Alloy analysis on my smelted range lead

[truckjohn]

There was a recent post on recovering range lead.
Figured I would post my alloy results for others to enjoy.

Background:
I live in Upstate South Carolina. Ground is Rocks + Red Clay.
The DNR shooting range is near a creek bottom, with the backstop made out of a large hill. As such, it is a smidgeon more sandy than the standard "Red Clay", but it makes up for it with about 3x the wood chips and assorted swarf.

I decided to take about 1/2 hour worth of scooping and screening -- arrival to leaving... which means only about 15-min worth of actual digging and screening.

I used my small screen box and a garden mattox to scoop. I saved about 30 lbs of Bullets + pea gravel + wood chips.

Next time, I think a 2-stage screening would be a better idea. I got a giant pile of large wood chips and bigger rocks..... maybe 1" or 3/4" hardware cloth "Go" and 1/4" hardware cloth "No Go" would at least help keep the big stuff out.

Anyway, here is the results.
18.5 lbs lead, 11.5 lbs Rocks, Dirt, ash and dross.
Cost me almost an entire propane can on the turkey fryer -- so not exactly cost effective vs WW.

0.25% Sn
0% Sb
0% As
0% Zn
0.008% Ca
0.015% Cu
Essentially pure lead.

The high Copper is probably from cooking it so long on the turkey fryer base with the jackets, dirt,and rocks.

I casted a bunch of 45 ACP slugs before I did the alloy test..... *Exactly* like pure lead -- Doesn't fill out or flow right unless it is HOT, bullets are *very* shiny and sooooft, even a couple days later.... they make my "Aged" air dropped WW seem like steel.

Have a good one

John

[ANeat]

Must of been almost all jacketed or swaged bullets. Who did the analysis and what did it involve??

Adam

[truckjohn]

I had a friend who works in a lab help me out.

They use a metal analyzer to do it -- about 5 minutes and you get your results.

Downside is that it costs about $50,000 + $7,000/year maintenance to buy one.

Thanks

[jhalcott]

When I worked in the steel mill they had an out fit analyze some of the turbo blowers. I asked one of the techs if they could do a test on some lead bullets I cast. The guy gave me a print out about a foot long . It had even the trace metals recorded. The machine had radiation warnings on it!

[Lloyd Smale]

I think that if i used a whole propane tank to get 18lbs of pure lead and figureing in the time involved id have to find a different way to get my lead. A little trick to smelting a bunch of scrap that is full of dirt and junk is to smelt the first pot get a little good lead in the bottom of your pot skim off the junk and let it cool. then add more of the crap to the pot. It seems like if you have a couple inches of good lead in the bottom of the pot it greatly speeds up the process of extract more from the rest of it. Be sure your careful though if adding your dirt and lead mixture to hot lead as if theres moisture you could have trouble. If you let it cool to the point where it is just solidifying you shouldnt have any problem. I use that method for smelting range lead and radiator solder and it about cuts smelting time in half. The more lead you leave in the pot the faster it will go. About half a pot is ideal. I dont even try fluxing just leave my half a pot add some to it, melt it and skim it. Lable it into to ingots leaving my half a pot and repeat. When im all done i put all the ingots back in the pot and remelt them and flux and clean the lead and make good ingots.

[GSM]

If there are a lot of bullets, you can be a little selective in what you get just by picking up the bullets instead of screening shovel fulls of stuff. It's a little tiring on the back muscles, but you can be picky about what you get if it's a target rich area. It's a little easier a day or two after a good rain or if you can find a "vein" where the runoff collects.

Some of the stuff I've picked up has been mostly "hard cast" commercial and soft stuff from falling plates (a lot of 22's & FMJ). Using half of each, the ingots come out 14-16 BHN. Thanks to the commercial casters for making their alloy so hard! Free, hard alloy for the cost of a little time and some electricity. Great for short line bullseye.

For what it's worth: Keep track of what you take out (date, location, amount, and what was done with it) in case there are any questions later or if someone wnats to show that the range is being proactive and attempting to do its part to recycle materials.

[MGySgt]

Like some others here I have my own private range. Most of what is get is every time I go to the back stop, I pick up what is there and drop it into a 3 lb coffee can in the shooting shed. BTW - I am not picky about what I pick up, my son has shot some store bought hard cast and swaged and some of the dreeded J bullets along with 12 GA slugs, 9 mm & 40 factory. I just added it to my WW.

I just smelted down 500lbs of WW and another 150 lbs of reclaimed bullets.

Other then a LOT of sand in the pot that I put most of the reclaimed in, it was a lot quicket then the WW.

Drew

[targetshootr]

I started picking up lubed boolits whenever I put up targets. I plan to get the dirt off and add them in the pot with lead already melted. It won't ever be much but it's as fun as looking for arrowheads. Wish there was a way to reclaim the hundreds of pounds buried in there but it would be labor intensive and they might not like someone mining more than shooting.

[truckjohn]

I think part of my problem was trying to process too little lead.... and too many rocks and wood chips.

I think I concur with Lloyd's exhortation "Range Lead is Too Much Trouble..."
Work vs Lead Cost is stacked very unfavorably to the "Work" end. Add to that the Pure Lead output vs the desired "Mostly Hard Lead" output I wanted.... not really worth it.

To make it worth it....
1. "Ore" must be better than 30% rocks and wood.
2. Bullet mix would be more cast, less jacketed+22's.
3. Easier to get 100 lbs of "Ore"
4. More efficient "smelting" pot.

Thanks

John

[db22]

I use a simple rule in using range lead: any cast boolit goes in one can, all jacketed bullets in another, along with round balls and minnies from the muzzleloader range. The assumption is that anything that looks cast for a modern firearm is probably at least as hard as WW metal, and the cores of jacketed bullets are pretty close to pure lead, along with muzzleloader boolits being pure lead as well.

The first (cast) can goes in my alloy ingots for modern guns, the second goes in the ingots I use for my muzzleloader. As another poster remarked, the latter turn out very shiny, and the resulting Lee REAL boolits shoot just fine in the muzzleloader.

With WWs getting harder to find, and range lead there for the taking, it's just too good to pass up.

Dave