast iron and aluminium molds, Casting acceptable bullets is second nature.
I have come a long way from an electric hot plate, a 2 pound lee pot, a single cavity 150 grain lee mold and a lee dipper.
I still use the hotplate as a mold warmer, I keep the Lee pot and the dipper to remind me about the need to appreciate the tools I now have.

I started with the Lyman ladle, also use the RCBS ladle, I have a Lee 20 lb melting pot for ladle casting and the Lee 20 lb with spout but the Lee dipper never struck me as something for actually casting bullets after the Lyman and RCBS ladles though I have many Lee Molds and use mostly Lee dies and presses.

I started casting using a Lee ladle. I cast many, many 357" bullets ns IIRC, a bunch of .44 cal. bullets. I had very few/no problems, but I was learning and can't remember if any of the learning process was slowed by the particular ladle I was using...

The Lee ladle is a teaspoon with a wooden handle. I used it for years until I acquired a Lyman ladle from a member here. Now, I will never go back to the old lee.

Wayne

I mostly use my little dipper to cast an ingot for hardness testing. Since I don't cast in my basement, I take it down there to hardness test on my reloading bench. Not all range lead is equal.

I used it until I started casting with a 4-cav that has deep sprue funnels, and it took too much lead. The dipper couldn't keep up so I got the RCBS side-spout ladle.

Still will buy a Rowell #2 sometime, for ingots. Just not yet.

Works good for scraping the sides of your pot

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It’s useless if trying to pour big bullets or multiple cavity moulds because of it’s lack of volume and inability to hold heat. I’ve had much better luck with a cast iron dipper large enough to fill a 500+ grain bullet. If using it on a single or double cavity 30 cal mould it should do the job

Yes.
For skimming crud off of and for spreading sawdust onto the melt.

It is a spoon.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by John Guedry

I also use mine to skim the "crud" after fluxing.

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This the only use I had for mine. Way too many instances of bad fill out, and worse bases for me to ever consider it for casting. And it doesn't hold enough lead for multi cavity heavy boolit molds.

Yep, dross scoop here as well, it just seems a bit harder to do much with it.

Though I have a “real” dipper I just never figured out how to use it.