Cut Shot from sheet lead

[sundog]

I went to college in Vermont back in the 70s. We had some mighty serious BP shooters on campus.
One fella Phill used to make cut shot from sheet lead. He hunted with a 20 gage cap lock and was remarkably good with it.
Phill harvested Grouse ,Woodcock and Squirrels on a regular basis.
He cut the shot in different sizes to suit his needs. One thing that stands out in my mind is some odd shot he used to make. Normally he cut the sheet lead in square pieces but he also made some special purpose shot cut like the letter "L"
The "L" shot was not for game it was for paper hornet nests.
Phill was a farm kid and hated paper hornets. He said the "L" shot tore up the nests good. Shoot um early on a frosty the morning and they cant fly after ya.
I am just wondering if anyone on the board has tried using cut shot for hunting.

 

[Vaino]

I imagine cut shot would yield very large and erratic patterns and years ago when handloading for ruffed grouse, I would mash the # 7-1/2 shot between 2 steel plates to make them elliptical. This yielded very wide and erratic patterns but sure did bring down a lot of close up grouse. Did this after the advent of plastic shot cups which didn't allow the shot to become mis-shaped by rubbing on the bore. Either the cut or elliptical shot would be lousy for longer range shooting......Fred

 

[CoyoteJoe]

That's called "cube shot" and does work as a spreader load to give wide patterns at short range. I too have played with it a bit but the results were not worth the effort. There are lots of things one can shoot from a ML shotgun so long as you don't have very high expectations as to patterns.
As to destroying hornet's nests, your friend seems to have the attitude common to many farmers. They feel it is not only their right but their responsibility to cut down, grub out, drive off and destroy everything nature put there to make room for what the farmer deems more suitable to his needs. I can just see the gleam in his eye as he feverishly cut out those little L's. You should have convinced him S's would work better and watch him go nuts cutting those out. :haha:

 

[BillinOregon]

Wasn't cut shot pretty common in earlier times when shot towers and arsenic were not available?
As to paper hornets, I'm not wild about them either, but their empty nests sure are interesting, and Sam Fadala has long advocated the use of wasp nest on top of the powder charge to keep from burning through and blowing patches.

 

[Vaino]

I'll bet Sam Fadala wore gloves!!.....Fred

 

[Joel/Calgary]

Wasn't cut shot pretty common in earlier times when shot towers and arsenic were not available?

Cube shot has been used used for centuries both for close, wide patterns and as improvised shot. I remember an account from WWII by an American in the Soviet Union, when civilian ammo was unavailable, of reloading shot-shells using toy caps in the primers, cellulose nitrate film stock chopped for powder, wads punched from cardboard and old felt boots ("valenki"??), and sheet lead chopped for shot. They got birds with them, but it was definitely a short-range proposition.

IIRC, before either Rupert shot or drop shot was developed, shot was normally made from sheet lead and tumbled by rolling in small kegs to round it - the longer the tumbling, the rounder it got.

Joel

 

[markinstettler]

Be careful not to generalize without warrant. Many farmers, even most, are as you've described, but not all. I'm certainly not.

A couple of stings this summer hasn't yet soured me on the yellow-jackets. (Besides, they are a great source of protein for my ducks.) Even with gophers, I only shoot them to avoid being over-run (to which we're very close). Coyotes and badgers are welcome on my property (as is anything that eats gophers) unless they develop a taste for livestock, but electric fence allows a great deal of freedom in coexisting with the local fauna.

Being both a hunter and a rural land-owner can mesh really well. It certainly offers some incentive to encourage a healthy population of wildlife to develop.

 

[BrownBear]

Years before I was old enough to start school, I used to "help" my grandad make chop shot, as he called it. I ran across some of it in a coffee can a few years back, and as I recall it was cut to about #4-#5 in size. He loaded it for quail in his 12 gauge double, because his chokes were too tight. I recall him complaining that smaller chop shot didn't kill well and factory loads were too tight in his gun. I've got the gun and the chokes are indeed full and mod.

"We" used to hunt quail in mesquite draws way back then. He shot and I crawled my skinny little butt in among the mesquite thorns and rattlesnakes to retrieve them!

 

[Rod Lassey]

Rudolf Kurz, at Ft. Union in 1851-2, wrote of making shot from strips of lead. The cubes were then rolled around in a frypan with ashes to knock the corners off. He also mentioned a fellow hunter rounding his shot by chewing on it. No worries about lead poisoning (at least not THAT kind!) back then.

As an aside, a long departed fellow I knew was doing some metal detecting at York Factory. Seems that local natives had torn the lead shingles from some of the buildings and made cube shot of it, which is what he was looking for. What he found was a stove door.