Lyman MAG 25 melting pot - got one and tried it out

Full.lead.taco

Active Member
Did a video on unboxing, setting it up, and first casts. Someone needs to slap the lyman engineers that designed the mold guide. Gonna see if I can get a design drawn up to have an aluminum shelf cut out and built by NOE. One that just uses a left side stop and indexes off of that side--which is horizontally adjustable to help with centering the wider hollow point molds. Anyways, here is the video:


For those of you with this pot, what mods have you done in order to use it?
 

fiver

Well-Known Member
just make yourself a mold guide.
the one I made for my magma pot is made from some wood and a cake pan I found in the kitchen.
I just measured the height on my molds, averaged them out, and gave myself about 3/4" from the spouts.
then built a box to height and cut up the cake pan for a metal surface.
I pour into the mold and leave it sitting on the box while watching the ticking clock on the wall, then take it off the box and break the sprue open by hand.

the little tab thing on top would probably hold an ingot but not a mold with handles for sure.
 
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freebullet

Guest
Aside from the guide, it looks like a better unit than my lee pots.

Might could screw on a couple pcs of angle for a guide easy enough. Wouldn't need to make anything really, unless your after adjustable.

I remember when they came out. You couldn't find them & a high percentage came broken. I'm normally one to wait for the bugs to be worked out.

Should be a good one by now.
 

Full.lead.taco

Active Member
Yeah, I think Lyman stopped production shortly after the initial release to work out the bugs. Unfortunately, the guide wasn't one of them. I think I want to build an adjustable shelf that will index on the left. That way I can center the mold under the spout when I change to a mold with a different width.
 

358156 hp

At large, whereabouts unknown.
The shelf is indeed for warming molds as the pot warms, and does work as intended, I preheat my molds differently, and rarely use it. It is sized to support Lyman molds. The pot itself appears to be identical to the older Mag20. The mold guide is also designed to fit Lyman molds. How would you suggest Lyman make a guide that will fit every mold made?, as you noted, they're all different dimensionally. The new guide is slightly different than the older design on the Mag20s, and appears to be stepped to allow use of at least one different manufacturers molds.
mag20.jpg
 

Full.lead.taco

Active Member
How would you suggest Lyman make a guide that will fit every mold made?, as you noted, they're all different dimensionally.
View attachment 3825
Easy. Just have a little shelf as a guide with a raised lip on the left side. Make it adjustable on the horizontal axis so you can line it up so the spout is centered on any mold. It would behave similarly to the lee left side indexing guide--but make the shelf bigger to support more of the mold. When you cast, you just put the mold up on the shelf and make sure it is leaned up against the left side. That's how I would do it. I designed and drew up a replacement mold guide for my RCBS Pro-Melt pot that is built like that--you can catch it in the video (kind of) at the 45 second mark. I made it so it slides right over the RCBS L shaped guide--it also allows me to tilt forward so the lead doesn't overflow into the next cavity on accident. I like to open and close the bottom pour spout for each cavity (personal preference) and don't like to have any of the sprue drip into the next cavity and mess up the nose of the bullet. Hopefully that makes sense.
 

RKJ

Active Member
I've got omelette and once I figured out the links and got sometime behind it I really like it. The guides are made to hold Lyman,RCBS & LEE 2 cavity molds. It is too small for the Saeco 4 cavity and the LEE 6 cavity molds. Just turn it over, it works just fine.
 

USSR

Finger Lakes Region of NY
I simply turned the front part of the guide completely to the left and use the top of the guide to rest the bottom of the mould on. It ain't rocket science.

Don
 

358156 hp

At large, whereabouts unknown.
I just did an extended session with my Mag20, which features the same pot & mechanism as the Mag25, and the same mold guide. My Lyman 4 cavity mould fits the guide perfectly, but my NOE 4 cavity is too wide to fit in the track. I just angled my guide a bit and slid the mold along the tops of the rails. It works fine. This sounds similar to what Don did.
 

RKJ

Active Member
I've got omelette and once I figured out the links and got sometime behind it I really like it. The guides are made to hold Lyman,RCBS & LEE 2 cavity molds. It is too small for the Saeco 4 cavity and the LEE 6 cavity molds. Just turn it over, it works just fine.

IAN, I don't know how Omelette got in there (must have fat fingered the keyboard). :) I hope you found something to eat though.

Anyhoo, I was wrong about the Saeco molds, the 4 cavs I have fit just fine. The LEE 6 bangers, nor a MP 6 cav 45 fit inside the rails but work ok sitting on top of it. I like mine and am glad I got it.
 

358156 hp

At large, whereabouts unknown.
I suppose a guy would have a piece of steel or aluminum cut to fit inside the guide trough to give a level surface. You'd probably want to be able to temporarily secure it in place somehow, but that would be a minor issue.
 

Full.lead.taco

Active Member
Here are a few pics of the guide I drew up and NOE cut for me. The first design was a shorter one which works fine on the RCBS pot, but not as well for the Lyman. The Lyman spout sits back a little deeper. This guide is the one after we added an inch to both sides to make it longer for the Lyman pot. The groove in the middle is for the NOE hollow point pins to slide through, so they don't get bumped at all when casting, messing up the tips of the hollow points. I also had set screws on the bottom (for the RCBS guide) which is not very handy with the lyman--so we put the set screws on the top. When the length was extended I noticed that when using the lee 6 cavity and the NOE 5 cavity molds, the very tip of the handle bumps the top left edge of the guide. So, I will need to see if we can mill out just a tiny bit on that side so that it will be "perfect" or at least good enough for me. This design will fit both the RCBS pot as well as the Lyman pot. Still need to test it once more with the tops of the indexing side milled out slightly. It will make using the NOE RG style molds much easier to cast with on both the RCBS and Lyman pots.

mold_guide1.jpg

mold_guide2.jpg
 
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freebullet

Guest
Looks like a fine improvement.

I'd email a pic to Lyman, so they'll have a clue how it should have been.

I'm way past due on upgrading to a pid controlled pot.
 

Ian

Notorious member
How is that a deep enough groove for the RG moulds? Does the mould actually ride on the heads of the pins in that shallow groove?
 

Full.lead.taco

Active Member
The RG molds ride on the RG clips that hold the hollow point pins. That little groove in the middle is for the heads of the pins--so they don't contact any point of the mold guide and accidentally get bumped (or pushed deeper creating that little ring at the top of the hollow point).
How is that a deep enough groove for the RG moulds? Does the mould actually ride on the heads of the pins in that shallow groove?
 

Full.lead.taco

Active Member
This little mold guide shelf is going to make this Lyman pot very nice to cast with. I like the left indexing styled guides like the cheapy lee guide on the 20lb bottom pour pots. Fast, simple, and easy to use. I just don't understand why Lyman didn't make their guide a little more universal.

Looks like a fine improvement.

I'd email a pic to Lyman, so they'll have a clue how it should have been.

I'm way past due on upgrading to a pid controlled pot.
 

Full.lead.taco

Active Member
Yeah, I hope Al is able to make and sell a bunch to make it worth it for him. As for me, I'm happy that I will have a mold guide that makes my pot easier to use, and with the functionality that I wish it came with in the first place...

Screw Lyman, let Al capitalize on their apathy. Good work on the R&D.