Home Forums Reloading Bullet Casting Anyone cast their own shot?

I've been looking at multiple videos online that shows how to make your own shot caster and was wondering if anyone else here has done it?

It looks pretty straight forward.

Yeah, I know I can pay $2 pound plus shipping for shot, but I also like to be as self sufficient as possible too.

Not really wanting to pay $500 for a custom made one either.

Years ago the Magma Engineering folks down in Arizona bought the Littleton shotmaker and Co. From the owners. You should google Magma Eng
I have one and think buffybr on this forum does also. You learn them and they work great
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Thank you very much for the reply sir. It's good to hear that it's not that hard to do.

I have a lathe, mill and a bunch of other metal working tools in my shop and will likely make what I need myself. Even thinking about not even using the dripper bolts and simply drilling the correct hole size that I need with a countersunk opening on the inside opening into a cast iron bread loaf pan much like how the Lee production pot is made. It has a larger countersunk opening before the small opening the lead comes out of. I think that's for a couple of different reasons, but that was what I was considering doing. Would be both cheaper and easy and I could make a bunch of dripper holes.

For that matter, I could use each of the two sides of the pan for different size shot. Like #6 on one end and something smaller or larger on the other.

That would seem to be the simplest path forward and instead of spending $200-$500, a cast iron pan would be anywhere from $10-$30 new or used about anywhere.

I had a Littleton, worked great, made all I needed

Yes, thanks Magnum Bob, I have a Littleton shotmaker. I bought my first one in the mid '80s from a fellow in Utah. It looked just like the Littleton that I use now.

The Littleton set up is fairly simple: There is about an 8" round aluminium pan that is about 1" deep and has a straight side that is drilled for 7 each 3/8" dia x 5/8" long steel hex bolts. Each bolt is hollowed out and the face of one of the sides of the bolt cap has one or two holes drilled through it to the hollow center. The straight side of the pan has about a 1/2" lip on the bottom that the shot pellets drop onto then roll into the cooling solution.

The aluminium pan is mounted on top of a coiled electric stove element. That whole set-up is hinged at the back so that when something goes wrong you can lift it up and stop the flow of lead pellets. And something will go wrong during each casting session, like one or more dripper holes becoming partially plugged and the lead coming out not as the size pellet that you want, but it will build up into big globs that then fall into your cooling bucket.

The last time that I bought a set of 7 drippers from Littleton they were about $50. The dripper holes are very small. My drippers are for #8 1/2 shot. I usually clean them with a single wire from a wire brush which just fits inside the dripper hole. I bought some drill bits to clean the holes and they mic 0.018" in diameter. #8 1/2 shot is 0.085" in diameter. The diameter of lead shot = 17 minus the shot size divided by 100. (17-8.5=8.5/100=0.085")

You don't want to chamfer the exit holes of the drippers as the size shot that you want depends on the diameter of the dripper hole. The lead comes out of the hole, forms a much larger diameter ball of shot, then falls off onto the lip and into the coolant.

My coolant is a 4:1 mixture of laundry detergent to water. After the shot cools I have to rinse off all of the detergent coolant. Then after it dries I tumble it with a small amount of powdered graphite. 15# of shot with just enough graphite to stay on 1/2" of a flat toothpick, tumbled for about 2 hours. It comes out shinny and round and will not hang up in the dropper tube when loading 28 ga or .410 shotshells.

Back in the '80s and '90s when I was competing in Trap and Skeet I was making about 700 pounds of shot every year. Lead wheelweights were plentiful, cheap, and made great shot. Pure lead does not make good shot. You need lead with antimony or tin in it to harded the shot and allow it to flow easily.

Last year I made 500# of #8 1/2 shot which should be enough for a couple of years of casual Skeet shooting.

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I'd like to find a shot maker. Shot has been tough to find around here.

Bb

I did a full-on redneck version that wouldn't hang up in the feed tube and broke clays!

You'll mess around with drippers, dripper bore sizes, melt pan temps, drop distances, ricochet ramps, coolants, etc... but it's kinda fun. Graphite and tumble and it varies a little from maybe 5-8, and has a few egg shaped pieces, but it's WAY cheaper than mail order.