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Heat Source Required: Some kind, Coleman Stove, Lee, Lyman, RCBS, Magma, all sell good pots, my personal preference is bottom pour. But there are just open pots sold, with dippers/ladles.
Raw Materials Required: A source of lead, whether it's eBay, www.rotometals.com or even tire shops
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Safety Equipment Required: PPE, Personal Protective Equipment Long Sleeves, face and eye protection, heavy work gloves, long pants, shoes and socks. A cheap ball cap to restrain long hair, or protect the scalp. Steam explosions are explained.
Tools needed: Rubber or Wooden Mallet, to cut sprues. Moulds of appropriate caliber and weight. Heavy denim pads. Casting thermometer. Lead Hardness tester. Iced tea spoon, to stir pot. Straightend paper clip for bottom pour pots.
Fluxing materials: Broken crayons, old candles (the wax), sawdust, borax, lighter to ignite smoke.
Melting Time: 20-25 minutes, how to tell when the pot is ready for pouring? Literally just pour a wee bit onto the foot of the pot. A spot about the size of a quarter or so. Using gloves recyle that spot of lead, and do that several times to get used to the feel of the pouring, and also to get used to the recycling of the lead. It also has the benefit of making sure the alloy is more uniform.
Warming up the moulds: To warm up a mould all one has to do is dip the front corner (away from the caster) of the mould in the liquified lead alloy. How long, is determined by the mould material. Aluminum moulds don't require as long as Cast Iron or Brass Moulds.
Pouring into the mould: Learn to observe the sprue, watch for it to transition from a wet silvery appearance to a sort of powdery grey, as it cools from liquid state to a solid state. Hot moulds yield frosty bullets, and bullets cast at just the right temperature are rather shiny. After sprue cooling is when to use the mallet, making sure to tap it such that the sprue swings in the direction of the hinge.
Open mould onto the heavy denim padding material. Hopefully they'll just drop out, if not use gloves to try and "brush" them out. Failing the brushing trick, use the mallet to tap (on the hinge point only!) the handles so as to vibrate them out. NEVER strike the moulds directly!
After dropping the bullets onto the heavy denim pad, you need to make double sure that the mould face is clean and clear of any dribs/drabs/drops of lead. The easiest way to do that is to simply close the mould tightly and examine the mould seam. If not your bullets might be over sized, and have undesirable fins or flashes on the heel or the seams of the bullet. It's also a very good idea to keep an eye on the fit of the sprue plate.
The best way I know of that I dispose of my dross is in a metal popcorn tin, and I take it (when full) to my employers metal recycling hopper. Don't just throw the dross away, it does in fact have traces of lead in it, and we need to at least make it look like we think in terms of Green.
Jim is now Admin in three Guns and Reloading Facebook Groups, American Arms and Associates, Cast Bullets & Bullet Casting, The Reloading Room. Come find me, come look me up.
and the 
by John Wooters, including reading a small passage from the forward of the book.
