doublegunshop.com - home Forums General Discussion DoubleGun BBS @ doublegunshop.com Reclaim shot

How do they reclaim shot??

Whats the process?

I vision men with gold pans along the fall area!


Gooser

I have a rough knowledge of the operation, a machine traverses the drop area and separates most of the earth from the shot. The shot is then melted down where all impurities are separated. During the last very high lead price time (70's) I had friends that screened the reclaimed shot after tumbling it in a cement mixer. They them returned it to the mixer, adder graphite and sold it in milk jugs. It was good enough for 16 yard trap and skeet. No one shot in high quality guns. At that time it was for 1100,s or something you could replace the barrel with ease and low cost. The problem was sand grains the size of 9's.
bill

I've seen a couple of shot harvesters. The ones I've seen simply let the shot(and dirt) fall off the end of a conveyor belt. As it fell, a powerful fan blew through the mix and blew away the non lead junk. There was no melting or re-shaping done with these machines. They were sort of Rube Goldberg contraptions, as I recall. I used a bit of it in my early days of reloading but lost interest a long time ago. IME, it has always followed the price of new shot too closely to be considered a bargain. JMO, of course

I used to be able to buy reclaimed shot at a local shop, but they can't get it anymore it seems. I have no idea how it was done, but the shot was clean, no sand or dirt, no debris.It was commonly a mixture of everything from #7 through #9, just as picked up at some range. Some of it had flattened sides, and it wasn't pretty. It had been re graphite coated, and it shot very well. I loved it for spreader loads particularly, and for the "rabbit" targets that bounced along the ground. I used it in tightly choked guns when I needed to make spreader loads for upland hunting, it seemed to help the "recipe." I still have maybe 10 to 12 pounds of it, not much. Would love to be able to buy more.

I was given 50 lbs in trade recently. It is not remelted or graphited. There are no apparent stones or sand etc. Most of it looks like # 7 1/2's so I suspect it came of a trap field. Most of the pellets remain round but show some deformation, mostly flat sides.

I ran a magnet through it and pulled out some steel pellets. I suspect this is a bigger problem than pebbles...Some of them were #2's

I added graphite and used it mixed 50/50 with new #8's. It's a nice spreader load but the pattern really falls apart once you get past skeet distances. I shoot some really tight choked guns at skeet and 7/8 oz of this mix still crushes the targets.

Once this is used up I won't be looking for more, but would use it again if it fell into my lap as it was ok to use if cost is an issue.

Jeff