lead for a lead bullet catch?

[lts70]

I got some roof flashing lead and bent it over on itself until it was 12” x 12” x 3ish” thick. I then went out and shot it with my 45acp 1911. Looked pretty cool (terminator) and caught all of the bullets. It got me thinking if I could find a large cast iron skillet I could make one big round bullet catch ingot for my pistol shooting. Has anyone done this with success? I could hang it off a sawhorse and go to town. Then re-melt it down to reshape, reclaiming all of the captured bullets at the same time. I was even thinking about pouring lead into a soda pop can and then pilling the aluminum back as a target for my 22 and pellet gun shooting?

Good or bad Idea?

[uscra112]

Lead deforms easily and absorbs energy doing it. But any substantial catchment would be pretty much non-portable, unless you have an off-road forklift. Not that my sandbox is a featheweight!

[303Guy]

I think it's a great idea! :-D

I've shot a lead cylinder with a 22lr and the boolit got turned inside out in the cavity it created. Apparently zero lead splashing or fragmenting i.e. no lead loss. The only possible drawback I can see is the accumulative effect of impacts breaking through. Perhaps a solid steel backing plate?

[beagle]

Be careful making those huge ingots. One time, the NCOIC of a Marksmanship Training Unit in the Army sent the boys to the pistol range to pick up lead for casting bullets for practice. They picked up and melted lead using a porcelin wash basin for a mould as it was all they could find that would release easily. They ended up with three basin sized ingots. Yes, they are heavy....and have you ever thought how to get a chunk of lead that size into a (in this case) Saeco furnace.

Being a good NCO, he solved it. Sent them back to the range for more lead in small ingots, sent one of the guys to the local scrap yard and sold the three huge ingots and bought beer for the team with the money. Who says NCOs are dumb?/beagle

[maglvr]

You will end up losing a lot of lead, as boolits start slamming into each other and shattering.
Not to mention the pieces headed back in your direction(and to the sides).
A good tree stump is much safer.

[Duckdog]

I just took a plastic tote and filled it with rubber mulch, with a couple of rubber pavers behind the mulch and 1 in front and it will stop antything I have shot at it yet. The bullets come out looking like they could be used again. I have not tried a rifle yet, but it stops a 7.62 TOK @ 1500 fps at 10yds without a hitch. In fact, I can't see where a bullet has hit the back pavers yet.

The one I made weighs about 60 lbs, I would reckon. I have yet to lose a bullet that I shot into it yet! I also though of using something for the bullet to hit, but settled on something to stop the bullet before it gets to the backing, thus ending fragmentation.

[bowenrd]

You want to shoot into a cast iron pot with a round bottom? Sounds like a good way to shoot yourself. What is going to stop the bullets from coming back at you? The folded sheet lead will work to stop the bullets most of the time but not all the time. Sounds like a very similiar game to Russian Roulette.

[geargnasher]

You want to shoot into a cast iron pot with a round bottom? Sounds like a good way to shoot yourself. What is going to stop the bullets from coming back at you? The folded sheet lead will work to stop the bullets most of the time but not all the time. Sounds like a very similiar game to Russian Roulette.

No, I think he meant for a backstop ingot mould.

Gear

[303Guy]

I just took a plastic tote and filled it with rubber mulch, with a couple of rubber pavers behind the mulch and 1 in front and it will stop antything I have shot at it yet.Rubber mulch! That's what I need. I need to examine captured boolits in my test tube. I wonder where I would find some?

[nanuk]

there is a company close by that manufactures it from used tires.

I'm not sure how much it costs but I'm sure I could get tons of the stuff.

I just don't know what a "Rubber Paver" is

[Crawdaddy]

cool idea. Take pics if you make it.

[para45lda]

Try Lowes or Home Depot type places for rubber mulch.

[Sonnypie]

"What's all that black smoke coming from 303guy's place?" :confused:
"Oh... he's just smelting lead. It has rubber for flux." :veryconfu
"P. U!":(

[303Guy]

"What's all that black smoke coming from 303guy's place?" :confused:
"Oh... he's just smelting lead. It has rubber for flux." :veryconfu
"P. U!":(:mrgreen: Good point. I do my melting down indoors! :roll:

[Sonnypie]

:mrgreen: Good point. I do my melting down indoors! :roll:

I mention it because yesterday a remelted a pot full of boolits I had cast, loobed, and sized.
Kind of stinky and cloudy in the shop until the junk burned off finally. Sometimes the roof vent appears to be more of a chimney, than a vent.
Especially when fluxing with ground walnut shells. Cough, cough-cough....

You are not alone.... :veryconfu :bigsmyl2:

[Lloyd Smale]

probably a great idea for catching .22s and maybe even 38s but i would think that anything biggers going to deform your target real quickly.

[olafhardt]

Is this something we could with a sack of WW clips?

[357maximum]

I was using a soft lead plate to catch my boolits from some waaaaaaaaaay underpowered 30-30 loads last winter (cabin fever) and it worked great until about the 3rd or 4th hit in the same spot. Once in awhile the previous boolits would get EJECTED at odd angles when struck by another boolit. For safety sake do not do it very long as I am pretty sure one of them flying boolit masses would hurt a person pretty bad.

http://www.castboolits.gunloads.com/showthread.php?t=76956&highlight=limbo

[UtopiaTexasG19]

I would not be afraid to cast some oversized ingots worrying about melting them down later for fitting into my casting pot. My last buy of bulk lead was 700 pounds in someone's 5 pound home made ingots. I have a tractor mounted hydraulic log splitter and can slice up any sized lead into any sized piece in mere seconds! No fumes, no dust, no work. :)
PS - Also, a acetylene torch cuts lead like a hot knife through butter but you need to be up wind of the fumes to be safe...

[Spector]

I made a pellet rifle trap by pouring a sheet of soft lead about 7/16 thick. It was large enough that I could push pin 8 1/2x11 target sheets onto cardboad that was locked into the front of the pellet trap. The lead sheet and the cardboard cover fit into grooves I cut on the interior of the trap and they were supported top, bottom and sides. The lid was hinged and locked into position. Even repeated pellet strikes would eventually deform the lead sheet and I'd need to flatten it again. After repeated strikes clumps of flattened pellets would simply fall off and land in the bottom of the box. There were never any problems I saw using this method and no pellets or fragments penetrated the cardboard on the way back out.

I supsect such a system would work for 45 ACP slugs if the size of the lead casting were appropriately sized and of the proper alloy. I think your backstop alloy and boolit alloy should be the same so it would remain constant.

I could easily carry my small pellet trap by a handle I made from leather. A larger one might require wheels to be portable or be carried on a dolly. My lead sheet could flex and one that was backed by something solid might react differently, requiring a thicker lead alloy............Mike

[BAGTIC]

I don't know about rubber pavers but I once had a .22 LR rebound from an old tire and give me a whack on the shin. Bang. Duck!

[olafhardt]

If you pull the trigger real easy won't the boolits just roll out?

[Duckdog]

No bullets have come back out of my rubber mulch target. The tire probably had steel bands in it, but that's just a guess. They shoot through the first layer, (rubber paver), and then get into those rubber chips and thats all she wrte. It shuts them right down. I've shot buku bullets into this thing and am still on the first paver.

I got the bags of mulch at Menards, but I'm sure they all sell them. I think I paid about 5 bucks a bag.

I'm gonna try some 308, 06, and 45/70 in it. The 45/70 doesn't worry me. It will be interesting to see if an 06 @ 2100 fps makes it thorough at 100 yds. My guess is not, as this trap stops a 7.62x25 @ 1500 fps at 5 yds with room to spare.

One thing to keep in mind is that this will get heavy pretty quick, so a tote with an end of 18" x 18" and a depth of 24" is pretty good, but to each his own. I saw one on the net that someone made with wheels and it was pretty sweet looking.

[hydraulic]

I loaded 5 grs of red dot under a round ball in a .45-70 and shot my trapdoor at a target pinned to a large log of fire wood in a corner of my basement. At about round 5 I heard a loud noise from something hitting the wood stove beside me, but ignored it. At round six I heard a VERY loud whack from the wood box behind me and found the round ball half way through the 3/4 inch lid of my wood box. The first few slugs had accumulated in the log until one hit the lead "plate" and reacted like a baseball hitting a bat. I don't do that anymore.

[Duckdog]

I did some shooting with a 45/70 @ 1350 FPS and a 30-06 @ 2150 FPS and my trap stopped them dead. I did add two additional rubber pavers in front of the tote full of rubber mulch, but it was still a success!

Kind of nice that I can recoup all of my lead and not have to scrounge. What a simple way to save lead. Far better than sifting through sand.

[bumpo628]

I did some shooting with a 45/70 @ 1350 FPS and a 30-06 @ 2150 FPS and my trap stopped them dead. I did add two additional rubber pavers in front of the tote full of rubber mulch, but it was still a success!

Kind of nice that I can recoup all of my lead and not have to scrounge. What a simple way to save lead. Far better than sifting through sand.

Have you got any pictures of that trap? I've been thinking about making one of these.

[Duckdog]

I'll try to get a couple of pictures this weekend. Nothing fancy, but effective.

[joken]

If stall mats were hung with a space between them it seems reasonable that a bullet would either embed in the rubber or fall to the ground. I have no idea how many layers of mat it would take to stop a .45 acp. Ken

[PatMarlin]

Pics?