A fair number of years ago, I experimented with heat treating some "butter shot" lead #4 shot that was nicely round but so soft that one could compress the pellets easily with two fingers with a pliers. The following technique was based on what I remember to be a piece in the American Rifleman [though the folks there can't seem to locate it, now]

I heated the shot to about 425 degrees F in an oven for about 30 minutes. Then, I quickly quenched the hot shot in a bucket of cold water.

The water took on a black "slick" as the shot's graphite coating floated away.The treated shot looked just awful; gray and rough to the touch though it was still nicely round.

When I did "the pliers test", again, I found that I could not compress the shot even when I bore down with two hands. The best I could do was to scratch the surface of the pellets, slightly.

Lacking graphite, I sprayed WD-40 into the shot and then hand mixed the shot until all of the pellets were nicely, but not excessively, lubricated.

The following weekend I gave the shot back to its owner to load in his Damascus-barreled Parker 10-gauge double. He loaded the shot in a black powder load that was, as best that I can recall, something like 3 1/4 drams of Goex FFg x 1 1/4 ounces of shot in a Remington plastic hull with a Remington plastic wad. I never found out what primer he used.

The results were amazing. The weekend before the man gave me the shot, he had trouble obtaining any better than Skeet choke patterns with his gun's full choke barrels. With the hardened shot, the gun patterned in the 90s per cent at 40 yards. I could almost claim 100 per cent patterns but the man did not count his pellets before he loaded them. However, if there were any "fliers" outside the 30-inch circle neither he nor I nor any of the other people present could find any. Patterns were nicely-distributed, too.

Has anyone else ever tried this technique?

DISCLAIMER: This test was run before current concerns about lead vapor contamination existed. I am not sure that I would "cook" lead projectiles in an oven that was to be used to bake food, today.

Last edited by Dingelfutz; 08/16/11 05:43 PM.