Thinking about casting in the future...

Have a contact that is going to need to dispose of 3000# of used lead shot.

I suspect I'll have to trade him a nice Smith K frame for the lot.

What's used shot worth, and is there any chance that it won't appropeiate for bullet casting?

Thanks for any input. - JM.

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--
Of the Troops & For the Troops

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I remember over 40 years ago my father and his friends were shooting a lot of trap, and I was doing a lot of reloading for them. They bought a bunch of reclaimed shot one time and as I recall it worked reasonably well, but took some effort to clean the shot before you could use it.

I would think that shotgunners would pay more for the shot than you could buy appropriate lead for. Also I seemed to remember that shot used to contain elements that were not good for your health when you start melting it. I don't know if that is still true or not.

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And also IIRC it's part of what makes it form into balls and thus impairs perfect bullets. When I started casting I used magnum shot to add to my wheel weights because it has high levels of antimony in it. It worked ok but I also had a lot more problem with the spruce plate tearing a crater in the bullet bases than with straight WW's or WW's with a little tin. In an emergency if I needed bullets I wouldn't hesitate to use it but its far from optimal.

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Depends on what kind of shot - magnum shot has antimony in it that is good but you would have to add some tin for casting. Cleaning it, something like refining, would be time consuming. Since it more probably is not magnum shot, I like the suggestion of getting it and trading/selling to someone that wants shot. Then get proper alloys for casting. Just my thoughts.....

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I get much better bullets from wheel weights.

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Melt it down in my 200lb outside WW setup, flux, and make ingots. Likely not as dirty as most of the WW I have melted. As far as arsenic, WWs have that also - major component for hardening, along with antimony.

Then a few test casts to see how much tin I need to add for fill out - perhaps figure out a ratio with WWs and Rotometal's Superhard for harder bullets as needed for things like 454C. Likely test hardness both air cooled and water quenched, compare to my stock of WW alloy as a reference point.

Back when I was a teenager, I was the first one into a local dirt pit after a rain. The water would wash away some of the sand and dirt, leaving the bullets resting a a short column of sand/dirt... easy to take a flat shovel and run along the ground, pick them up, dump through a home-made screen wire sieve, then melt down, removing jackets, rocks, etc. (Be Very Careful To Sort Out Any Unfire 22lr Ammo, or lead will go everywhere!) The alloy compostition was definitely unknown, yet it worked just fine in my 1911. Compared to that, shot would be really nice.

Check Rotometals for prices on alloys and even shot.

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