newbie dumb question homemade shot

[4bore]

I did a search no luck, Im trying to find how they made shot in the old days and any buckskinner backwoods methods of making improvised shot.I think it would be cool to make it like they did way back when! such a addictive sport! I love the history

 

The old timers made swan shot and rupert shot. This opens a whole can of worms. Save yourself a lot of hassle and buy some shot.

 

[ffffg]

lead was poured into a sieve from a tall tower falling into water and sorted by hand.. the taller the tower to a degee would alow the lead to round out.. swan shot was becouse of too short of a tower.. molten lead is very dangerous, no ladders, kids, dogs, curious bystanders or other silly things hanging about... and done outside dave..

 

[4bore]

wow it is a can of worms.guess ill just buy it lol.good education though makes sense the height would affect the ball size :grin:

 

[MercerLake]

:hmm: Someplace around I've seen a kit for making shot advertised for sale. I'll try and find it and reply again. It had a SS trough with several sized holes and a slanted steel plate with a pan for water. One was supposed to pour the molten lead into the trough and the lead would dribble out through the selected hole fall onto the slanted steel plate, then roll down the plate and drop into the water for chilling. Buying shot would be cheaper, but who knows someday we may not be able to. :grin:

 

[Deadeye]

There's a shotmaker you can buy that seems to work well. I know several shooters who have them and make all their shot from wheelweights.
In the old days they sometime poured the lead out into a thin sheet then cut it into small squares.
I've read that square shot shoots well.

 

[arquebus]

When I lived in Australia they used to sell a shot making machine, called ShotMaster or somesuch. It had a heated receptacle on top that held the molten lead which dripped out of a couple of interchangeable (for different size shot) spouts onto a lip, which was dry-lubed with pencil lead, or similar, which made the lead roll into a can of vegetable oil for cooling. It worked surprisingly well, probably not tournament quality shot, but certainly good enough for hunting & recreational shooting.

 

[paulvallandigham]

Actaully the drop of shot was and does not have to be that long. You can make adequate shot today pouring lead over a properly built screen located only a few inches over a bucket of water. I thought the same thing, because my knowledge of how shot was made came from history books, and pictures of those " shot towers". Apparently, those towers were smoke stacks to draw off the smoke from the coal and wood fires used to heat the lead. They often had roofs on them because it was the only way to keep rain from hitting the open, and large pot of lead being used below. I have a friend who actually has made lead shot at home, and he set me straight on this a few months ago. Who would have thought it?

 

[MSzychulda]

Overlooking the New River, Shot Tower was built more than 150 years ago to make ammunition for the firearms of the early settlers. Lead from the nearby Austinville Mines was melted in a kettle atop the 75-foot tower and poured through a sieve, falling through the tower and an additional 75-foot shaft beneath the tower into a kettle of water. For a small fee, guests may ascend the tower which is on the National Register of Historic Places.

http://www.dcr.state.va.us/parks/shottowr.htm

In 1782 an English plumber named William Watts saw possibility in that. He realized that if he dropped molten lead far enough through the air, it, too, would form into spheres. The surface tension of lead is a lot higher than that of water, so it forms very perfect spheres indeed. He saw that he had a new way to make buckshot.

Watts went back to his brick row house in Bristol and began adding floors to it. It was already three stories high. He doubled that. He put some castle-like trim on the top and called the design Gothic. He wanted his neighbors to like the addition, but the real action was inside his strange new home.

He knocked holes through each of the floors inside and put a water tank at the bottom. At the top, he poured lead into a sieve. The lead formed into spheres as it fell six floors. By the time the drops hit the water below, they'd started to solidify. The water caught and cooled them the rest of the way.

Up to then, most shot was cast. That was very labor-intensive. Shot was also made by pouring lead into a sieve over a barrel. That really did give tear-shaped drops. Before Watts, no one had yet realized that a much longer fall would give spheres.

Watts saw how he might greatly cut the cost of making high-quality shot. Then he gambled his home that it would work. And it did. Shot towers like his sprouted all over England and Europe. In 1808 Jefferson imposed the Embargo Act. That ended our shot supply. So we, too, began making shot towers.
[url] http://www.uh.edu/engines/epi422.htm[/url]

Everything I have ever read and seen said the shot towers purpose was to drop the lead from on high. I know you can make shot a few inches from water, and I have photo's of rupert shot makers and "screens" made by folks, who would drop the shot onto a blanket anchored in a stream or into barrels of water. One description states the natives would stand on a high bank overlooking the stream to drop their shot, as it gave a better product (Museum of the Fur Trade Quarterly).

Most modern shot makers use a plate which the shot rolls across to round it, eliminating the need for the tower.

I have tried making shot a few times with limited success. I do like the look of the shot with the "tails". I hear it actually shoots well and stabilizes quickly with the small tail. I will get it some day...I hope. Intresting subject, Matt

 

[dlemaster]

Paul
I think you may be wrong about the smokestacks being confused with shot towers
I was doing some research on the King's Powder Company which was located North of Cincinati Oh in 1858.
King's was purchased by Peter's Cartridge Company and Peter's built a cartidge plant right across the Little Miami River from the King's Powder plant where they made shot and cartidges.
See [url] www.forgottenoh.com/Peters/peters.html[/url]

Notice the shot tower to the right of the smokestack.

Regards, Dave

 

[J.D.]

I believe Prince Rupert began making a form of drop shot prior to 1665, while the modern spherical drop shot was being made by 1769, as reported in "Firearms on the Frontier" by T.M. Hamilton, page 35.

Gotta be careful of taking internet sources as gospel. Many who post that information get it wrong.

Only about 10% of the internet sites are considered reliable for any type of information. That means that 90% of the web contains mostly BS, so be careful. Information collected from the net needs to be verified by other sources, no matter how reliable the web page might be thought to be.

I would be interested in learning more about how Paul's freind makes shot.
J.D.

 

[paulvallandigham]

J.D. He made a screen- I have not seen it- and poured molten lead over it while it was held just a few inches over the surface of the water in a bucket. He said he got nice round shot, and that the lead does not have to drop through a lot of air to become round and to cool. Jim has been a bullet caster professionally for many years, well over 50, and there is not much relating to lead he has tried, or done. I asked him about those towers, and he wanted to know where they built the fires to keep that lead pot up there hot? And where did the smoke from the fires go? How big a pot can you put up in such a tower, and how do you suspend it so you can tip it to pour lead. They did not have bottom pour pots then, or the valves to make them. If they did have bottom pour pots, you still would have to move the pot away from your fire to be able to pour out of the bottom into anything. As lead cools quickly, the screen has to be very close to the pot. Otherwise, the molten lead will cool on the screen and make it useless.

Hey, guys, I am not arguing with you. Everything you have said about shot towers is what I also learned. My friend just " corrected " my education, as he is so fond of saying, having much contempt for what is taught in colleges. He was a master Machinist, who worked at the University doing machine projects for the professors and students working on various experimental projects. Towards the end of his career, he had to be a machine drawer, a designer, a counselor and teacher able to point out that certain designs the students came up with would not work, and could not be done on available equipment. He would take their plans, ask them what they were trying to accomplish, and then recommend ways of doing it faster, cheaper, and with less chance of breaking down. For all those reasons, I tend to listen to him when he tells me about his own efforts to make shot, and similar projects he has explored over his life.

 

[4bore]

ok lets go a different approach anyone use a modernistic approach to homemade shot? or a methot to make swan shot? where can the equip be purchased? I gotta spaghetti collander dont think it will work though lol. also heard something about antifreeze to cool the shot ever hear this?

 

[paulvallandigham]

I have heard of people using antifreeze, but don't see any advantage. You can air cool as in using the tall drop towers, or water cool the shot, as with the smaller drop my friend Jim used. You are not going to find the equipment for sale anywhere. This is all homemade stuff. Jim used a piece of sheet steel into which he drilled small holes, and did some experimentation to find out how big the holes had to be to produce the size shot he wanted. Then he had to play around with how hot the lead and the steel " screen " had to be kept to keep the lead flowing, and dropping, rather than pouring or streaming out of the screen in long sticks. Since I never saw his rig, I can't help you any more than that. Sorry. I did see an article on making Swan Shot, but I don't recall where, or how long ago. Check in back issues of Muzzle Blasts.

 

[Many Klatch]

Paul, Mike Lea makes a soapstone mold for swanshot. I have one and have used the swan shot. It is interesting to shoot. If I put 9 buckshot in my 20 ga smoothbore I can keep them inside of a paper plate at 25 yards. However, if I put 9 swan shot in my 20 ga. at 25 yards, I can barely keep them inside of a 3' by 3' piece of paper. The swan shot always go through the target sideways. The swan shot is the original flechette. This is a good thing if you were shooting at opposing troops close up.

Somewhere I read that during the Rev War, troops in New Jersey on both sides used Swan Shot because it was a guerilla war. Works for me.

Many Klatch

 

[Ohio Rusty]

I tried that this summer, making shot over a bucket of water. It did not work at all, whether the distance was close to the bucket or at chest height. The shot pellets were so hot that when they hit the water, the shot pellets exploded from the hot hitting the cold. All I ended up with at the bottom of the bucket was pieces of 'shot powder'.
Ohio Rusty

 

[Wes/Tex]

From the historical point of view, before about 1660 (give or take a decade) shot was usually made by cutting thin sheets of lead into small squares or cubes and then rolled between two metal plates until they became 'roundish'. During the middle of the 17th century, Prince Rupert left some notes about making shot by pouring arsenic fluxed lead through a brass or bronze pan full of coals that had been pierced with holes into a pan of water. The arsenic kept the lead from running through in strings. "Rupert" shot was fairly round with a dimple from it's short drop. After the 1790's, shot towers were developed to drop lead into water. At first it was thought the lead needed 120 feet of drop to form perfect pellets. This has been lowered somewhat but I don't know the exact distance. I've always thought it would be fun to try making Rupert shot but the arsenic part is a bit of a chance. One of these days.... :shocked2:

 

[J.D.]

Historically, swan shot was a SIZE of shot, of between .25 and .27 caliber, depending on the source.

Swan shot was a spherical ball cast in moulds, and not formed by dropping lead through a sieve.

The tear drop type of shot, referred to as swan shot today, may , or may not have existed in the 18th century. I have not seen any documentation on such a home made type of shot, so I don't know if it is an actual item, or something some modern "researcher" invented.

Having used this teardrop style of shot, of about the size of modern #4's, I can say from experience that it is devistating on small game. However, patterns are somewhat erratic.

My experience in making tear drop shot is...interesting, to say the least. About half of the shot was distorted, exploded, or otherwise not useful. This is a time consuming endeavor, not only in learning curve, but in time necessary to separate the good shot from the junk.

The tails DO NOT stabilize the shot in flight. I don't know who came up with that idea, but it's pure BS. Those pellets strike a target every which way, with most striking sideways, key holing, so to speak.

I will buy my shot from the hardware store from now on, thank you.
J.D.

 

[musketman]

There's a shotmaker you can buy that seems to work well. I know several shooters who have them and make all their shot from wheelweights.

Is that the Littleton Shotmaker by any chance?

[url] http://littletonshotmaker.com[/url]/

 

[Russianblood]

The tails DO NOT stabilize the shot in flight. I don't know who came up with that idea, but it's pure BS. Those pellets strike a target every which way, with most striking sideways, key holing, so to speak.
J.D.

I'll second that. Here's a target that was shot with "drip shot" out of a 16 bore blunderbuss: