Old shot

[Tomme boy]

Well I made a mess tonight trying to melt some old shot. I picked up a coffee can of old tarnished shot from the scrapyard several years ago. Tried melting it down tonight. Well that turned into a huge mess. It would not melt unless you smashed each piece of shot. I got so mad I just dumped the pot into the scrap bucket.

I tried to use a torch to melt it but that didn't even work. I have almost 30lbs of this. I might just put some in the rock tumbler with some graphite to see if it comes around. I have a few friends local that still reload trap rounds so they could use it. It is all #8 shot.

Or does anyone else have a way to melt this down? I would rather keep it.

 

[richhodg66]

Worth more as shot. I'd sure trade pound for pound of casting ingots for #8 shot.

 

[Bret4207]

Have you tried putting some alloy in the pot, getting it melted and hot and then adding the shot? Sometimes that seems to work better. Or it could be what you have isn't lead alloy shot. They made Bismuth in #8, didn't they?

 

[Ian]

I might just put some in the rock tumbler with some graphite to see if it comes around.

I'd do that, then sift the dust out of it inside a plastic bag to control the toxic lead oxide.

It might be good to sweeten a weak alloy if you need it, I've done this with corroded Magnum shot before, get the base alloy really hot like 800F and put the shot in a spoonfull at a time followed by a spoonfull of sawdust and light the sawdust when it starts smoking. Skim the crap when it burns down and repeat.

 

[CWLONGSHOT]

Yea probably graphite coated. I was given a few bags years ago and thought it might be source for hard lead. Its not really. But I had to wash and rinse to get it to melt properly. I did some in my smelter another day W/O cleaning and it was fine but I used ALLOT more temperature so it melted.

 

[JonB]

Have you tried putting some alloy in the pot, getting it melted and hot and then adding the shot? Sometimes that seems to work better. Or it could be what you have isn't lead alloy shot. They made Bismuth in #8, didn't they?

I have done small amounts of Lead shot in my smelting setup (coleman gasoline), I started with a small amount of molten range scrap alloy in the pot, which is my usual practice when I smelt any dirty lead alloys to be recycled. The Coleman can get things real HOT, if needed.

This reminds me, I have a few hundred shotgun shells to disassemble/recycle. I've been thinking about what I could be doing inside, during this cold snap...I forgot about that project.

 

[Mitty38]

I have tried to melt shot before with less then happy results. Eventually getting it to melt into a puddle of pure
Decided to save it for the 20 guage. Not worth my time and effort.

 

[358156 hp]

You could always flatten hammer the shot to break the hard graphite coating.
It would still be a lot of work.

 

[Tomme boy]

I had about a 1/4 full lee 10lb pot of range scrap up to temp as I added it in. Its not the graphite coating I don't think. This is light grey almost white covered.

When you hit it with a torch it will start to glow red then turn into a large yellow orange clump. Temp was hot enough the pot was glowing red on the walls it was so hot. But this still would not break down. If you smash the shot it is lead. It is not bismuth as that fractures.

I'm going to put some of it in the tumbler with some SS bolts and nuts to see if it will knock off the coating. I will also throw in a couple of sticks of pencil lead. I have used thesein the past to coat buckshot I made and it works perfect.

 

[fiver]

it's the oxide coating [white stuff] killing you.
the yellow orange at temp is the clue.
every bucket of lead oxide i ever worked with was yellow/orange.

you gotta use the fire and wax thing to break it all down so it will go back in the alloy.
get a coat of wax and fire going then mash the stuff down against the bottom of the pot.

bismuth melts under 200-F so it definitely is not Bi.

 

[dannyd]

So in 1989 I got this little book and tried to make the alloy he suggested using shot; it was no fun at all. Only use shot for one thing after "shotgun shells"

 

[waco]

I throw bags of that graphite stuff in a big dutch oven over a turkey fryer. no issues.

 

[Tomme boy]

New shot melts no problem. This is not anything like new shot.

I just tried to melt some more down with a bunch of paraffin an beeswax. Still a no go. I am going to tumble it to get the oxide coating off of it then try. Maybe next week.

 

[richhodg66]

Are you sure it's lead? Sorry if that's a dumb question. I've never tried to melt down bird shot

 

[Tomme boy]

Yes it is lead.

 

[Intel6]

I had these same problems in the past with old lead shot from disassembled shotshells. It was a real PITA and I stopped trying to melt it after finding out how it didn't work. I just started putting all my misc. shot into a container and saving it to load back into shot shells when I am loading up shells for blasting steel plates. No point in letting it go to waste.

 

[Missionary]

Crows do not mind the shot condition.

 

[RicinYakima]

I had these same problems in the past with old lead shot from disassembled shotshells. It was a real PITA and I stopped trying to melt it after finding out how it didn't work. I just started putting all my misc. shot into a container and saving it to load back into shot shells when I am loading up shells for blasting steel plates. No point in letting it go to waste.

Like the rest, it wasn't worth the effort. I don't do much shotgun stuff, but do load some black powder in brass cases. That is where all of that shot folks have given me will end up, blasted away on black powder days.