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shotmaker build? pan and drippers
- Thread starter mac1911
- Start date
That's pretty cool. I never really realized that making lead shot at home was practical. My understanding was that the manufacturers use tall silo - like buildings to drop the lead and form the shot.
Would you save any money making it yourself?
"Shot Tower" - Frequently well over 100 feet tall. Sphericity of the produced shot, I assume, is critical to patterning. I can't imagine that DIY is all that practical, at room temperature cooling?
It would be interesting to see how the shot patterns. One of the ads had a picture of the shot produced, and it did look rather un-round.
Fixxah
NES Member
The Littleton Shot Maker YouTube vids show nice rounds results. A few oblong pieces wouldn't spoil the batch. I have 600# of ballast lead waiting for the right time to ne converted to shot. May never happen if they ban lead. lol
Don't get to hung up on shot pattern. Shot pattern is on a flat piece of paper is almost point less. good to make sure your choke is doing its job and the pattern is at least going in the direction of where you are looking. If your shotgun throws lead where you are looking, follow through on your shot the clays will bust.
now you would think shooting 20g through a 12g with a chamber adapter would produce a poor pattern. I have some of my best scores with such a set up with 7/8 oz home made shot. many 50straights to win 20g night. Last time I played we had a shoot off 1 shot from each yardage line back until we missed. we got back to 22 yards and I was still breaking them.
Jbarila
NES Member
Been making shot for awhile using the Ebay pan. CastBoolits, "casting for shotguns" has all the threads you will ever need.
http://castboolits.gunloads.com/forumdisplay.php?36-Casting-for-Shotguns
http://castboolits.gunloads.com/forumdisplay.php?36-Casting-for-Shotguns
The shot makers work well and you will get very good shot once you sort out the quirks such as proper shot drop, coolant temperature, shot pot temperature/level, sorted and graphite the shot. The ONLY problem is getting a steady supply of lead of the proper hardness, such as wheel weights, which are getting hard to come by as most vehicles are no longer using lead wheel weights. It's time consuming but a lot of fun to cast bullets and make shot.
this.......... I have not made shot in a while. Not shooting tap competitively at the moment....
I can assure you if I loaded a factory round vs a homemade shot reload blindly into your gun...you wouldn't know the difference between the lead in there.
I'm curious. How does this work? Load the tray with lead alloy/ingots, heat up, and the alloy drips,, forming drops of lead/alloy? I've casted dozens of styles of bullets over the years but never got into shot.
PID controls are $50 - $200 each depending on quality, SSRs could be replaced with relays... The Hoffman enclosure, circuit breaker, heaters, and fabrication... Easily over $1000
Easy, from a controls system standpoint, but not cheap.
Easy, from a controls system standpoint, but not cheap.
greencobra
NES Member
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There were a couple of companies trying to market home shot makers in the mid/late eighties. There are reasons why they never took off and fizzled out. Maybe technology has changed and they are better at dropping consistent shot.
here is a econo shot maker, single dripper model. I never used or did the old timer that gave it to me. I have the Jim Stewart bettershotmaker and it works fine. As long as you use good clean wheel weight alloy... In the video of mine you see one dripper is clogged...in part due to me using ignots I did not smelt myself.... I got it bacj up and running shortly after.
This unit comes with several shot size drippers, a small mold for the lead sticks and several screen sizes for sorting the lead..... So you use a small fuel tank to heat the tube and the lead shot drips out the other end into a can filled with water,,,ie the can in the pic.
This unit comes with several shot size drippers, a small mold for the lead sticks and several screen sizes for sorting the lead..... So you use a small fuel tank to heat the tube and the lead shot drips out the other end into a can filled with water,,,ie the can in the pic.
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icyclefar
NES Member
He is running 400 - 450 pounds an hour through that rig, scale it down to 50 - 75 pounds per hour and you'd have an awesome home shot making machine!
The james stewart "bettershotmaker" I have can easily run 50lbs in 1 hr.... Takes more time for the unit to come to temp than to drop the shot!
Mondern shot is made the same way just on larger scale units or its cut from wire and tumbled until some what round.
The directions with the econo shot maker posted above claim 9lbs per hour with some practice and good alloy.
here is a film from the 50s claiming there where only 3 towers left in england http://www.britishpathe.com/video/shot-tower
I tried searching for any active shot towers and came up empty ?
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