Russian style shot making, who has done it?

yomomma

yomomma

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So finally getting to the point where I am trying to duplicate the simple method of making shot seen in many Russian videos, see exame below. Making some progress, trying to dial it in.

Anyone have any success?


Why am I doing this? Cause I haven't yet!

 
I've tinkered with apocalypse shot in the sense of lead poured through holes in a sardine can, dripped into water. I ended up with tear drop/ice cream cone/some ok shot. It seems anything bigger than the point of a finishing nail size hole will make shot towards #2 or bigger. If you poke a hole and can barely see light, you can get #6 to #9.5. Smaller holes need a higher head pressure to pour, and too much heat will make it pour through and make lead tinsel. Warm water affects drop shot less than cold water, and used cooking oil worked better still. The weather was getting too cold when I was playing around, but I expect to try again this summer. Lots of homemade contraptions that drip onto a ramp and roll into the liquid. Anyways, can't wait to see how you make out.
 
saskgunowner101 said:
I've tinkered with apocalypse shot in the sense of lead poured through holes in a sardine can, dripped into water. I ended up with tear drop/ice cream cone/some ok shot. It seems anything bigger than the point of a finishing nail size hole will make shot towards #2 or bigger. If you poke a hole and can barely see light, you can get #6 to #9.5. Smaller holes need a higher head pressure to pour, and too much heat will make it pour through and make lead tinsel. Warm water affects drop shot less than cold water, and used cooking oil worked better still. The weather was getting too cold when I was playing around, but I expect to try again this summer. Lots of homemade contraptions that drip onto a ramp and roll into the liquid. Anyways, can't wait to see how you make out.
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Lol, first try I made lead popcorn. Never expected lead to do that. Have moved on to fabric softner and had better success with just getting lead "sperm"Laugh2

Give this a few more tries and then try the other methods.

Man I wish I could understand Russian
 
yomomma said:
Lol, first try I made lead popcorn. Never expected lead to do that. Have moved on to fabric softner and had better success with just getting lead "sperm"Laugh2

Give this a few more tries and then try the other methods.

Man I wish I could understand Russian
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Forgot about popcorn lol. I think that one is too hot n too close. All things equal, did you notice a big difference by simply going to fabric softener from water? I wouldn't mind seeing the progression of your shot from worst to best. And to be honest, really crude shot makes interesting spreader loads for close range.
 
Nephew did one with an electric fry pan. He installed 4 nozzle's in the side of it made of brass and drilled with a number 53 drill size. He angled the fry pan and tried it at various angles and drop heights for the lead to fall into the water container. He found that he had to have the the lip fairly close to the water. Fry pan wouldn't keep the lead melted enough so he put an old 10 lb Lee drip o matic to pre melt the lead and then it would pour into the pan first. He had about 70% some what round and the remaining looking more like a tear drop. For target work at 20 yards it was good enough for him. He inherited a whole pile of shotguns from his father-in-law that were all 16 gauge so he decided to reload instead of trying to find factory ammo which is hard to find and expensive.
 
So doubled the hight, went from about 1.5" to 3" , no change.

Here is a picture which shows my first attempt on the left and second on the right.
Left was cold water, I figure about 5-10°c
Right is fabric softener around 16-18°C

ixI5lMu.jpg
 
JaysonCraig said:
to be fair the fall time at 1.5" is 0.08815second and at 3" is 0.12466sec. try this https://www.omnicalculator.com/physics/free-fall to see what heights will give you what times in air. i imagine surface tension needs a little more duration to pull the teardrop into a sphere. this is all hypothetical, i havent ever attempted this.
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Then there is reality, have not seen any russian with that kind of distance. It seems closer to 1"
 
I know it seems counterintuitive given that commercial manufacturers drop the shot from very high towers but a friend of mine who constructed a home made shotmaker found that he got the best results by moving the drip lip CLOSER to the liquid rather than further away. A couple of YouTube videos I looked at where the guys were using Littleton Shotmakers show them keeping the lip only about 1/2" above the fluid level.

This one is really neat. Shows in slo-mo how the drops roll into spheres as they move down the lip. He has the lip virtually touching the liquid.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NY_PsL9bA_o

The liquid my friend used was water soluble oil, the same stuff they use for cooling in machining operations.
 
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Perhaps going wrong direction for small shot? Some years ago, I got interested but never made the unit - poster on Internet was "sittinginhedges" or similar name - quite sure after rolling on a lip, the shot dropped a couple mm, at most, into cooling fluid. Is commercial units available that dribble shot. Was several videos on U-tube showing units going - appeared to be making bushels of shot - some very sophisticated with cooling re-circ systems to hold the cooling medium at relatively constant temp - as many as 7 or so dribblers going at one time. Pre-heating trays to pre-heat lead ingots before they hit the heated melting area - to try to keep melted lead level similar as production went on.
 
yomomma said:
Tomorrows experiment, drop the distance to less than an inch.
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I'm late to the game, but I was going to say lower as well. When I dripped with my poor man set up, I filled a 3 gallon bucket full of water, and laid thin boards (3/8 or 1/2 inch) wrapped in tinfoil across (with space between, obviously), so I could keep my container height consistent. For me, the cooler the lead, the less deformed it was. I believe the ramp is essential, but for apocalypse shot when the stores are closed, it works. Again with the lead temp, cooler lead seemed to work best, making a nice tink tink tink sound. Hard to explain really. The cooler lead seems hesitant to drop through the holes sometimes, so a tap can get it or keep it going.
 
ted_dent said:
I know it seems counterintuitive given that commercial manufacturers drop the shot from very high towers but a friend of mine who constructed a home made shotmaker found that he got the best results by moving the drip lip CLOSER to the liquid rather than further away. A couple of YouTube videos I looked at where the guys were using Littleton Shotmakers show them keeping the lip only about 1/2" above the fluid level.

This one is really neat. Shows in slo-mo how the drops roll into spheres as they move down the lip. He has the lip virtually touching the liquid.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NY_PsL9bA_o

The liquid my friend used was water soluble oil, the same stuff they use for cooling in machining operations.
Click to expand...

this is kinda mesmerizing
 
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