Trying to melt some shot !

[jsteed]

I've had about 10# of various size shot that I never used for skeet loads, so last week while melting some lead and WW, I thought I'd put some in the furnace....looked like most of it floated to the surface and wouldn't melt so I didn't continue. Any thoughts?

[Mugs]

Because of the coating that most shot has its slower to melt. Try it again.
Mugs

[quilbilly]

Mugs is right. You just need to clean off the coating that scums the top after melting. You may find that the if the shot is chilled and extra hard, the the lead needs to be cut with pure lead since resulting boolits will be very brittle. My recipe is 2/3 pure and 1/3 hard shot lead to make fine boolits (add a little tin, of course).

[tomme boy]

Push it onto the sides. Like you hard scraping it on to pot. The graphite is holding it from melting.

[jsteed]

Makes sense, Thanks

[243winxb]

Maximum heat helps.

[dnotarianni]

I've had about 10# of various size shot that I never used for skeet loads, so last week while melting some lead and WW, I thought I'd put some in the furnace....looked like most of it floated to the surface and wouldn't melt so I didn't continue. Any thoughts?

Had same problem Was the graphite on the shot. Took a benzomatic torch to it from the top while the shot was floating on molten lead until I got the graphite to melt off the shot Graphite gets gooey while hot and hard when it cools so plan on chipping it off your scoop later
Dave

[DrCaveman]

Just turn the furnace up, and wait a few minutes. From what I understand, adding shot is especially good for boolits you plan to water drop.

At least I think that is true of magnum shot. Not sure about yours. I beleve it is due to a small level of arsenic it helps with water hardening. It may add brittleness to boolits though.

[leadman]

Shot is a very good additive to make harder boolits, and the arsenic does help with water quenching or heat treating.
Use a large serving spoon and crush the hot shot on the sides of the pot as this will release the lead from the graphite. Sounds weird but the graphite does encase the shot and insulate it somewhat from the heat. I have melted quite a large amount of this, probably close to #1000. The first time I made the mistake of filling my pot about 3/4 full. Took several hours to get it melted. After that I put in just enough to cover the bottom about 1/4" deep, crushed and melted it and then added about half of the first amount and repeated.

[oldred]

Probably not the case here but I ran into an interesting situation while trying to melt shot. Actually these were not true shot but rather they were just soft lead balls of about no.4 shot size that were used as a vibration/sound deadener in a coal mining machine. When I put about 5 pounds of these into the melting pot I could see the lead was melting but it was as if the lead was simply appearing underneath and the amount of shot in the pot was not decreasing. When I skimmed the surface it was like all the shot had become light as a feather and was floating on top of the melted lead, these little empty shells looked exactly as they did when I put them in the pot but were seemingly light as air. I have seen similar to this before when melting shot but not to the extent where the lead just seemed to appear magically and the shot appeared to have not melted at all, really kind of comical. :)

[Spector]

I had the same problem trying to melt reclaimed lead shot. it's coated with white lead oxide. Takes a lot of heat and time especially if you try to melt it on an old Coleman stove.

I've got a forge my dad made me from the top of a recycled water heater tank with an air inlet in the bottom, that used to be the location of the pressure relief valve that I tied one of my wife's old hair dryers into. Blocks of wood made a decent fire and hot coals.

Found a heavy stainless steel pressure cooker awhile back and removed the handles. That should make a great smelting pot. Have to weld a substantial frame to hold a pot full of shot so I can raise and lower it over the forge/smelter. Hopefully this will speed things up a lot the next time I smelt.

I've attached 3 different size screens to wooden frames mounted on bicycle wheels that I use to reclaim the shot and I have several hundred pounds of shot left to smelt.

Hopefully this set up will get the job done much faster than my old Coleman stove did. No zinc to worry about so I can just throw the heat to it. I too used a propane torch to help get the melting process started.......Mike

[jsteed]

My experience was like Oldred, little round shells floating on the top. I did this toward the end of my melting and the ingots have a gold color cast to them. Probably should get a hardness check on those. Thanks for the feedback !

[beagle]

I've had similar experiences. The "shell" of the shot floats. I shove mine to the side of the pot and crush the shells with a large stirring spoon. Once broken up, the graphite can be fluxed and skimmed off. If it's chilled shot, a shiny froth may appear on top. This is an antimony/lead mix. Skim it off after cleaning and save for sweetening soft lead. I once had access to loads of #2 shot from bursted ballast bags in the Army and melted a lot down. It was a real PITA to render down./beagle

[quilbilly]

I have never melted the shot by itself. When I do my alloys, I put the pure in at the same time as the shot and never noticed a slow-up so the melted pure must speed up the process.

[fredj338]

I have never melted the shot by itself. When I do my alloys, I put the pure in at the same time as the shot and never noticed a slow-up so the melted pure must speed up the process.

Exactly. Alloys melt & lower temps than many pure alloys. If you can smash the shot up before adding it, the will speed the melt up.