A professional who controls automatic equipment to melt and cast lead into cylindrical billets, and extrude billets into wire for making bullets and cores used in small arms ammunition. Respnsibilities include:

• Starts electric furnace, observes gauges, and turns rheostat to maintain specified temperature and pressure.
• Charges furnace with lead pigs and scrap of specified alloy, using conveyor and elevating platform.
• Skims dross from molten lead with skimming ladle.
• Turns wheel to adjust flow of molten lead into mold.
• Adjusts stroke of billet extractor mechanism, installs extruding dies, and regulates ram speed and flow of water coolant, using handtools.
• Threads extruded wire over pulleys into slug-forming machines or through guide pipes to be coiled in drums.
• Verifies wire size with snap gauges to ensure conformity to specifications.