Range lead

[johnstonab]

The beagle got me up at 0630 so I figured I should go and fetch lead. The range doesn't open till 0900 so I had plenty of time. I learned a couple things, finding lead at the rifle range is almost impossible, stick to the pistol berm. Getting bullets out of a frozen berm is hard. Jhp's are sharp, be careful.

I didn't get a lot, 5-10 lbs buts its lead.

61591

Alex

[Ole]

Heck if it's only 5lbs that's still 35,000 grains of lead. :mrgreen:

[johnstonab]

Well that's before melting it out of jackets. We will see when I get a chance to melt it.

[mdi]

Any free lead is good lead...:mrgreen:

[Raven_Darkcloud]

Yup, range scrap is good.

[runfiverun]

you'll get over 100, 38 boolits from that little pile.

[johnstonab]

well, I got on the scale and weighed my self, not bad for jeans, heavy boots, flannel and my xd-45, then i grabbed the bucket of bullets. twelve lbs including bucket. There is plenty more in the berm.

alex

[41 mag fan]

try getting a 55 gal drum 3/4 full from one berm and you're not close to done. I bet I can get another same amount from the same berm.

[johnstonab]

Well, I will try to get up early at least once a week and go pick the berm. I also learned that I might be better off with a couple small buckets instead of one big bucket. Something that is easier to move around with. I think I will also take a small shovel when the berm thaws out, dig a bit out to sift through.

My wife thought I brought home a bunch of rocks until I cleaned them up. The boys are learning a bit along with me, they helped me sort the fmj's out so I could crack the jackets. I was happy to see a bunch of cast boolits in my bucket.

[blackthorn]

You owe the Beagle a few extra biscuts for getting you off your butt and out to the range!!!

[AricTheRed]

Any free lead is good lead...:mrgreen:

Unless it is coming at you much faster than 88 fps...

[TheGrimReaper]

Any free lead is good lead...:mrgreen:

So true, I wish I had it. I haven't been able to get to the range with it empty in months!

[frkelly74]

When the snow melts you can pick up nice clean pistol bullets that never made it to the berm. You will be tempted to just load up some of them and shoot them as found. Actually they can work pretty well at least in a 45. And I know another guy who uses salvaged 45 hard ball in his muzzle loader in a plastic sabot.

[dilly]

I enjoy range lead when I can as well.

You guys have any luck scrapping the copper?
Local scrapyard called it "lead" because it was filthy when we tried to scrap it. Charlatans.

[frkelly74]

The one near me took it and called it plumbers brass, $1.20 a lb. By rights it should be #2 copper. But found money is still money and better than no money. I was pretty careful to remove the steel shards and scrap that separately.

[johnstonab]

Melted all down, got about 9# of lead out of it. I'm happy with that. Man was that stuff dirty.

[johnstonab]

@grimreaper
I went before shooting time. The range I use isn't public and I have access before hours. If your local range is public they might let you out there at zero dark to pick the berm.

[Jal5]

I don't bother treating the FMJ with the hammer anymore. Just turn up the heat and cover your pot. 99% of them will melt out, whatever doesn't goes into the scrap bucket. Took too much time to sort and hit them all. Joe

[Jim]

Last year, between February and September, I processed a little over 8,000 lbs of range scrap in seven months. I had no time to be smashing FMJs or TMJs with a hammer. Not only did the filler lead come out of the FMJs, most of the TMJs burst open in the pot to release the lead filler.

Sometimes, ya' gotta' decide if the time and trouble it takes to sort and smash is worth the few extra ounces of lead.

All the talk you hear about not washing because of the danger of explosions is hogwash. I modified an electric cement mixer to wash the scrap. Every bit of it went in the smelter soakin' wet. I just didn't pour wet scrap in the pot with molten lead.

Put your first batch in the pot, fire it and smelt it. When you're done ladling it in the ingot molds, turn the fire off and wait for the remaining lead in the pot to solidify. You don't have to wait for it to cool. You just need to wait for it to solidify.

I ran six to eight 8 qt. pots like that every day, six days a week for seven months. If it created explosions, I sure wouldn't have done it more than once.

[Forrest r]

I’ve been using/shooting nothing but range lead for almost 3 decades now, it makes excellent boolits.

The best time of year to get range lead is in the dog days of summer. A lot of people will chew up the berm for you with all the summer time shooting. You will end up with anywhere from 4” to 10” of silt to pick/sift thru. The lead/bullets comes out clean (no wet mud stuck to it) & it’s nothing to get 100# an hour this way.

The local club I’m a member of & get my lead from started frowning on anyone using any type of tool to “mine” lead as they called it. Someone went in there & spoiled it for everyone by digging huge holes (in the rifle range berm no less) to try to find lead. So now I just use my fingers & an empty milk jug with the hole in the top cut a little bigger. I’ll pick up lead between shooting & will manage to fill a jug per trip in the summer time. A 1 gallon milk jug filled with range lead will clean up to be 35# of lead ingots.

Last year I hit it a little harder than I normally do & acquired 700# of cleaned lead. Normally I collect around 300# of cleaned lead for all my shooting needs for the year.

A bucket of copper jackets that are a by-product of range lead.

61931

What a local scrap yard paid for that bucket of copper jackets. I sell the copper off every year & buy primes & powder with the $$$$. Basically the free lead pays for my reloading components.

61932

[johnstonab]

One more lesson learned today while casting, crayons that your kiddos get when you go out to eat do not work well for fluxing. They melt and smoke a lot and then leave a hard burnt thing on the surface. Not the same as putting a candle in.

[Raven_Darkcloud]

No the crayons are best to color your lube.

[johnstonab]

This range lead thing is a lot easier when the berm isn't frozen. Got 20+ lbs today. Muddy but not frozen.

[WHITETAIL]

I also mine the pistol berm.
It adds up over the year.
Free lead is good lead.:Fire:

[Raven_Darkcloud]

I got some 1/4" chicken fenceing to make a sifter box or 2. Add a dc motor with an off balance weight and hang it in a frame by bungie cord. It will run a long time on some d cells.