I was digging through some stuff in the basement my brother had left here and found several cans and plastic containers with shot in them. They are pretty heavy and some of it is mark and some of it isn't. A couple of cans say mixed and looks like # 4s or 5s. Inside there is a mixture of copper and possibly lead shot. There is one coffee can full of very small white beads. I have no idea white it is or what it is for, unless it would be some type stuff to take up space in a shell when load in a shell.

I have decided to borrow an electric lead melting pot from a friend and melt it all down into ingots. Plus, I have some other lead scraps around here I need to melt down and get it out of the way.
I picked up one plastic bucket of shot and the bottom cracked, and the crap ran out onto the floor.

I don't know what to do with the mixed shot (copper/lead) and not sure if it is even lead.

If anyone has an idea of what the very small white beads are or what I should do with the mixed shot let me know.

Garry-

The white stuff is likely some buffering material to take up space in the shell just as you suspected.

The copper colored shot is very likely copper coated lead.

Once you get some molten lead in the pot, drop one of those copper ones in the lead. It will most likely melt and the copper will/should float to the surface and you can scrape it off with a slotted spoon.


Gloves, long sleeves, and safety glasses for sure and adequate ventilation.

Thanks white17, I know about the safety aspects, I have melted over 500 pounds of lead over the years and still have over 200 pounds of ingots.

Garry-

Shot is EXPENSIVE right now...you may want to consider selling some if you want rid of it.

A 25 lb bag of shot is 59.99 at Cabela's and out of stock no matter the size. I do not think you would find it much cheaper anywhere.

This. You can sell all of it with a fast stop at any trap, skeet or sporting range. Even if its not target size, mixed sizes, chilled and hard, someone will want it.

Don't know of any sport or skeet ranges around, but there is a gun store in town. I might swing by there the next time I am out and see if they can fill me in.

Thank you for the info guys...

Garry-

25 pounds of shot at 60 bucks will load about 350 12 gauge 1 1/8 ounce shells. so if your using 20 grains of powder thats one pound. So 40 bucks. 350 primers are about 35 bucks. and a bag of wads for 10. Those number will all vary but it will get us close. So somewhere around 150 if you have hulls. Maybe a few bucks less or more. might have some shipping or only use 15 grains of powder, whatever. So fourteen boxes of ammo for 150 bucks. So probably 11 bucks a box if you put some value on or have to buy hulls. Might could cost 10 or 12 with all the variables.

Bottom line you wont save much if any. The advantage to having all that stuff is no matter what you want to hunt you can put together the right ammo without hunting all over 3 counties to get what you need. You can pick up whats available when its available and have it on hand.

I'd weigh it out and multiply by a buck fifty. Put an add on a local shooting board with a lot price. It'll sell if it's not heavily oxidized.