has anyone used reclaimed shot pellet before? does it effect the patterns in a negative manor compared to new shot? the only down side ive found so far is it mostly looks like #8 shot with an occasional #7 1/2 shot pellet here and there. But i was told that is expected with reclaimed shot since its collected from trap ranges.

How do they go about reclaiming the shot, it sounds interesting.

How expensive is it compared to commercially sold shot?

I have shot lots of reclaimed lead for trap 16 yd practice.
Yes it dose afect the patteren, the patterens are not as good as new mag or chiled shot .
I use it only for 16 yd practice in 1 1/8 oz loads , and find it dosn't afect my scores.
I have patterened it for yardage ( I am 24.5 yd) and found the patterens are rough with lots of holes.

What are you paying for a bag ?
Reclaimed lead has not been avabily in my area for a few years
In my area lead has jumped in price to $17 + a bag .
10 of us are going to gether with a club to buy a semi load to save some $$ for the summer shooting season.
My share is 40 bags .
It still will be more than I used to spend .

Johnch

I'd not use it for ATA shoots or at the Grand.....(ya gotta buy them there anyway).....Sure nothing wrong with using it for practice at short range trap, skeet and some of the clays ranges. It's also good on doves in the fall!!!!!

Yup, its $17 a bag here too.
Scrap lead prices prices have gone up dramatically in the last 2 years, I think its worth $0.50 a lb.

new chilled shot goes for $15 - $20 for a 25 lbs bag depends who you buy it from, I bought the reclaimed shot from a local gun shop for $12 for 25 lbs and later found out I can buy it directly from the local trap range for $8 for 25 lbs. to be honest I have no idea how they go about collecting the shot from the range. other then maybe they have a big vacuum of some sort to suck it up off the ground, then have some way to filter out all the crud and dirt from the shot. who knows lol, if anyone knows how they do it i would deffinately be interested in hearing about it.

So do you know what material the shot is? Is it all lead, or another metal, or an alloy? My thought was, if it doesn't pattern to your liking, you can melt it down, and have bullets for other guns fairly cheap.

its supposed to be all lead

Shot is about $17-$22 for a 25# bag here. I bought 10 bags yesterday; $16.65 a bag for magnum. It was from a distributor, I got an inside from a friend. No wonder it's $20+ at the store!

You can buy shells cheaper now than you can to reload them. [:@]

Iget it for $10 a bag here,but thats here,have found also that it doesn,t pattern quite as well but its ok for the price.Still get birds with it,And for the one whom wanted to know how they collected it? yhey have like a big vaccum cleaner type machine that picks it up. vangunsmith