Will bird shot harden soft lead?

[THE_ANTIDOTE]

I am just bored, I have about 12-15 of soft lead to play with and was curious if bird shot would harden the soft lead enough to shoot in magnum rifles and .454 casull, 45-70/90? If so, about how many shells would it take per pound of lead, I realize there may be a concern for too much arsenic...

[Scrounge]

I am just bored, I have about 12-15 of soft lead to play with and was curious if bird shot would harden the soft lead enough to shoot in magnum rifles and .454 casull, 45-70/90? If so, about how many shells would it take per pound of lead, I realize there may be a concern for too much arsenic...

What's usually added to harden the lead is antimony. When they were readily available, wheel weights were a decent source. Getting hard to find now, so not so good a source anymore. You can find antimony at RotoMetals, I believe. They're one of the sponsors for this group. You can also buy 95/5 tin-antimony solder. The tin helps to harden a bit, and to flow better, to fill the molds, and the antimony hardens it more. I've got no idea how much you would need for your soft lead, though. You might look at the stickies. They should link to that sort of discussion. I know for a fact that there are folks here who know a great deal more about it that I do!

Bill

[THE_ANTIDOTE]

Than you Bill. I know it's silly question, but like I said...I'm bored lol. I didn't get around to ordering the RotoMetals and wanted to go target shooting but all I have is soft lead which I was told I shouldn't be shooting in my rifles. I suppose I could just wait and order from RotoMetals.

[dondiego]

I am just bored, I have about 12-15 of soft lead to play with and was curious if bird shot would harden the soft lead enough to shoot in magnum rifles and .454 casull, 45-70/90? If so, about how many shells would it take per pound of lead, I realize there may be a concern for too much arsenic...

You wouldn't seriously consider tearing down perfectly good shotgun shells to get some shot would you????? Did they get flooded out or something to make them no longer viable?

[Dusty Bannister]

Going off an old cheat sheet, magnum shot has about 6% antimony. So one pound of that and one pound of pure lead would give you two pounds of alloy containing 3% antimony. Not much of an improvement for the value of the shot shell you destroyed. Normal chilled shot is even lower in antimony content. Better to just check S&S for linotype (4-12-84) tin-antimony-lead and work an alloy from that.

[Winger Ed.]

Years ago, I got a few gallons of shot at the scrap yard.
At the time, it was cheap enough, I couldn't market it properly to re-sell.
After loading up the few hundred shotgun shells I thought I'd ever shoot-
I'd put a handful of it into the pot. I never measured how much, but yeah, it hardened up my boolits quite nicely.
The flow and mold fill out was all I could ever hope for.

[243winxb]

https://www.thehighroad.org/index.php?media/make-cast-bullets-harder-oven-heat-treating.4774/full

[35 Rem]

Makes me cringe and quiver to even imagine good shot being dumped into a melting pot. Find somebody who loads shotshells and sell it to them. Get the antimony elsewhere.

[376Steyr]

Years ago I had a surplus of shot and casually dumped a bag of it into my smelting pot. The graphite coating on every pellet made for a sticky mess that took an extra long time to melt.

[Winger Ed.]

I noticed I had to stir a lot, and press the shot up against the side to get it to melt in.
I never thought to find out why, but that would explain it.

[405grain]

I don't reload for shotguns, but I do have a supply of magnum shot. I use it to add trace amounts of arsenic to my alloys. I melt down the shot, (have to squish the pellets against the side of the pot to get them to give up the ghost) and flux often to remove the graphite & clean the melt. I cast this into 1 pound ingots and stamp the ingots with "A" so I'll know what they are later. I add these ingots to lead/tin/antimony alloys that I plan to water quench. The trace amount of arsenic acts as a grain refiner which helps with heat treating, and generally makes a better cast bullet. Shotgun reloaders may prefer to use the shot in shells rather than as an ingredient in cast bullets, but magnum shot is the best source for trace amounts of the arsenic and is very convenient to turn into ingots for making specialized alloys.

[Martin Luber]

Yes and no. While the antimony hardens, the arsenic makes it clump instead of flow so the amount you can add is limited. The high surface area of so many spheres means any oxide or coating is tough to heat through, melting corroded shot is as bad a melting corroded pure lead pipe. It takes a long time and you get a lot of dross. There’s better options. Good luck

[Gobeyond]

Go to roto metals and get some hardball about four pounds. Add 32 shot shells of lead. Plus the four ponds of pure. You can make big bore bullets and shotgun slugs for those robbed shot shells.