Making steel shot?

[phaux]

Is there any way to make your own steel shot for water fowl hunting that's economical?

[phaux]

Dang it, I placed this in the wrong section. Can someone please move this to the "Casting For Shotguns" section please

[Littleton Shot Maker]

NO. short answer>

Less short answer:
It can be done but the machines that do it are from Italy and Spain and huge, very expensive, very big.
Look videos, "How it's Made" on discovery I think there was a show on steel ball bearings, Same thing but smaller.

Even Less short:
If you had wire of the right diameter then you would feed it into a cutter, then it all goes into a machine with two flat rollers- or discs- depends who makes the unit- the discs or spinning in opposite directions, the Steel is the Sanded, Ground don't know the right words but the edges , corners have to be rolled of then when it gets to the right size it spits out from between the discs and collected.

Let me know, I can get you the really long answer to that.

[phaux]

Thanks for the response. I'll have to look up the vid though it sounds like way more work than it's worth.

[Littleton Shot Maker]

we looked at it when Bismuth Cartridge Co. was still in business and was looking at a way to make Bi shot here in the states (via our machines- under contract), Steel was getting hot on the market and so we thought maybe , just maybe there might be a way to do it ( both steel and Bi) side by side. NOPE!

The steel would have killed us to make cheap enough to compete with the big three and then Ken (BCC owner/ patent holder ) died and the family sold out plus partners infighting at BCC ,
Then another outfit was going to take it up ( steel and Bi) so we worked with them; (blow hards) investors see dollar signs, not hours of working hard to get some thing made. we priced everything, had a building almost next rail lines, to truck in raw metal by rail car load, three phase power if needed, etc...

It's not the first time we looked at this stuff.

sorry for the rant.

[phaux]

Don't be sorry, I find all this stuff interesting, especially the logistics behind it all. I may PM you here in a bit to further pick your brain. Not that I can afford to do it but I find it neat.

[Littleton Shot Maker]

you give me 5 minutes I'll give you 20 of mine in return.
All this stuff is not easy to find info on,
I don't mind helping, rather help and give you some info & send you to better sources of info when needed
that's more helpful than just say "you can't do that" Nope, Never. There is always a way, maybe just not cost effective for 98.9% of us average folks.