I remember back in the 70's shot went from $8-9.00 a bag to $22-25.00. In time it went down. It was a year I think but went down to $10.ish.
I made my own for decades until wheel weights became scarce. Also, used old bullets from the range, SCUBA weights, and sheet lead from old house roofs. Even got some lead from scrapped sailboats keels, once in a while. Guess what, it worked fine as long as I centered the shot. When it started becoming hard to get scrap, I sold the machine and components to it, maybe, 8-10 years ago.