Making shot in a pinch...

[Leifer]

"...Today I fabricated a novel kind of shot for Morgan. At least it is something new to me, though was probably the sort that was first used. I flattened one-pound bars into thin plates, cut the latter into narrow bars, from which I then struck off little cubes. I threw them into our frying pan, together with ashes and sand, and rubbed them over and over with a flat stone until those small angular pieces became round. Cadotte must also fabricate his own shot, or rather buckshot. He takes such cubes of lead, whatever size he need, and rounds them off in his mouth with his teeth..."

-- Rudolph Kurz, April 7, 1852