Rensselaer Republican, Volume 14, Number 36, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 25 May 1882 — Shot-Making. [ARTICLE]

Shot-Making.

One of the “secrets” of the manufacture is the mixing of lead with a certain proportion of a combination of mineral substances called “temper.” The “ temper ”is fused with lead, and gives to the molten metal that peculiar consistency which makes it drop readily. If it were not for the “temper” the lead would be moulded by the sieve, and would form little pencils instead of round shot. • When “BB” shot, for instance, are to be made, the lead is poured into a pan perforated with holes corresponding to that size. The little pellets pour down in a continuous shower, and fall. In their descent of two hundred feet they become perfect spheres, firm and dense, and they are tolerably cool when they strike the water, although the swift concussion makes the tank foam and bubble as if water were boiling furiously. The shot must fall iu the water, for if they should strike any firm substance they would be flattened and knocked out of shape. It is said that this method of making shot spherical was the invention of the wife of a poor European workman in metals, who had spent months iu trying to find out how to do it without moulding. To get the little pellets perfectly dry after they have been in the “well” is the most difficult and troublesome process of the whole manufacture. An elevator with small buckets, very much like those used in flour mills, carries the shot up as fast as they reach the bottom of the “well” and deposits them in a box sixty feet above the first floor. The water drips from the buckets as they go up, and not much is poured into the receiver above, although it is intended to be a sort of dripping machine. From this receiver the shot runs down a spout into a drying pan, which greatly resembles a gigantic shoe, made of sheet iron. The pan rests at an angle which perihits the wet shot to roll down to the chamber below, and the pellets become perfectly dry as they pass over the warm sheet-iron.