Making your own shot?

[RED333 1,025]

Been working on this for a few weeks, more of to see if I can than a need.

Picked up the pan and drippers from ebay, drippers are .020 size.

Youtube shows lors of gas powered units, mine is electric for indoor use.

I do have to use a torch to get it dripping and keep it going as the drippers cool

a bit and stop. COWW in the lead I use, made 5 lbs in about 30 mins.

Coolant is cheap wally world fabric softener.

The first try using water made "swan" shot, second try with 50/50 antifreeze

same swan shot, the fabric softener did the trick, shot size is 7 to 9 with a few 11.

[G O B 3,516]

Electric cookers STILL MAKE FUMES! If working inside - provide major fume removal!

[csspecs 1,987]

I actually just melted down the last can of shot that I made years ago. I found that it being slightly off round made it meter very poorly in my reloading press which resulted in the shells crimping poorly and slowly opening.. Also had trouble with the shot clumping, so you would get voids in the pattern and spots that behaved like slugs.

 

The way mine worked was it has a stainless Ice scoop that was partly flattened and had four drippers real close together. It was made to go under my lee bottom drip pot, and I'd use a gas pedestal fryer with a 50 lb pot with refill the lee pot with melted lead.. The lee would keep the lead the right temperature and would control the supply. The dripper section was supplemental heated with a propane torch.. It was a bit of an operation that required two people, but we produced about 250+ lbs in about three hours.

 

I'm basically down to just reloading slugs and buckshot from time to time. I did about 650 Lyman "air gun pellet" type slugs in the last few days.. I like them because they use standard wads so it is a very simple reloading process.

Edited July 22, 2017 by csspecs

[patriot 7,197]

. I did about 650 Lyman "air gun pellet" type slugs in the last few days.. I like them because they use standard wads so it is a very simple reloading process.

The Lyman slug you're using hits like a bus too. Very nice slug.

[RED333 1,025]

Electric cookers STILL MAKE FUMES! If working inside - provide major fume removal!

O yes, it is under a powdered vent.

[gunfun 3,930]

 

Electric cookers STILL MAKE FUMES! If working inside - provide major fume removal!

O yes, it is under a powdered vent.

 

 

Mostly fumes of the crap you are burning off though. Lead itself doesn't produced dangerous vapor until ~1400*f

 

 

I'm pretty jealous. I've wanted a setup like this for several years. birdshot is now about $50/25lbs around here, and the local stores don't even really stock it, so you're paying freight on lead too.

 

IMO range scrap would be a near perfect alloy, so that's the plan I've vaguely intended.

p.s., I think you can also cure the swanshot thing by giving some distance for the drips to aircool before they hit your coolant. Hence the old fashioned shot towers as illustrated on the littleton shot bags.

 

Do either of you guys have a good method of sorting shot by size?

[csspecs 1,987]

Best method for sorting I came up with was to dust the shot with a little graphite and then I had about five stainless steel 4-5 quart bowls that I drilled four of with different sized drills using a shot size guide to get roughly in the ballpark of drill size. So you start with a stack of bowls and dump about a cup of shot in, then pick the top bowl up and start spinning and shaking it over the next size down bowl, you repeat until you get to the bottom bowl which has no holes in it.

 

Normally I would remelt the top bowl and bottom bowl. The top had pretty large holes, basically anything smaller than #4 shot fell through and anything bigger was just crap anyway. It basically took two sifting bowls to get to stuff that was sort of round.. I had an idea of using a pane of glass on an angle with compartmented collector on the bottom, that would roll the shot to sort the mostly round ones.. I never built that because I hit a yard sale and bought like 14 bags of lead shot for like $10 each.. So I was kinda set for shot.

 

One other thing. If you are trying to use anti freeze to drop the shot, it has to be straight anti freeze not 50/50.. Straight antifreeze is basically soluble oil plus some nasty stuff.

If fabric softener works I'd stick with that, antifreeze REEKS when it catches on fire... And yes it likes to catch on fire when you're using it straight, lovely purple/green smoke that smells somewhat worse than a tire fire.

 

The old hot shot towers had to be something like 100 feet tall. Now they use forced cold air and like a 20 foot tower into coolant.

Edited July 31, 2017 by csspecs

[gunfun 3,930]

I love being friends with people who know stuff, and have tried it. 

[RED333 1,025]

Fabric softener is the stuff to use. Sorting is not something I worry to much about as the .020 drippers makes the shot I need for what I do. I have been working on a snake load for 44mag and 45 Colt. Green dot powder, 3 cards cut from thin material, old ammo boxes work well, one over card and crimp the shell. I have dispatched 3 opossum around my chickens.The shot I make allows me to get 100 grans of shot in a 44 mag case and a small bit more in a 45 Colt.

I did load up some in a 12 ga SxS muzzle loader, pattern was good at 30 yards. Any ways it is more of getting something made that I do not have to buy in the future.