Recasting birdshot into 12gauge slugs

So... I've been perusing Youtube, so I'm now an expert. Right?
I'm actually a noob, but I thought this might be helpful to somebody.

Seems there's an underground full of fellas taking regular lead birdshot, removing the shot from the hull, melting/casting it back into slugs, and reinstalling the ordinance back into the hull.
Seems easy enough, right? And the best part, is you can have a box of slugs for, what, $5.50, instead of $30?

So I made myself a crude fixture to peel the crimp from the hull, thereby releasing the shot.
My first fixture was too crude and needed to be more precise as it tends to spiral the cut.

Since "pics or it didn't happen", here's what I've got.
I chose the 1 1/8 oz birdshot loads, as it turns out that some of the lead just magically "goes away" when recasting. There's not a 1:1 ratio when recasting. Using loads that are 1 1/8 and the final ordinance being one ounce, it seems you can earn about one slug per 16(ish) rounds. So it's almost "profitable", so to speak.

I bought a Lee one ounce slug mold ("mould"?) and a Lee 20 pound melting pot/crucible.
I'll pour the shot into the pot, let it melt, and pour that into the slug mold.
There's dozens of YouTube videos on this. I've probably seen them all by now.

Here's one of the videos that I found most inspiring.
:arrow: https://youtu.be/IBkMRhB6RqM

This was the first batch. As it turns out, I'm not happy with the results.
More on that later...

I made a different 'cutter' that works much better. It doesn't remove the crimp, only the "bunghole".
It makes it harder to get the slug in, but provides a MUCH cleaner shell without all the hotglue mess.

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49 recast slugs.
Things are about to get real. :twisted:

The top row are the first batch. The ones I cut the end off, guillotine style. DO NOT DO IT THIS WAY
There were some FTF, fail to enter the battery, fail to "everything"..., basically.
The top row scared me bad enough I quit firing them.
Notice in particular the far left one. :-?
On a couple of those, after the trigger pull, there was a "whoosh BANG", instead of just the BANG.

The second row are the ones where the crimp is cored out.
These were fine. I will do this again. Accuracy seemed fine. I say that based on never having sighted in this gun.

Well, that's all I've got so far. I hope this was helpful, as I certainly learned a bunch.

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Recasting birdshot into 12gauge slugs