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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.I have no idea how good these are but if your looking to try and build a shot maker I seen these on ebay today
http://www.ebay.com/sch/i.html?_fro...lead+shot+maker&_nkw=lead+shot+maker&_sacat=0
"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?
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.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.
this.......... I have not made shot in a while. Not shooting tap competitively at the moment....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.
yes the shot is dropped into coolant. here's a poor video from me...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.
I don't even want to know what that thing cost.This is the rig I want.
[video=youtube_share;TwVvdIFyQ0Q]http://youtu.be/TwVvdIFyQ0Q[/video]
I will take a photo of a single dripper table top model later and post it.....so cute.Impressive. I thought a shot maker would be much larger.
I don't even want to know what that thing cost.
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.
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!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!