source for true lead buckshot?

Reloading supplier?

This is a metalworking group. Can you come up with a way to make your own? A tall tower, melted lead, poured through a screen of appropriate size. Droplets assume a spherical shape as they fall. Collect in water tank at bottom. Screen out the size you want and recycle the rest. Sounds easy!

Paul

This is a metalworking group. Can you come up with a way to make your own? A tall tower, melted lead, poured through a screen of appropriate size. Droplets assume a spherical shape as they fall. Collect in water tank at bottom. Screen out the size you want and recycle the rest. Sounds easy!

Paul

That's pretty much how they make lead shot. You can even buy a device with its own heating coil and dripper holes ready made for it. Been a long time sicne I looked at it though.

Tall shot towers is the traditional way. Time of flight gives surface tension time to make shot round.

#4 is .130", not very practical for casting via spit molds.

Always wondered how dripping in a rotating inclined cylinder to cool the pellet would do as to shorten over all length of system.

Wes

Current technology is for the buckshot to fall only about one inch (that's right) in free air, before falling into *automatic transmission fluid*, with a drop in that of eighteen (18) inches or so. They claim that the stuff is round and solid before it bottoms. I haven't seen it, but it is on the web at:

or:

Flash

"Albert Alderson" wrote in news:gknm8o$tbc$ snipped-for-privacy@nntp.motzarella.org:

Melt and pour.

My bad, #4 shot is .130, #4 buckshot is .24" diameter. Ram's post on the mold clued me into my mistake.

Wes

pre-melted and made

Remove 333 from email address to reply.

That's cool! It's just an electrically heated bowl, with "drippers" that meter molten lead into a water & soluble oil mix. At $375 for the samll one, I'd try making one first. The only hard part is the nozzles/drippers. I'd think that a little experimenting would nail that down. A "gotcha" might be that the nozzle shape is important. I.e., maybe the nozzle is just not a constant-diameter but has a special bore. Probably not, but could be.

Hey - here's an idea: take an electric frying pan, one of the cast aluminum ones. Hack the thermostat to get it to 650F, tap the bottom for the nozzles, and start trying dripper sizes. I'm gonna' look for one of those fry pans at the dump.

Or...or...or (my mind won't let this go): they sell a set of drippers for $30. Cheap enough.

Bob

The OP is looking for shot that is dead lead. Likely has a barrel that is soft. Wonder if he is a cowboy action shooter.

Wes

-- "Additionally as a security officer, I carry a gun to protect government officials but my life isn't worth protecting at home in their eyes." Dick Anthony Heller

All drop shot and current reloading buckshot has antimony and/or tin content. The drop shot needs it to form spheres on the way down the tower, the buckshot needs it to keep from deforming a lot during the trip down the bore. Current buckshot is made by swaging, not molding or dropping, just as a point of interest. Hornady has a number of sizes of buckshot for reloading, if some antimony content is allowable, try Cabela's or BPI. I've used their equivalent of .25 caliber balls in my RWS air rifle, certainly a LOT cheaper than the Beeman "Perfect Rounds" and indistinguishable from each other when miked, also all within .001" of nominal size. If you insist on pure lead balls, they don't exist except as muzzleloading round balls and they're priced per 100, not per pound. Dixie Gunworks has them, hope you're well-heeled. RB molds are available for sizes above about .25, one at a time isn't going to get you 150 lbs worth very fast, though. For most shooting purposes, the harder lead balls are to be preferred, except for muzzleloading. If you're using them for something else, hope you're prepared to pay the price. Pure lead scrap is pretty scarce these days unless you luck into some old plumbing scrap.

Since this IS a metalworking group, how about making up your own swaging rig for round balls, you'd also need an hydraulic extruder to make up the necessary lead wire to feed it. The setups Hornady used to use were modified nail header machines, don't know what they have now. Daisy used to use the same thing to make steel BBs, I took the tour in Rogers, AR when I was a kid, very noisy.

Stan

Listed as lead, how do you know what or if it's alloyed with anything?

Thank You, Randy

Remove 333 from email address to reply.

Randy fired this volley in news: snipped-for-privacy@4ax.com:

One clue is if it's listed as "hardened lead shot". Another would be the ammunition maker's spec sheets on the product.

LLoyd

Thumb nail test.

If your thumb nail will easily dig into the material, its likely to be close to pure. If it only scratches or polishes the surface....its alloyed.

Sheet roofing lead is dead pure. Wheel weights are alloyed (and excellent pistol bullet material)

Whenever a Liberal utters the term "Common Sense approach"....grab your wallet, your ass, and your guns because the sombitch is about to do something damned nasty to all three of them.