Alloying lead for shot

[Soundguy]

What would you do? 50/50 linotype / lead..or 60/40 coww / linotype? Or?

I may start alloying some ingots up to have on hand. One day I plan on making shot...just gotta get time.

[243winxb]

Lead with 2% antimony is all thats needed. Water dropped from towers. Dropping into water, makes shot harder. Its called Chilled shot. Magnum shot may have 4 to 5% antimony.

http://www.lawrencebrandshot.com/

[MarkP]

Commercial shot has some arsenic it helps to reduce the surface tension which aids in creating small spheres.

[Soundguy]

Coww should have some arsenic...

[megasupermagnum]

Straight COWW is as good an alloy for shot as you can get. A little Linotype to get the antimony up around 5% would be perfection, but not worth the time or cost to most people. Using the alloy calculator, a 3-1 ratio, 3 parts COWW to 1 part Linotype would give you an alloy with about 5.25% antimony.

[GhostHawk]

In my testing COWW 100& to 50% and 50% soft lead/range scrap ran fine in mine. About the time the mix dropped to below 25% COWW the drippers just petered out and quit dripping. Added a couple of ingots of COWW and as they melted drippers went back to working correctly.

Save the lino and tin for bullets IMO.

[243winxb]

Ore is extracted from the earth through mining and treated or refined, often via smelting, to extract the valuable metals or minerals.
Mined lead ore contains arsenic

https://mineralseducationcoalition.o...abase/arsenic/
Google thinks Arsenic is a component part of lead. Any scrap alloy will contain Arsenic, i think.

Earth's Crust
Arsenic ranks twentieth among the elements in abundance in the earth's crust. The abundance of arsenic in the continental crust of the earth is generally given as 1.5–2 ppm. Thus, it is relatively scarce. Nevertheless, it is a major constituent of no fewer than 245 mineral species. Arsenic is found in high concentration in sulfide deposits, where it is present as the native element

Correct me if wrong.

[Soundguy]

Straight COWW is as good an alloy for shot as you can get. A little Linotype to get the antimony up around 5% would be perfection, but not worth the time or cost to most people. Using the alloy calculator, a 3-1 ratio, 3 parts COWW to 1 part Linotype would give you an alloy with about 5.25% antimony.

I can do that. I have a decent amount coww muffin tin ingots...and a whole BUNCH of lino. I also have plenty of range scrap bhn 10, and bullet core ingots that should be lead/antimony that are about bhn 10.

[mtgrs737]

I have made a ton of shot in the past and this is what works for me. COWW makes good "chilled" level shot as it has about 2% Sb and a touch of arsenic. Arsenic increases surface tension which is what you want in making shot as it helps it round up to make rounder shot. For longer range shot I add 2% Sb which should give it about 4% total and the best factory shot used to have 5-6% Sb in years gone by. Tin, Sn is the last thing you want to add to your shot making alloy because tin reduces surface tension and that is why it is favored by boolit casters to help fill out the sharp corners of their molds. I tried several coolants and found that liquid laundry soap did the best job of slowly chilling my shot pellets so they had time to round up before freezing. Water caused my pellets to explode like popcorn and liquid fabric softener did not cool the pellets enough causing a shot tower from the bottom of the cooling tank to the top of the drip ramp. Your experiances may differ. I have read that mineral free soft water heated to 205 degrees F. works well but have not tried that yet.

[fastdadio]

Commercial shot has some arsenic it helps to reduce the surface tension which aids in creating small spheres.

Didn't know this. I have a 25lb bag of #4 that I really don't need and I thought about smelting some of it down for boolits. Should I be concerned about smelting this stuff into ingots if it has arsenic in it? Making me nervous just thinking about it.

[Dusty Bannister]

What is the difference between melting shot with arsenic and COWW with arsenic? Aside from that, finished clean shot is perhaps worth more than COWW ingots.

[Soundguy]

The Arsenic is actually desirable for two points 1 it reduces the surface tension and two along with antimony and a little bit of tin it does provide some hardening according to the fryxell book

[Soundguy]

Well I just made up some alloy that was mostly clip-on wheel weight with a little bit of antimonial lead 10 hardness and just a small piece of lineotype cuz I had it laying around and I wanted the extra antimony and I made a bunch of ingots. Sat down with an oasis dripper... Played for a bit... Adjustments... Starts..stops..etc.

I think I can make this work.

My first batch was flawed due to too shallow of a. Coolant tank but after that run I have it reset back up with a three times as deep coolant tank and I think I'll be ready to run again out of that run I have about 8 lb of scrap lead that I can put back in the ladle and I have about 1 lb of fairly decent shot. I've already washed it and screened it and there are a couple small pieces that are boogered here and there but the vast majority of the shot looks really decent , now to graphite it and see how it work. Now that I'm using a big ammo box as a drop tank I think I will have much much easier time will see I've ran out of time to play with it tonight but will look at it tomorrow and Monday night

[heebs]

https://youtu.be/GjqavtP-Jt4
Check out this video of a oasis setup. Making shot is a good hobby.

[GhostHawk]

My first try with dripping shot I was running 50% dollar store fabric softener and 50% water. That was a bit too much water. Removed about 2 bottles worth of coolant from the mix, added 2 bottles of straight softener and I was in business.

I suspect about a 75 % softener and 25% water is about what I ended up with.

Couple of pro's with that.

A rinses clean with just one rinse of warm water.

B Low cost.

[jimb16]

I just made 120 pounds of #9 shot today. I used 50/50 reclaimed bullet lead from jacketed bullets and coww lead. I don't worry about hardness. Its all going to be used for skeet shooting. For #6 shot for hunting, I use 75% coww and 25% lino. That is plenty hard for squirrels. rabbits and pheasant. I've even shot turkey with that shot. Does anything I need.

[Soundguy]

Made about 41 # of #7.5 ran near flawlessly..had about 1/3 of a pound of material that wouldn't pass the screen. Shot looks near perfect. I have it drying now. I'm pumped!