Want to start making my own shot

[Barry54]

I’ve been looking at shot makers, and they seem expensive for the simplicity of what they are. Can’t decide if I want to search for a used one or build my own.

Now on to the main question. I’ve come into a few hundred pounds of soft lead. Research suggests it’s 99%+ lead.

Is it more difficult to make shot with “pure lead” than say wheel weights or another more expensive alloy?

I would like to walk before running, if you catch my drift...

[GhostHawk]

First off, your about to dive into a rabbit hole. Be careful!

Second, in my experience clip on wheel weights are way way easier to make shot that pure or nearly pure lead.

Third, I bought my "ladle" and drippers off ebay, got them fairly reasonably. Used a 60$ jet type turkey fryer for heat, used a combination of dollar store fabric softener and water. Not straight from bottle, but not diluted as far as half and half. Somewhere in the middle.

IMO dripping shot is much more "Art" than science. As such quality of materials and tools along with your skill or lack of it will show strongly in the finished product.

I've been using old 1 lb empty powder containers ( plastic) to hold finished shot.

I would read up on shot dripping, graphite coating, etc.

In my case I mostly wanted a setup capable of doing it, and a little experience (3 days) so if the SHTF I could at least keep a shotgun running for a while. Once I achieved good shot and got the experience I put it away and left it be.

Old Muphy loves to pick on guys who are not ready. I've found the more different ways I can be at least somewhat prepared the less he comes around. There are easier targets out there.

[Barry54]

Thanks for your reply!

I learned the hard way back in high school it was a bad idea to rebuild an engine and carburetor at the same time.

I guess I’ll begin with my now precious wheel weight ingots, since they are recommended from my research.

What happens if one attempts dripping shot from pure lead?

[M-Tecs]

Arsenic is required for round shot. While I have never tried pure lead, however, everything, I read indicates it is a challenge to make shot form pure lead.

[Budzilla 19]

I’ve made literally a ton of shot back in the ‘80’s, 7.5 and 9’s. Straight wheel weights. Tried, once, 50/50 ww/ pure, NOPE!!! Back to straight ww alloy. We shot a lot of skeet back then, any misses were the shooters fault.
It’s a rabbit hole, but can be done! Littleton shot maker. It’s put up for the last 20+ years, but, I haven’t forgotten how!
Good luck whatever you choose to do.

[dverna]

I know two fellows who tried and the product was not good. Both gave up after a few months. They used wheel weights. I could have got their set ups cheap but decided it was going to be a frustrating waste of time.

If you want to go with it, I have seen shot makers on eBay from time to time. Just be patient.

[GhostHawk]

I was setup and running on straight COWW, flow was good, shot looked good.

I started adding pure lead ingots to the top of the ladle. As they melted and the mix started aproaching 50/50 drippers started quitting.
Plenty of lead in the ladle, hot enough, just nothing coming out.

After I added more COWW to the mix and it started melting and combining the drippers started trying to come back online.
But it took some scraping of the end, and some rapping with a tool to get full flow back. As long as I stayed above 60% COWW to 40% soft lead I had no real issues. Lower than that and the troubles started, and once started it was like herding cats to get them all fixed and running smooth.

Like I said, ART not science. But you will find out for yourself what works best for your setup.

[Agent1187]

I drip range scrap, and even that is testy and requires I babysit the setup. Near pure would be a headache and a half.

In addition - a load of super soft shot getting thwapped at 10,000 PSI is going to deform much, much more than a load of harder shot.

[Barry54]

I’ve been looking at rotometals some more. Found 1000 pounds of melted shot ingots. They state this metal is 3-4% Antimony.

Buying Antimony from them at $60 for five pounds could be a fix.

[rancher1913]

search and read the thread on here about making your own shotmaker, think it was started by ghosthawk, it has everything you could ever need to know about making and using a shotmaker.

[Barry54]

I’m fascinated by all of it. Research is cheap!

I’ve seen some poverty engineered setups on eew toob and some are pretty creative and surprisingly they appear to work. Stove top units in Russia with a wet cloth on the ramp.
Molasses coolant. Rain-X car wash coolant.

Coffee can with a bunch of holes in the bottom. Setup in a backyard. Probably got 30 pounds of molten lead poured into it and the batch was done in seconds...

[dverna]

I’ve been looking at rotometals some more. Found 1000 pounds of melted shot ingots. They state this metal is 3-4% Antimony.

Buying Antimony from them at $60 for five pounds could be a fix.

3-4% Sb is fine for shot. Hard shot is 5-6%. I have read mixing in Sb is not that easy but others will chime in.

I suspect Sb is not the only factor to getting good flow. A bit of tin (Sn) may be a factor. WW's have about .5%.

Those ingots made from recycled shot from Rotometals should make good shot. But it costs $2/lb delivered so a 25 lb bag is $50.

I used to buy from Dawson in Massillon OH and they are selling Lawerance Magnum shot for $47/bag. See link below. There may be other shot distributors closer to you with similar pricing. Another place to buy shot is at the bigger skeet and trap clubs.

https://dawsonent.com/Reloading.pdf

I understand the desire to be self-sufficient but if you can afford to buy $2000 of ingots to make 40 bags of shot, it does not make sense. Why invest in the equipment ($250), put in the time and deal with the frustration/challenges when premium shot is cheaper?

I used to buy shot a ton at a time. It has never made sense to make your own if you use a lot of shot. Making shot might work for folks who get 4-5 bags at a time and it lasts them 6 months. They are the folks spending $75+/bag at Bass Pro.

[Barry54]

I’m considering buying 30 to 40 pounds of antimony to add to 1000 pounds of lead. I think it will ship free.

The 1000 pounds of shot ingots from rotometals was mentioned as a reference as a mix I could strive for.

[M-Tecs]

I’m considering buying 30 to 40 pounds of antimony to add to 1000 pounds of lead. I think it will ship free.

The 1000 pounds of shot ingots from rotometals was mentioned as a reference as a mix I could strive for.

Make sure it has a high arsenic content. https://www.shotgunworld.com/threads...22squirted.%22

[Barry54]

Make sure it has a high arsenic content. https://www.shotgunworld.com/threads...22squirted.%22

Thanks for the link. Assuming my lead doesn’t have sufficient arsenic, what would one do to get it in the alloy? I doubt I could buy a ten pound pail on Amazoon.

[BJung]

Can't you just recycle shot by cleaning it up and repacking it?

[jimb16]

I have a Littleton shot maker. I love that thing. Depending on the size shot I'm making;#9, 7.5 or #6, I can crank out anywhere from 60 to 130 pounds of shot in an average day. I use straight WW lead and cheap Dollar store fabric softener for coolant. I'm a skeet shooter and have made more than #1000 of shot. It has paid for the shot maker many times over. At $45 per bag plus tax and at least a 50 mile round trip to buy it, shot is expensive for me. It get lead from the junk yard cheap enough that shot costs me around $18 per bag to make even including amortizing the cost of the shot maker. That means $720 vs $2000. I think that is a big savings. Yeah, I got the lead cheap and finding zinc free lead isn't that easy these days, but I return the junk weights to the scrap yard and get at least part of my investment back. And I still have some other good sources for lead at around 50¢ per pound.

[Russel Nash]

I made my shotmaker from scratch including the dripper bolts. I used Tweeco wire welding tips to get the correct orifice size.

The ladle part is made from a piece of channel iron. The ramp/dam is a piece of angle iron. I used a 220V broiler element.

I use a GI surplus 20mm ammo can. It is filled with water. Yes, plain ol’ water as my coolant.

The ramp is polished with a buffing wheel and rouge. It shines almost like it is a mirror. Then I give it two coats of graphite spray from the NAPA auto parts store (when the ramp is still cold).

The problem I run into since it doesn’t have a thermostat or a controller is the shot will get too hot and it “popcorns” when it lands in the water. So I unplug it to let it cool. The shot starts making that bird chirping noise again. And the pace or tempo slows down. Then I plug it back in to heat it up.

If you go to wally world to their office supply aisle, they have all sorts of metal mesh baskets….in out baskets….trash baskets, etc. The opening in that metal mesh is just big enough to let the #7’s or #7.5’s drop through, and smaller. I had an old rectangular-ish tobacco tin that I attached the mesh basket to. Then I submerged the whole thing down into the water. Any bigger “rat turds” or “globs” or “goobers” get caught by the mesh. I use an old spatula to scrape those down the mesh ramp into the tobacco tin. The good shot falls through the mesh and down to the bottom of the ammo can.

The ammo can has a hose bib or hose spigot attached to it. There is window screen attached on the inside, to keep the shot in. When I am done with a shotmaking session, I attach an old 6 foot long piece of garden hose to the hose bib and let it drain. Then I scoop the shot out of the bottom of the ammo can.

Set it outside in the sun to dry.

Then tumble it in my old vibratory brass tumbler with maybe a teaspoon of graphite powder from the John Deere dealership.

I had bought two sets of Jim Stuarts Better Shotmaker dripper bolts. One set was supposed to drop #9’s . The other set was supposed to make #7.5’s.

No matter what I do, both sets still drop #7.5’s

If you have access to a drill press and a welder, I say make your own.

[Russel Nash]

In the future, I am going to make some leveling feet for the ammo can. Once I fill the ammo can with water, I will dial in the leveling feet….water seeks its own level if you catch my drift.

Then I am going to use chains, hooks, and turnbuckles to attach the ladle to the roof joists in my shop. There will be a chain link welded to each outside corner of the ladle.

The very underside of the ramp was beveled with a belt sander.

It gets it even closer to the surface of the water.

The turnbuckles will allow me to get that very bottom ramp lip parallel to the water.

Counting of the chain links attached to the uphill end of the ladle will insure that there is enough “head pressure” or “pressure head” on the molten lead to force it through the orifices.

Then the next time I set it up, it is just a matter of using the same link count to get repeatable results.

[M-Tecs]

Thanks for the link. Assuming my lead doesn’t have sufficient arsenic, what would one do to get it in the alloy? I doubt I could buy a ten pound pail on Amazoon.

The old wheel weights were a good source. I still have a couple of tons from the 70's and 80's. Today I would contact Roto Metals for arsenic rich alloy.