Homemade shot

[BigBoreBLR]

Zinc in the lead makes a mess of good shot. Be real careful to thin out the zinc weights if using wheel weights.

A guy makes my shot for me. I give him sorted out lead, he makes some for me and keep some for himself. I reload modern 20ga shotguns. For a few shots from a muzzleloader, I'd just buy a 25lb bag of what you use.

I don't shoot shot through a muzzleloader. But, I can imagine they're pattern challenged with the traditional wadding and lack of a choke on most barrels. Good concentric shot would be real helpful.

I also use reclaimed lead often. However, due to the lack of a modern plastic shotcup and muzzleloader barrel steel being softer than modern arms, I'd probably pass on using it. You can find small rocks in there from time to time. Also, it has lots of smaller shot like 7 and 8. But, it seems to pattern pretty close to new shot in my experience with it.

 

[Joel/Calgary]

Calling the home-made stuff with tails "swan shot" is a modernism. It would have been called something like "drip shot" back then, and was purely a hard-times, do-it-yourself product. None of the types of commercial shot looked that bad. Traditionally, "swan shot" referred to a size of cast shot in the small buck-shot range (maybe #2 buck?) for shooting swans and similar size birds.

Actually, even home-made shot could be much better with fairly simple equipment - do a search for "rupert shot" here and on the web.

There have been numerous discussions about the tailed shot, swan shot, and related topics on the forum, for example here.

Regards,
Joel

 

[reloader4410]

Made some drip shot one time, reversed a dripper lee pot bottom plate, put it up in a rafter on my carport, drop was about 10 feet to a 5 gallon bucket full of water, about 50% turned out the other 50% was flakes of lead. Happy trails.