The great West. [volume] (St. Paul, Minn.) 1889-18??, 1892-11-11
MESSENGERS OF DEATH.
PROCESS OF CONVERTING
ROUGH LEAD INTO SHOT.
Drops Of Molten Metal That Reach KILL
ing Perfection by FaIl-Descrip-
ton Of the Manufacture Of
ssLead Pills.

! A 44-caliber bullet is one that
measures A. 100 of an inch in dame
ter the bit of lead being perfectly
round, says the New York World. It
takes SO of the bullets to weigh a
pound avoirdupois. The smallest
bird shot is known as fine dust" and
it takes 172. 544 of them to weigh a
pound. The SHOEMAKER will tell you
gravely that fine dust measures g.
100 OF an inch in diameter. is per-
fectly round and has passed through
exactly the same processes that have
brought the smooth little -caliber
messenger of death to killing perfec-
ton.
When you were on vacation up at
the farm perhaps you saw farmers
boy on the kitchen door-sill making
bullets in hand mould from lead
that he had melted in crucible about
as big as a tablespoon on the kitchen
fire. but that isn't the way 44-caliber
shot is generally made. That's only
the boy way.
There is another way by which one
man can turn out something like four
tons of such bullets in working day,
and if you have influence you may
gain permission to watch the shot
dropper sift a sieve of millions of the
finest dust" bird shot in few hours.
The tower is 10 feet wide at the
foot It is II feet wide at the top.
Two hundred feet from the ground
the elevator stopped. the four pas
sengers alighted on a platform
surrounding furnace. There was
no fire in the furnace but the
temperature was something more
than 100 degrees the heat arising
| from redhot furnace hundred feet
further down.
This was one OF three similar fur
naces each provided with a melting
pot In which four tons OF lead might be
reduced to the consistency of hot
maple strip. when it would run
through an iron tube or spout into
giart colander. to be strained into
receptacle OF 200 feet below. reaching
the latter as rough. unpublished
shot bat cold enough to retain its
shape.
The least observant person has
hardly failed to notice that liquid
falling invariably takes on giobular
shape, whether it be water molasses
or medicine. Whether it comes in
drops from the mouth of bottle or
in torrents from a storm cloud-it
falls in little globulea
So with molten lead. It comes
through the holes in the giant colan-
der and falling assumes the globular
shape. It grows cold and hardens as
it falls too. and lands 200 feet below,
tough and hard shot.
The smaller the globule of molten
lead the less the distance required to
cool it and harden it and the visitors
to the latham 4 Bros tower found
Charlie Petersen dropped No 8 shot
which is 9-100ths Of an inch in diamet-
er and Az to the ounce, from a
height of about 100 feet
1t was pretty, glistening shower
that came through the 200 tiny holes
in his colander. but the constant
shower would make a heap of several
thousand pounds on the ground below
by nightfall.
The queer little elevator that
hoisted the visitor up to this floor
brought up for the days work truck
load Of pigs OF lead. each weighing
eighty pounds and another truck
load of .temperer. which consists
of lead pigs into which has been
mixed certain percentage of arsenic,
which has a tendency to harden the
lead when it is necessary.
Going floor below. one found that
a scoop elevator was bringing the
newly dropped shot up again to be
dried on a moving disk of polished
steel kept hot by steam-pipes under
meath.
About the edge of the revolving
disk was a little trough. its edge just
below the level of the disk. It was
two inches wide and beyond it was
wider and larger trough.
Superintendent Brooks explained
that perfectly round shot would roll
down the slight incline of the disc
with speed enough to clear the first
little narrow trough and drop into
the wider trough beyond while i'm
perfect shot were always ''lazy" and
would drop into the narrow ditch.
| Chutes from the dryers carried the
perfect shot to the first polisher on
the floor below. The polisher Is a
steel cylinder in which the shot is
tumbled about and at last tumbled
out upon an inclined table down
which it rolls to leap at the end,
over lazy ditch" or into it.
If it goes over it falls into another
chute that takes it to the screening
boards to pass through another nat
ural selection" process and then into
the eeive room where it must pass
through ten selves to come out ar
last as perfect in its roundness as
though it were a thousand times as
large. as smooth as smooth can be- as
shining as star and of precisely the
same size as each of its fellows in the
same lot
tits most important that shot be alb
solutely round and well polished and
that there should be only one size in a
charge For larger shot fly faster
than small ones and if the charge be
mixed it will not all of it get there
at the same time so that the killing
surface will be reduced in proportion.
That is why all this care is taken,
and why about half Of the shot that
drop through the dipper's colander in
the tower becomes waste and returns