doublegunshop.com - home Forums General Discussion DoubleGun BBS @ doublegunshop.com Bismuth No-Tox Out of Business?

With the rising cost of metals including lead I can not imagine what a bag of Bismuth shot would sell for.

I expect that with the number of people running little "shot stills" these days, some enterpising sole will start making Bi shot to serve the old gun nitch but it will alway be expensive.

We are in a world market and 1/4 of that market lives in China seeking a better life.

I recently purchased a new SxS so I could hunt ducks with modern ammo, simply because I did not mess with reloading anything but lead for my old Damascus barrels. Bi reloads were my second choice.

RPr

I see mention here of “making your own” Bizmuth shot. Does anyone have any expanded information on this such as the alloy mixture etc?

Having seen first hand the results of the EPA mandate for MTBE (how they mandated it in spite of the warning that it would poison the Water Supply, and increase smog in most areas), the Asbestos hysteria and shake down racket. Not to mention the DDT over reaction. I naturally distrust mandates of the FEDGOV, and harbored serious doubts about the harmfulness of Lead Shot to Waterfowl.

So a few years back I had an opportunity to meet with a gentleman who had collected the samples of Ducks back in the ‘70s, that had ingested lead shot. I ask him if it had any merit. He told me that it did, the lead levels in the Ducks, with lead shot in them was in general too high, and harming the ducks, as well as anything that ate them.

But, and this is a big butt, the ducks contained small shot - 7 ½ s mostly, and a few 6s – nothing larger. He speculated that the ducks didn’t eat the larger shot, spit it out, or perhaps it was heavy enough to sink. So why small lead shot was not banned for water fowl, instead of banning all lead shot? Well who knows? I sure don’t .

I hope they get Bismuth back up and running soon....I also hope that some posters in this thread recover from the brain damage they have sufferd from lead.

I posted this in another thread, but this is probably a better place for it. There is a place on the net called huntersbismuth.com that sells ingots and also prepared shot, I'm not sure if there still in business, but it might be worth a try.

What about sea ducks, and the depth of the water they're shot in.
Can they reach the pellets?

If there is any good news about bismuth it's that most of it comes from China, followed by Mexico and Peru.

The process is a patented process and means if one were to use that process to make shot for sale, well you got trouble.

Looks like, from a casual search that it's got a 3% tin added to the bismuth.

From my reading it looks a little more complicated than just running it out your Littleton shotmaker into some antifreeze.

None of these for home use shotmakers, make shot in sizes that have much interest for a guy shooting waterfowl. The guy that owns the rights to littleton shotmaker claims that it's possible to make #5 and #6's. that's with lead of course. But when you pin him down he will tell you it's been done but only under special circumstances.

Of course one wonders if the drippers made for lead will work the same with bismuth, as they do with lead.

Lots of questions. It looks like the owner of the process is ASARCO.

Lowell: it looks like the story has changed from the original (surprise) it's not picking it up and injecting it like they told us it was for years. Now it's from getting shot by it. Well that I can believe. Remember when they got rid of 50-50 solder for the use of solder joints in copper water pipes? Now I guess it's cause they were worried about us getting shot by it.

Anyone know if tungsten plastic is still available? It might have been called tungsten matrix. It was also supposed to be compatilble with older guns.

If you want to play stupid, I guess anyone can make an argument out of imagination and make believe. What a crock of BS. Al you know better than that.

If you read up on lead poisoning, lead in waterfowl, and just a few other details it wouldn't be hard to educate yourself a few times over.

Brent