Anyone making their own lead shot? If you have a Littleton can you tell me the orifice size for #7 1/2 shot.

nobody making shot!

Go to shotgunworld.com and do a search in the reloading forum under Making your own shot. there is an enormous thread there on making shot and I believe the size was discussed.

Looks like there is plenty of reading material at that site, thanks Chic

Chic; I see about four years ago you were smelting down WW, did you get into making shot and how did it work out?

WW's work fine. I am modifying my system to use Stewarts double drippers and if the Littleton does not work well with them, I am going to sell mine and buy two of Stewarts. His are made of steel and use 220 volt. They can get a bit hotter and it is easier to make #9's.

Chic; I finished the 31 pages of posts, very enlightening. I think I will try to make one from scratch, I like tinkering especially in the winter months. The 2 hole drippers do look interesting and production rate looks amazing, good luck with your experiments. Scot

Scot, the hardest thing to make will be the drippers. Jim Stewart sells a set for $55. I would build the "pan" and buy his drippers.

Good luck yourself.

BTW Dave Parusky on the thread has been doing this for quite a while and is a real storehouse of information.

quote:

BTW Dave Parusky on the thread has been doing this for quite a while and is a real storehouse of information.

When I get a little further along I may have to bend his ear a little, nothing like first hand experience.

anyone selling their shot that they are making?

Does anyone have a link to that thread about making shot? I tried a search but didn't come up with anything.
TIA

I visited a place where they use to make shot in the 1800s. Basically it was a tower, and they had dug down another hundred feet straight down to a river cave.

As I understand it they melted lead and then pored it from the top of the tower. Like rain drops the lead would fall, some would be large and some drops would be small. The lead would harden so it didn't change shape much as it hit the ground.


Then they would sort out the the different shot sizes and then sell them.

I tried pouring from the top of a ladder into a bucket of water and ended up with a bunch of flat roundish splatters.
From what I've read about the littleton or similar is that it is a short roll from the nozzle to the water(an inch??). Also something to lessen the surface tension on the water/coolant helps to keep the shot from deforming as it enters the coolant. I think someone used antifreeze.
I haven't tried makeing any since the ladder drop splatters failed.
I have cast some clusterbombs and shot them in a 12 ga double. They made a nice tight group out to around 30-40 yds.

Lar45,
HERE is the link. BTW, the topic is 35 pages long. I have most of it in a three ring binder. Some really great information in there.

The lip on the shotmaker is about one inch or so. Coat it with chalk. The drop to the coolant is only 1/8 to 1/4" and do not use water. DOT Brake fluid works well, as does antifreeze and also some liquid soaps. It is best to use something that washes off easily with water. Is also best to heat the coolant some and then cool it when it gets real hot. Operating temperatures seem to run 110 to 150. cooler gives you problems as does hotter.

They still use shot towers in a few places in the US. The shot will be totally solid when it hits the water at the bottom. The water is not there for anything other than a way to cushion the shot and slow down the fall so it is not deformed hitting the other shot. The water also flows through the tank and takes the shot with it. The shot is done in speicific sizes based on orifices at the top of the tower. There are now modern machines that make shot without the use of the tower.

There are two methods. Short drop and long drop. A ladder is just neither short or long enough!

Here is good reading. I had a shotmaker but never used it... lost interest and sold it.
http://www.shotgunworld.com/bb...&highlight=shotmaker
There is 36 pages of reading... more if you do a search

sorry to duplicate the link of customstox... there is a ton of info there