Tips on Salvaging Range Lead

[Andy_P]

I've seen some good tips here and there, but little in the way of pics, and a number of questions unanswered.

We have an outside berm that has been shot into for years and has never (to the best of my knowledge) had any lead salvaged from it. I dug around in it and came up with a few pounds of scrap, but I'd like to go with real gusto and not re-invent the wheel in refining a method. The berm is made of very sandy soil and at 100 yds. Here's few questions:

- where will I find most of the bullets? What height and depth? Do they migrate downwards from gravity?
- what's the best method to separate soil from scrap? Pics
- any special tips onm the smelting of it?

[mooman76]

If the range has been shot allot, there should be a pretty good indintation in the backstop. The place where it is deepest should have the most. Get some heavy metal screen like the diamond shaped stuff with small holes. Build a frame to hold it at about a 45 degree angle and throw the dirt on it. the loose dirt should go through and the bullets roll off. You will have some rocks and stuff but thats ok. Pick out the bigger junk and melt it all in a big pot. The non lead stuff will float. MAKE SURE IT IS ABSOLUTLY DRY WHEN YOU DO THIS OR IT WILL EXPLODE!

[Freightman]

Do not fill the five gal. bucket up or you will need a fork lift, about half is all I can load into my pick-up so I take two buckets.

[redneckdan]

from my exerpience. it does take a more energy to melt range lead than ingots or wheel weights.

[Lloyd Smale]

ive tried many ways and just about have given up on it. Its to me more work then its worth. You usually will do alot better for lbs of lead for time invested cruising the tire shops for wws

[monadnock#5]

With the price of scrap on its way out of sight, it's small wonder you would want to try mining the berm. Do resist the temptation however. Lloyd's advice is sound. And besides, this is the sort of thing you need to get the permission of the Board for before hand, especially if you're a short timer.

Ken

[ron brooks]

When I'm he only one there I just walk around the berms, especially after a rain, and pick up the slugs laying on the top of the ground, May only get a couple of pounds, but it bets nothing and no one is getting upset.

[randyrat]

For the first time i picked up some range lead, smelted it with some WWs and learned what to do with FMJs..Lucky i had a cover on the pot. Watch out they explode.

[Bent Ramrod]

Andy,

Our old berms are out in the desert where the rain falls seldom and the wind blows a lot. The lead seems to get concentrated on top of the soil down to within a few inches of the surface out here. Skimming off the top and sieving the dirt back into the place skimmed, and then moving on to the next outcropping seems to work best for me. A few months or a year later, that place has another outcropping of lead to repeat the process on.

I keep out of the way of the dirt as it goes through the sieve, so as not to breathe the dust. Have had no trouble with water explosions because everything is so dry; however, large jacketed slugs, like .45 hardball, will sometimes squirt lead for several inches as the insides melt and expand.

[32 20 Mike]

ive tried many ways and just about have given up on it. Its to me more work then its worth. You usually will do alot better for lbs of lead for time invested cruising the tire shops for wws

The use of ww's now is more productive, less the "PC" Zinc wts that seem to becoming the wt of the future. Back in the early 1970's when my dept. still issued M19s and cast SWC 38 Spec. ammo for pract, the lead build up became a safety issue in our berm. One of the Honor Farm maintenance guys built a hand crank sieve out of 1/4 inch expanded metal that had a cylinder 14 inches in dia by 20 inches long that was mounted on a stand. It looked like a mini cement mixer that was turned with the crank. The Dept's blt & fishing wt casters could mine all the lead they wanted. Then we went to 9mm's with jackets and it became a major problem to melt the lead from the copper jackets. I found that if you start with a 1/2 full pot of melted lead then add the jacketed stuff slowly it melts faster. BUTTTTT then you have almost pure lead core metal to deal with.... So after a long story, use WW's if you can get them. Mike

[Shiloh]

My shooting buddy and I have been mining for range lead as our sources for WW has dried up.:cry: We asked the range caretaker and he said it was okay as it was for our personal consumption, and he knows we both use a LOT of cast boolits

I takes a lot of propane and there is a mountain of scrap jackets, rocks, wads, ect. It is also soft as it is closer to a pure lead. We use it for pistol bullets and save our WW for rifle boolits. Adding about 15%-20% magnum shot and water hardening would give a good product though.

Four 5 gal. buckets 1/2 full will yield about 2/3 bucket of smelted lead "Muffins"

Shiloh :castmine:

[hunter64]

I was thinking more on the lines of building some kind of bullet trap that I could haul out to the range with me every time I go. Just has to stop handgun speed lead bullets so I would think a 1/2" of steel at 45deg. angle with another one angled at 45 deg back towards the front and both sides covered in would work. Bullet would hit the first plate then bounce (splat) forward and hit the second one and then end up in the bottom of the trap. Have a metal sliding tray that you just take out and dump in a bucket after an hour of shooting and you have it. That way you can just keep recycling the lead you already have.

[WHITETAIL]

AndyP, I also scroung range lead. I have an old 14x10 wooden box with a screen with 1/4 inch holes on it. I just scoop a shovel full of dirt and shake it. What ever stays goes in a 5 gal. pail. Then when I get home this is dumped on the drive way and fiest picked throu. Then gets washed with a hose. Let dry in the sun, and put away till I smelt some time later in the year.

[pipehand]

I was on a long term job near Asheville,N.C. a couple of years ago, and was able to shoot IDPA at the local range every Tuesday night. This range had a slanted backstop that was covered with chunks of truck tires. They had just recently brought in a bobcat loader, and scooped out the bullet and tire mix, and piled it all up outside. I asked if I could have a few buckets full and was told to take all I wanted.
To separate out the rubber, I stopped of at the local grocery store that sold non iodized table salt in the 50 pound bag (rediculously cheap compared to the 1 lb. container) and mixed up a saturated brine solution in a 5 gallon bucket. I poured the rubber/bullet mix into the brine and the rubber floated to the top (it will sink in plain water) and skimmed it off. I then poured the brine into another bucket and repeated the procedure etc. The bullets were then rinsed of salt, and the rubber chunks became part of the gravel driveway. There was still some rubber caught in the cavities and jackets of JHP's but for the must part it was clean. After smelting I got 10, 2-1/2 gallon KrispyKreme icing buckets full of ingots cast in a Lodge cornbread pan (round pan divided into 6 pie shapes). The ingots fit the bucket perfectly, but even at half the size of a 5 gal. bucket, they are about all you can lift without pulling the handles off.
Just thought y'all might be interested in another mining/separation technique.

[garandsrus]

Pipehand,

I found that the rubber sinks in plain water also, which surprised me. I thought that salt water might be able to float the rubber, but hadn't tried it. Thanks for confirmation!

John

[randyrat]

MMMMMMmmm maybe it wouldn't be a bad idea. Get mining rights to all the ranges now for the future. You could even charge a small enviromental clean up fee. >>>i like the salt water trick and the rubber

[TAWILDCATT]

sometimes you people come with new great ideas.the salt was fantastic idea.the back stops need redesigning to improve the ability to mine them before the wackos make life miserable.

[redbear705]

Our range is going to mine the shotgun fields.

I asked a knowledgable person about using the shotgun pellets for making bullets. He told me that it is not a good idea to use shot as there is too much arsenic and antimony in it and it doesnt make good bullets......

Is there any truth to this?

I would like to know before I go talk to the miners about buying a couple of tons of the stuff.

Thanks....JR

[Scrounger]

Our range is going to mine the shotgun fields.

I asked a knowledgable person about using the shotgun pellets for making bullets. He told me that it is not a good idea to use shot as there is too much arsenic and antimony in it and it doesnt make good bullets......

Is there any truth to this?

I would like to know before I go talk to the miners about buying a couple of tons of the stuff.

Thanks....JR

I thought you said he was knowlegible... Just add 1 or 2 per cent tin and it will work fine. I'd buy a half ton if it was around here.

[redbear705]

I am going to buy a ton of this lead if The contractor will give me a good price on it!

I figure that even if it is too hard I will cast rifle boolits with it or thin it out with pure lead or wheel weights.

Hmmmmm.....maybe I should buy more.....or ask for a discount because some of the recovered lead is mine!? :)

JR

Anyhow I have to wait till they get there to do the recovery so I can talk to them about the purchasing of the recoved lead......:(

[cohutt]

I played a little yesterday evening at berm mining. Modest success. made a filter screen out of 1/4" hardware cloth on 2x4s built like a stretcher.

will i do it again? I dunno- perhaps i got it out of my system.

here is some of the report i posted in another reloading forum ealrier, hope it helps anyone who wants to try it. if your soil is sandy vs the georgia clay this might work pretty well-
__________________________________________________ __________
Ok here are the pics i took before my camera died

first, view from truck back to the berm destination. hardware cloth stretcher in bed

http://i107.photobucket.com/albums/m284/cohutt/bermining001.jpg


the contraption- note that I was too cheap to cut off the hardware cloth roll; i figure i'd leave it a 10 foot roll for future use of some sort.
it is 1/4", screwed down to the fram with lathing and sheetrock screws

http://i107.photobucket.com/albums/m284/cohutt/bermining002.jpg

first load- i tried to balance the rack on the recycling bin but it didn't work well. also broke the recycling bin (sorry, City of R, GA)

http://i107.photobucket.com/albums/m284/cohutt/bermining003.jpg

i think i did about 4 shovelfulls, spread out a bit and somewhat filtered. see them thar boolits on the ground too?

http://i107.photobucket.com/albums/m284/cohutt/bermining004.jpg

same lot, filtered more and ready to dump.

http://i107.photobucket.com/albums/m284/cohutt/bermining005.jpg

modest success, same lot in a bucket - pretty heavy, so i didn't quit at this point

http://i107.photobucket.com/albums/m284/cohutt/bermining006.jpg

little more to follow....

[cohutt]

eventually i couldn't tell rock from dirtclod from bullet as the dust got finer and covered everything. i started thinking i was getting more rocks than anything else, but then the weight of the handfuls tossed into the buckets suggested otherwise.

the rack worked ok, but i maybe would 2-stage it next time. i'd use 1/2" over the 1/4 to pull the bigger stuff out maybe.

found out less is better and to dump the shovel over a larger area of the rack to save sweeping and bouncing.

the bouncing/shaking worked pretty well- basically picked up one end of the stretcher and shook the contents down towards the other side, then i'd go to other end and do same.

after the shots above i backed truck up so i could balance the stretcher level between the tailagte and the berm hill. no bending over = ++

next pics show how i spread and used shovel to mush the dirtclods through

ok, a couple or 3 of these:

http://i107.photobucket.com/albums/m284/cohutt/bermining007.jpg

spaced apart a little

http://i107.photobucket.com/albums/m284/cohutt/bermining008.jpg

shake it out into a pile of rocks bullets and dirtclods. i picked the bigger rocks out here so i could do the final step in filtering

http://i107.photobucket.com/albums/m284/cohutt/bermining009.jpg

at this point i took the shovel and pressed it flatside over the pile with some downward pressure like i was spreading out a pile of sand or cement. this was pretty effective in busting up the clods and having the pieces fall through.

end product, ready for the bucket, complete with fluxing material for the smelt. some of what appears to be rocks are actually bullets- the deformed remains were pretty deceiving so i quit trying to pick the rocks out when i got to this stage. (The blood loss from the horseflies and finger lacerations was taking its toll and i wanted to get done before it rained. )


http://i107.photobucket.com/albums/m284/cohutt/bermining010.jpg

(camera died here. )

[BluesBear]

As Arte Johnson, wearing a German helmet, used to say at the end of every episode of Rowan & Martin's Laugh-In...

Veelllllly intelesting.


I hope you get enough useable lead to make the effort worthwhile.
Even though soil isn't the best test medium, it's interesting to see how some of them expanded.

[cohutt]

As Arte Johnson, wearing a German helmet, used to say at the end of every episode of Rowan & Martin's Laugh-In...

Veelllllly intelesting.


I hope you get enough useable lead to make the effort worthwhile.
Even though soil isn't the best test medium, it's interesting to see how some of them expanded.

funny how the lead pitol boolits stayed pretty much in shape. The jacketed bullets were the same. the HP jackets bullets were in all sorts of contorted shapes.
found a couple of hollow based minis that were huge in comparison and somewhere in between the pistol lead boolits and the HP remains in deformation.

[BluesBear]

Ahh your update wasn't there when I started my post. Wow, I type slow


Looks like a very good way to do it. I do think your idea of doing it in two stages might work better also.

If it were me when I got the buckets home I'd pour them back out on the rack and hit it with the hose. Seems like an easy way to not only get the dirt jacketing off the boolits but it'd also wash away most of the remaing non-smeltable materials.

[Goatlips]

Cohutt, your post and pictures ought to be put somewhere that we can find them again.

Now where did I put that roll of hardware cloth....

Goatlips

[RSOJim]

Hi Guys, here in florida we have sandy berms. So my recovered buckets of bullets have sand all over them. What I decided to do was to drill a bunch of holes in my buckets. When I get home and unload my truck I put the water hose in them, most but no all the sand flushes out the holes. Do not use these recovered bullets until they are completely dry. Oh yes, I have basically the same process for recovering bullets as cohutt. Its a lot of work, but lead is getting harder to get.

[georgeld]

When I was mining the berms. Welded up a small tray set up with two handles. One on the end, the other 10" or so from that. Just a metal tray 2" deep, 10" wide and 16" long. End opposite from the handle has a 4" 16ga lip for the digging. Bottom is open and covered with 1/4" hardware cloth.

Just dig it in and scoop up a bit, shake, dump in the buckets. Wouldnt' take five minute's on our older much used berms to put 4-6" in a bucket. That's all I want to carry, when I need several hundred pounds. I'll take a bunch of buckets and drive down the range to close to the berm to save carrying very far.

Thing is with all the rocks and crap. For melting. Two ways, dump it all in a kettle and melt. Rocks and dirt clods float, everything else either melts, or burns off.

Then I got into major quantities and welded up that monster copy of Lee's ProPot, seen elsewhere some place on this site.

Didn't take long to discover it was easier to keep things seperated by laying a sand screen over the pot. Fire under the pot with a weed burner, and a second weedburner with a lever valve shut off on the handle so it's not burning full time. When needed, point at the other fire and squeeze the lever and it's going.

Couple handsful, or light scoop of scrap on the screen. Fire it up til it's all burned and melted. Some fines' will fall thru, that's insulation to keep the melt hot. What melts goes thru into the pot, trash burns off, whats left is jackets, rocks or other materials and goes into the recycle pile/bucket. Don't take long to melt 500 lbs.

Didn't take long to discover I needed both a helper, and a BUNCH of ingot molds. Once the pot is half or more full, on mine, just trip the lever and the lead flies out the drain pipe into a 10lb ladle as it bounces right out of a mold. I can cast ingots fast enough to over work a helper that's dumping solidified ingots from ten molds til he's crying for a slower pace.

Level full five gallon bucket will generally produce 110-125lbs of ingots and half a bucket of jackets from the indoor pistol range. From the dirt/rocky outside berm there's rocks to sort, haven't come up with an easy way to do that.

Far as the FMJs, IF you want to mess with them and get the lead out. any kind of small bolt cutter to cut thru the jacket and toss it in the melt, or fire and the lead flows out easy once it's hot. There's enough hard stuff in the scrap I get those softer filled FMJ's are not noticed.

Recyclers have tied up ALL the WW's in this area. They even buy it from the scrap yards. Our range don't care long as we don't leave big holes in the berms. I try to put the dirt into the blown out areas. Heavy rains wash the berm down and exposes all the bullets you'd care to pick, dig, or rake up from the surface. It's heavy all over the area of the berms. On top, on the back side even. They are 20' high and the surface looks much like a gravel driveway for all the bullets showing on it.

[blysmelter]

HAd szom spare time this afternoon and decided to check out the mining posibilities on some old/shutdown ranges nearby. One is an old rifle range, it was used for close to 100 years, the other is/was a trap field.
The trapfield is promissing, around 200meters from the stand you can see lots and lots of no 7 leadshot lying on the ground, scooped up some in a bucket I had in the truck. Guess I collected like 5kgs in 15minutes. I will go back there bringing a small shovel (I guess I have to steal some kids toy:-)). Anyone got an idea on how to separate the lead shot from gravel and sand?? Will the brine-trix do it?

The riflerange migth also provide a good source of lead, the soil is quite dry even after a couple of days of rain. Guess I have to make some screen and do a test. Most of it will be 6,5mm FMJ bullets, migth make some trouble when melting down?

WW is a dead source over here, checked out all tirestores and garages, only a couple of pounds to be found-the rest is zinc:-(, so the shots will be a good source for antimony and arsen for my bullets.

[montana_charlie]

Having no ranges to mine, and no mind to mine ranges, I have ignored this thread from the outset. I dropped in by accident, but had to stay long enough to look at the pictures.

Having looked...and read some...I see that bullet-sized rocks are the main problem.

If I were to get into a project of this type (which I won't) I would immediately build a rocker box, hook up a water source, and 'float' the rock off of the lead just like the gold miners did.
They even sell hi-tech 'rocker boxes' if you don't feel like building one...
CM

[blysmelter]

Maybee a big aluminium pot and a 3mm drill could be the trick to sort out the shot? Just dump the mix into the pot and leave the garden hose running over it?

[armoredman]

I cheat. I have a buddy who is an employee of a local indoor range, and he just brought over some range scrap. Not nearly what you guys get, that's for sure, but cool. Looks good until i get a smelter setp, and he'll bring more then.

[georgeld]

Bly/others:
Go to a gravel outfit and ask for a piece of fine sand screen. IF you don't have a torch, ask them to cut off a section a couple feet across. Then weld the edge's some so it'll stay together. OTherwise before long you'll end up with just a bunch of loose wires.

THEN: lay it over a pot of some kind to catch the melt, get a propane weed burner torch or two. Set one up under it to keep it liquid. Use the second one to melt the lead on top the screen in small quantities.

Trash will burn off,
lead and such will melt and flow thru the screen into your pot,
rocks, jackets, and crap will just lay there. Once it's all melted that you can, dump the leftovers in a pile to the side. and reload the screen. Works slick.

IF there's a lot of jackets like from that range berm, or the indoor range, try to keep it seperated from the rocks and crap so it can be sold for scrap brass/copper. A bucket full around here will bring $40-80. Way more than enough to pay for the materials to build a system and the gas it uses.

Shot will melt quickly, so get a bunch of it. What fine dirt falls thru into the melt will just float and help insulate the melt from cooling as fast. Once you're done, just dip it off to clear surface melt and pour your ingots from that. Throw some flux, or wax on it and stir it in to clear more crap out of the lead and you'll have some good boolet making lead. should be a real good hardness too.

Hope this helps. Look in the months old thread here somewhere for 'George's melting pot'. should be on the smelting equipment if I recall right.

Good luck, have fun, mine to your desire you're helping clean up the environment if anyone asks what you're doing.

[testhop]

I've seen some good tips here and there, but little in the way of pics, and a number of questions unanswered.

We have an outside berm that has been shot into for years and has never (to the best of my knowledge) had any lead salvaged from it. I dug around in it and came up with a few pounds of scrap, but I'd like to go with real gusto and not re-invent the wheel in refining a method. The berm is made of very sandy soil and at 100 yds. Here's few questions:

- where will I find most of the bullets? What height and depth? Do they migrate downwards from gravity?
- what's the best method to separate soil from scrap? Pics
- any special tips onm the smelting of it?

the way i do it is wait for a good heavy rain this washes the loose dirt away
i take with me a leaf rake this cuts down on stooping down os much
and a shouel to pick them up and i bring 4 5 gal buckets and a 2 gal bucket
i use the small bucket carry it to the truck put the slugs in aone 5 gal till its 1/2 full
then move on to the next bucket
i take them home slift thedurt out pour them out on the concretslab to dry
and make darn sure its dry or you will find out in a hurry
as alwaysmake sure to warelong sleevesshirt and long leg paints and most
importantware glasses i use a full face sheild

[Old Ironsights]

We are absolutely forbidden to mine our club berm... which is too bad because it's been in constant use since 1934 or so.

[mag44uk]

COHUTT et al,
This device you made is almost identical to a couple we made at my club.Here in the UK last year we had torrential rain which washed the back stop onto the range floor.We had to fix it quickly due to competitions coming up.About 25 of us got together one weekend and made up the sieves but we used a roller for the sieve to run backwards and forwards on. The roller we used is like you would have under a conveyor belt. The roller that you use with a bench saw for supporting long boards might also work. Man at each end,wheel barrow to put the lead in and a barrow to put the sand in. Over the weekend we recovered about 15 ton of lead.
If you had an old barrow you could drill a load of holes in it and wash the lead down with a hose.
God alone knows how much sand we moved!
Regards,
Tony

[UweJ]

I also shoot BP and a friend from another Club asked if I needed any lead for Nitro , naturally I said yes and I followed him to their Clubhouse to collect the lead. There were 3 5gallon buckets full of wonderfull clean lead boolits and a few copper plated HP`s. When I asked how come they were so clean he showed me their bullet trap.
It was filled with small rubber scrap pieces. There was no dirt whatever. We had a few beers and now I get all of their "scrap" lead. I call myself lucky having friends like that.Just an idea I introduced in my club. By the way .did I mention that I´ve just gotten 1530 KG of lead that we cleaned out of our range?lol
Uwe

[Stevejet]

You could just "mine" mall and shopping center parking lots with a pair of pliers and very good running shoes!

[blysmelter]

Its cold and winter here now, so outside mining is not ab option. So what to do? Offcourse-vounteer for cleaning of the indoor pistolrange. Things has been out of style there for some time so lots of empty brass floating around in the gravel.
2 evenings picking leaves me with close to 40kgs (thats nore than 80pounds) of brass and some 20kgs of projectiles. The local scrapdealer is willing to trade me 2kg lead for 1kg brass. Win-win-situation, I get free lead and goodwill in the club and the club ends up with a clean range.
And still there are severeal 100s of kilos of projectiles to pick. Most of it is copper-plated so i wil try melting some first to see if it is worth it. I do not know how they will react when melted.

[standles]

The copper plated/semi-jacketed will do fine. The issue I have had is with the FMJ rounds. They will pop in the melt if your not careful. Reccomended to me was to take a pair of dyke pliers and nip each one so the lead could ooze out.

That is ok for a small lot but smelting 3-6 hundred pounds it is a pain. I am contemplating putting a heavy lid on top and pour the hear to it till the popcorn sound starts or come up with some kind of mangler to run them through

Steven

[Baron von Trollwhack]

I now use a 60 pound capacity pot running on a propane turkey cooker. Whatever I have for scrap goes into the empty pot on melt day, filling it to the brim. Wet, dry, indifferent, except what I believe to be zinc. The water cooks off before the lead melts and eventually I can skim most of the floating, bits glowing, smoking crud off the top, leaving 1 inch floating with grease smoking for "flux" and then dipper off the liquid alloy at the bottom. As long as it's not dripping water, more of the same goes into the pot in top of the sargasso floating lead crud and the same process occurs. This allows steam to escape as the scrap heats. The crud insulates steam burps when heavy bits fall below. I borrow little ingot moulds from several bullet buddies and they do the same to make ingotting easier. I keep pot melts separate after they cook so I can roughly keep "melts" equal in quality by selecting equivalent weights when actually casting bullits and adding "secret" ingredients. I'm just a piker, only use a hundred pounds or so of the magic material a year, besides a little in stock, aside from pure lead for round ball or minies. P.S. do not store large drywall mud buckets full of scrap for excessive periods, even out of the sun and undercover. They get brittle and break very easily. BvT

[blysmelter]

Reccomended to me was to take a pair of dyke pliers and nip each one so the lead could ooze out.



There no way I will sit for days with pliers cutting bullets so I think I will cut myself a lid out of some steel-plate.

[exblaster]

To remove jackets and other "stuff" from range lead easily use a long piece of large diameter black iron pipe. Make a long burner out of automotive brake tube drill proper size holes for propane or N.G. about every 1/2 inch along the brake tube and crimp one end. Insert tube burner into iron pipe and secure it .you will need an adapter to hook to a regulator and enough flexible hose to connect the regulator to the tube burner. Attach 12 inches of screening to the end of the iron pipe support the pipe on metal stands with about 2 inches of drop per foot to let the lead and jacket material flow down the pipe to the screened end. the melted lead will pass through the screening and the trash will drop off the end of the screen.
I hope this makes scence to you all it will work . I have seen it in operation and it was handling several tons of material an 8 hour day.

Exblaster

[mroliver77]

As the Baromn stated if you put the scrap in a cold cruciable the water steams off before the lead gets melted. I have never had any problems this way. I get my scrap from an indoor range that has a slanted steel backstop and a water trap to collect scrap. I quit at around 5 ton as I figured that should last me my lifetime. I get around 1/3 jackets by weight. Paying $.03 per lb for the scrap and getting 1/3 lb of scrap copper back I think is a good deal. I figured on just melting it as I need it but with the price of copper way up IA need to build a large melter. Gosh that means I have like 3 tons of scrap copper! I need to get a price on it. My shooting pal sugge3sted that since jackets are some pretty neat alloy mebbe the right place would give a premium for it? J

[truckjohn]

Hey all,

For what it's worth, I did my own testing on a small batch of "Range Ore." I made up a sifter box -- about 18" x 8" x 4". 1/4" mesh hardware cloth.

This was a sample taken from a "Medium volume" range.

1. Raw ore = red clay backstop sifted back through 1/4" mesh. Ore = everything bigger than the mesh that I couldn't quickly pick out...... so it contained pea gravel, dirt, wood, plastic bits, etc.

2. 30 lbs starting weight after sifting out most of the dirt and little stuff.

3. 18.5 lbs actual lead into ingots. The remaining 11.5 lbs was a mix of pea gravel, mostly-burnt charcoal wood, bullet jackets, misc metal trash, sand/dirt, ash, and smoke. It was 3x a pain to dross this mess off -- as it was about 80% of the volume.... like 1/2" of liquid lead in the bottom of my pot, 3" of dusty, sandy, trashy swarf above the liquid.

4. Energy used -- Most of a BBQ propane tank full. Not energy efficient at this rate.

5. Analysis on the smelted lead batch -- almost exactly pure lead (I had it analyzed.) This will change quite a bit for others depending on the composition of your "Ore."

Thanks

John

[Andy_P]

I no longer salvage range lead, except for what I shot into it myself. Our berms are sand, and it's easy to see where my shots have gone by the disturbed sand. Just shoot, and then dig them out. I find about 60% of them, so just doing that more than doubles my alloy life. You know what you're getting and it's interesting to see how the bullets behave on impact.

[robertbank]

Noticed you are from Ottawa. Do you shoot at the Connaught Range? Was down for the CFSAC matchs last September as a RO.

Take Care

Bob

[Andy_P]

Noticed you are from Ottawa. Do you shoot at the Connaught Range? Was down for the CFSAC matchs last September as a RO.

Take Care

Bob

Hi Bob. No, You can find me at the Eastern Ontario Handgun Club (EOHC) east of Ottawa, mostly at its Rifle Range. Connaught is a beauty, but only go there on rare occassions.

[joejr]

i shoot into a snowbank and pick up my boolits in the spring,almost 100% recovery

[Old Ironsights]

i shoot into a snowbank and pick up my boolits in the spring,almost 100% recovery

I shot into a bank once...

You won't believe how hard it is to get the FBI off your tuchis...[smilie=1::mrgreen:

[mold maker]

I reciently acquired some really old indoor range lead from a steel back stop and water trap. All the lead is splattered and seriously oxidized. The melted yield is not worth the energy. Is there a way to re-claim the oxides? There are several hundred lbs. involved, and I hate to scrap it.

[mold maker]

Lead, like gold moves down hill. It will be most concentrated at the original foot of the berm. As rain washes the disturbed earth away the lead is left behind. Thats why you find it on the surface of the hill. At the range where I mine, a shovel full at the right place, will be 14 -16 lbs. Of that 11-13 lbs are boolets. When cleaned I get 9-11 lbs of soft lead. Until reciently I didn't save the jacket material. That would be about 2.25 lbs of copper/bronze per shovel, with the rest being dry soil. I have thrown away a fortune over the last 25 years, in jackets.

[Bob in Revelstoke]

With regards to range lead. I am a great believer in recycling. Here, winter comes early and stays late and we have lots of snow. We get a big F.E. Loader to clear a pathway which makes a nice berm. Bullets and boolits shot into snow are usually not damaged. In the spring as the snow melts I pick up everything I can. Lead boolits usually just need cleaning and re-lubing. Jacketed bullets just need cleaning. I usually roll them down a glass plate and by watching carefully can tell if they are damaged i.e. bent. The rifling marks don't seem to make any difference. I fired a box of 45 acp reclaimed today with excellent results. Some of them had so many rifling marks it was hard to tell one from the other. Any damaged lead boolits go into the pot. I make sure gas checked boolits go in when the pot is cold. Otherwise it may get you a visit from the the tinsel fairy and even then I don't stand too close. I know it takes a few months but it saves money and helps the environment. Besides, I dont have much else to do anyway.

[miestro_jerry]

I just bought 50 pounds of recycled range lead for $59 (shipping included) I will add some tin and some reclaimed antimony to made an alloy for hard casting.

Right now lead is going to about $3.00 a pound on the open market. At Cabala's today, they had a sign up about the increase in price of ammo because of the increase in cost of metals.

The area I live in, copper is stolen by the pickup truck load. People climb telephone poles at night and cut drown the phone trunk line for whole communities. We had some fool who cut a live 3 phase line, he didn't make it to the hospital and some body stole a big spool off of the back of an AT&T truck that was in a secured area with chain link and concertina wire. That generated an instant reward offer and a new more secure area for the trucks.

Jerry

[azcoyhunter]

I get a christmas popcorn tin


Fill it full of sand

shoot it

sift the sand

I have to replace the lid but it works.

sometime I get a flyer and have to replace the whole thing, but i love popcorn


Clint

[JIMinPHX]

I was thinking more on the lines of building some kind of bullet trap that I could haul out to the range with me every time I go. Just has to stop handgun speed lead bullets so I would think a 1/2" of steel at 45deg. angle with another one angled at 45 deg back towards the front and both sides covered in would work. Bullet would hit the first plate then bounce (splat) forward and hit the second one and then end up in the bottom of the trap. Have a metal sliding tray that you just take out and dump in a bucket after an hour of shooting and you have it. That way you can just keep recycling the lead you already have.

More on that here -
http://castboolits.gunloads.com/showthread.php?t=23551

I've been having real good luck recovering whole boolits from a crumb rubber box trap. There's also good info on steel plate traps.

About FMJs...
You can dump them out on a cement floor, then whack them with a big lump hammer (baby sledge) to split the jackets. A crack is all you need, then they melt just fine. You can split about 10-20 in a single whack if you have them rolled out flat & tight on the floor.

[blysmelter]

Having a small problem here with copper-plated bullets, they just do not melt. Do I need more heat or am I better of selling/trading this to the local scrappy?

[blysmelter]

Also need good ideas for separating leadshot from soil. Have plenty shot and a small stream-need some hillbillyengineering!

[GSM]

blysmelter:

Do a web search for "sluice box" and "placer mining". Originally used for gold mining.

[blysmelter]

Will do!

[blysmelter]

I give up on the copper-plated bullets, will take them (around 60pounds) to the scrapyard and try to get a deal. Even heating the copper red-hot doesnt release the lead.

[Andy_P]

I give up on the copper-plated bullets, will take them (around 60pounds) to the scrapyard and try to get a deal. Even heating the copper red-hot doesnt release the lead.


Did you try smashing them with a big hammer to open the copper "skin" first? Works for me.

[blysmelter]

No, didnt try that. I dont see that as an option, time is valuable and spending hours handling and smacking bullets is hours better spent on an extra shift.

[yeahbub]

blysmelter, if you're getting them red hot and no lead is leaking out, they may not be lead-core bullets. My experience with copper plated bullets is that they'll leak lead when brought to normal casting temperatures. It's possible you have sintered copper or copper-plated sintered iron "frangible" projectiles. I'm not certain, but I believe the expansion per F degree for lead is a good bit more than copper, hence the leakage even in new plated bullets.

[blysmelter]

This bullets, mostly Frontier, does deform on impact, but do not "open up", size and weigth looks about rigth compared to lead or FMJ. Anyway-off they go:-)

[HABCAN]

Blysmelter: Years ago a gang of us used to regularly 'mine' the local trap range of shot, preferably just after a rain. The shot was 99% #7-1/2 size, and an appropriate shaker screen was used, about 12" square. Lawn rakes gathered the shot from the surface of the ground, and it was poured though the shaker screen a shovelfull at a time into a bucket. At home, we ran the garden hose into the bucket for a while, which flushed out the vegetable matter and most of the sand. We made up a tilt-board about 4' long from a 1x6 with wood strips angled on the face from the outside edges at one end to about 3" apart at the other. We poured the wet mix from the bucket on the 'wide' end of the board a little at a time and tilted it up until the round shot ran off into a 1 qt. glass jar, leaving flattened shot, stones, and junk behind on the board's surface. When the jar was about 1/2 full, we gave it a few good shots of light oil, and shook it all up as you would a cocktail shaker. What came out of the jar was clean polished shot ready to be reloaded back into 12ga. trap loads. Maybe this method has some application for you?

[blysmelter]

Good info! If just spring could come so I can get on collecting!

[mold maker]

Just be aware that trapped moisture is what explodes. FMJs can squirt lead about 4-6"in a fine stream, but this is usually when they are in contact with the liquid melt. As such they will be under the floating dirt and jacket material, so it isn't a problem.
Adding fresh range lead to a cleaned melt is when you get the dangerous explosions from trapped water. First adding sawdust treated with oil or wax (flux), is a way to keep the fresh lead from plunging below the existing melt, and making super heated steam of any trapped moisture. Allways add lead slowly, as in a garden trowel full at a time, on top of the sawdust at the edge of the pot. This allows it to heat slow enough to expand without exploding. It's also safer to heat fresh lead with a lid in place. This method retains heat, speeds the melt, fluxes, and protects you at the same time.
An even safer and faster method is to preheat the fresh addition before adding to the melt. This assures a dry, and explosion free, addition.
I've been smelting all Winter and haven't had a problem out of over 700# of range lead. If its dry and above 55*, I mine the berms. If it's dry and cooler, I smelt. When its wet and cold I cast boolets in the basement.
Man it's nice to be retired. I worked 44 years for this privilege.

[NEWENGLANDCHARTERS]

Our range is going to mine the shotgun fields.
Thanks....JR


How would you go about doing that?

Some kind of Gizmo that you pull behind a tractor?

[kamikaze1a]

After the screening, you could weed out a lot of the rocks/litter by way of a "sluice". It's used in small scale mining and could be built with wood. Basically looks like a washboard with water flowing over it. The heavies (lead) stay behind and the lighter rocks go with the water flow... A boat bilge pump or a motorized trash pump could be used to supply the water flow. If you design the riffles right, it should leave you will mostly bullets. And if you're lucky, maybe a gold nugget!

[floodgate]

kamikaze1a:

Actually, you can, I believe, still buy a "dry washer" from one of the outfits that peddles gold pans and other tools to prospectors and "gold bugs".

Fg

EDIT: Yep, here's the first in a long string of citations from Goggle:

" Small Mining - Dry Washer for Desert Areas
All stones over about 1 inch in diameter generally are discarded in mining. A dry washer usually is run by a small gasoline engine which saves the labour of ...
www.minelinks.com/alluvial/dry_washer.html "

Fg

[jhalcott]

If the shot is OLD and oxidized it may NOT melt very quickly. I found out that a HEAVY roller could break the oxide layer so the lead will melt a LOT easier. I was using a turkey fryer and large iron pot as a melter. As always ,BE CERTAIN the lead is DRY when it goes into the pot!

[Lloyd Smale]

I believe its chilled shot that has arsnic in it. I would bet that most shot that used for trap loads is near pure lead.

[Owens]

I've been reclaiming bullets from an indoor range that my employer is so considerate to supply. Mostly jacketed stuff, but it does have a steel plate backstop system. You do have to pick out the shotgun wads, but thats easy. I can have all I can carry. I don't get too far too fast because of my equipment, but I have so far accumulated around 120# of ingots. Currently I'm using a Lyman 8# pot for reclaiming and a Lee bottom pour for casting. I'm somewhat new to casting, but in that short time I have found it very addicting.

I start by screening the scrap through an old carburetor cleaner basket. It has holes that are just under 1/8". I end up with a pan full of led 'sand'. I find this melts out really quick and fills the pot quickly. There is a fair amount of heavy scud on top to be skimmed off. Not sure what it is, but it's heavy and yet floats on the melt. I think it may be from a few non lead rounds, but not sure.

This weekend I sifted through 2 five gallon buckets of scrap and came up with enough of this 'sand' to cast thirty 1# ingots. Still haven't melted the larger scrap yet. The stuff I have reclaimed hardness tests around 10.4 with a Lee tester.

Just thought I'd throw my bit in here.
Owens