What to do with lead shot?

[ShooterAZ]

Today an acquaintance brought me a 5 gallon bucket nearly half full of really small lead shot. This is one source of lead that I have absolutely no experience with. Can anyone give me some advise on what I can do with it? I assume it's very hard all by itself. I was thinking of alloying with pure or maybe with some range scrap. I have a bunch of pure I can mix it with, range scrap, tin, and a whole bunch of other alloys like 1/3/96, 1/20, 1/30 etc. Any advise? I shoot cast in all manners of rifles & pistols, so any advise is welcomed. Thanks in advance!...Shooter.

[Yodogsandman]

You can probably assume it's chilled shot and not magnum shot if it's real small diameter. Chilled shot should have about 2% antimony and 98% lead for a total BHN just over 10. Just add enough tin to get it to cast good and use it for pistols/revolver boolits. The graphite powder used on it might be a bugger to flux out, there a lot of it.

[handirandy]

I just melted down about 50# that was graphite coated. Nasty fluxing but came out very clean and after 2 weeks had a BNH of 12. I then cast about 1600 125 gr. .358 LRNFPs that turned out very nice when I ran the mold hotter than I usually do. Had to find the sweet sopt. I tumble lubed some and powder coated others but have yet to send any down range. I load these in both a 38 Special and 9mm luger loads.

[MarkP]

Drag a magnet over it........ I bought several pounds of re-claimed shot and it had about 10% by volume of steel in it. I use it as is for 12 & 20 ga slugs and .379-250 for 38-55's with good results for others I will add a little linotype until I get good fills. Maybe 5 to 10% by weight.

[rsrocket1]

The magnet is a good idea. However, you don't have to get every single bit of steel shot out of the bucket. If there are a couple still in there, they will float to the top of the melt and can be scooped out with the graphite. Flux well, there may be a lot of lead oxide and it will be turned back to pure lead if you can reduce it.

[rancher1913]

if you were to venture north I'd trade you ww bars for shot. around here shot is hard to find and I got a blackpowder shotgun thats fun to shoot and needs some feed.

[khmer6]

Bring it over here! I love azgfd ::-)