Home Forums Reloading Bullet Casting #10 - #11 Lead shot.

I have a several hundred pounds of #10 - #11 lead shot. Ranges from .060-.075" Shot is very clean it was reclaimed from a skeet range, so it should be 3%-4% antimony, probably no tin.

Make good boolits?

Yes, but melt it with WW or soft lead for an alloy; the graphite and crud on the outside insulates the tiny pellet and there is usually as much or more dross than metal if you try to just melt the shot. You will need to mash them at times.

If you have hundreds of pounds it will be about half as much if you don't have say 50% or more (more is better) of existing lead or lead alloy to blend it with; even then don't get discouraged about how little you think you ended up with if it was free. The dross to pellet ratio (even if it "looks" clean) will stand out.

Lead ore direct from the mine is about the only thing more or a PITA to recover, but shot is worth it if you have the time.

There should also be a trace of tin as well and some is bound to have arsenic too for heat treating, annealing or drawing if you have plenty of pure lead to mix it with.

It'll make great bullets, but light for the mold, and HARD.

As mentioned, use it as an amendment to pure lead. Adding it to wheelweights will just make your WW lead harder, which it really doesn't need for most applications. The arsenic in shot helps a lot if want to water quench anything to boost hardness.

I melt reclaimed shot quite a bit, it's not as difficult nor as wasteful as many like to say. But you have to have a secondary system to recover more lead from the dross, which is why I can say what I do about it.

What is your desired use of this shot if you just cast it? Just blasting? Target? Hunting? Plinking and Target are one thing, but I would be wanting softer alloy for hunting.

Well, thats the $64 dollar question. I have ~2000 lb drum to sort. So far ~15% is #8 1/2 and larger, ~70% 9's and ~15% #9 1/2 and smaller. The small fraction is not legal for shooting skeet or sporting clays. I would hate to have to take it to the scrap yard.

Scrap yard here charges me 50 cent / pound for reclaimed shot. They consider it "clean" lead where wheel weights are "irony lead" and they only charge me 25 cent per pound for that.

So, just like pawn shops. They're likely charging at least twice what they pay, if not a lot more. The only "lead" I sell there is batteries, and they pay 18 cents / pound. So they're not paying much.

You're right, you'd hate to scrap it. Trade some for pure lead and mix up some good bullet alloy. There's an alloy calculator on the cast boolit forum that can tell you how much shot to mix with pure to get a good alloy. I've never used it, but most on there believe it as gospel.

post the shot for sale, you'll likely get a lot of takers, if you price it right and will ship on the USPS flat rate boxes.

or just melt it down, should be good to go.

No kidding on just selling the shot. #10-11 should be outstanding for loading revolver shotshell rounds for vermin and snakes. I just used some #10 I got from a buddy for some 44 Spl. shotshells - perfect size.

Just melt it and maybe add a bit of tin.

Bb

Yep, I'd like a lb or 2 for snake loads.

That’s what I was thinking too. I’ve got a couple of pounds of 10 and 11 shot and in a Speer shot capsule it really chews up stuff at close range.