Casting with old lead shot?

[tactical870]

I had a friend give me a huge pile of old lead shot today and I'm wondering if it's too hard to melt down and cast into some bullets.... Anyone done this?

 

[yodave]

chances are it coated and harder then you would believe. You can try adding it to your lead pot but my experience is that it will float on your molten lead and smoke pretty good. If your close to me and want to help melt 3000 pounds of lead I'll pay your labour in lead lol.

 

[tactical870]

chances are it coated and harder then you would believe. You can try adding it to your lead pot but my experience is that it will float on your molten lead and smoke pretty good. If your close to me and want to help melt 3000 pounds of lead I'll pay your labour in lead lol.

I'm in Peterborough Ontario. I've got a propane burner and a big open yard.

 

[yodave]

Might take you close to 4 days to drive here, with the price of fuel right now your probably better off buying lead.

If you can sort the shot with some sifters it may have some value to someone who reloads shot shells. Its not uncommon practice to buy and sell reclaimed shot, and with the price of new shot as a comparison you may have struck it rich depending on how much you have on hand.

 

[tactical870]

gonna try melting and casting a few to see what happens....

 

[3macs1]

I had a friend give me a huge pile of old lead shot today and I'm wondering if it's too hard to melt down and cast into some bullets.... Anyone done this?

If lead for reloading shot shells you would be better off selling it for what that is going for now and making enough cash to buy what you need.

 

[tactical870]

It was an old milk jug full of misc new shot. Local gunshop gave it to me as they know I shoot a lot of percussion shotguns. I just cast a bunch of .452 swc now gonna try out some 50-70 bullets.

 

[yodave]

So I am guessing you managed to melt the shot????

Free or cheap lead is always good. There is an older fella at our range that brings his lee pot and mold to the range, shoots his bullets, dig them out of the ground and throws them back in the pot. Loads on a hand loader and just keeps recycling the same lead over and over, we all get a good chuckle out him.

 

[tactical870]

I had no issues melting and re casting the shot however there is a lot of crap to flux off. Nice looking bullets though. I'll have to see if they shoot as good as they look.