Whats wrong with range lead?

[nagantino]

I posted last week about giving up on WW's as a source of an alloy for casting. I turned to the excellent www.lasc site looking for info on reusing Range Lead as an alloy. Under the section on the make-up of various alloys it said;

" Range-Lead...Could be {and is} anything."

Is Range-Lead not spent bullet heads and therefore ideally suited to making bullets if smelted and recast? I was intending on using range lead from an indoor range.

:confused:

[JeffinNZ]

Absolutely nothing wrong with it but as the LASC site states, it will vary a great deal. When you say indoor range do you mean an indoor small bore range or an indoor general range? If it is small bore all the lead would be .22RF and quite consistent in alloy. A general range will have the lead varying a bit.

The thing to do with either situation is to collect up a large amount and batch it up so that has all be smelted together and will give you a consistent 'brew'.

I have a batch of recovered lead that is BHN 14 in hardness so a great alloy for general use and it was free.

[Glen]

Nothing wrong at all with range scrap. That is my primary source of lead. Recycling it makes a lot of sense. But it will vary from range to range in terms of composition and hardness (and cleanliness). My range scrap tends to run about BHN of about 8 (mostly .22 lead) and has a fair amount of dirt and some jacket metal in it (which just floats to the top when I make my ingots).

[Bob Jones]

I got a lot of indoor range scrap, it works great. Remember the guys at LASC are pushing the ragged edge of performance, so unknown alloys are a concern for them, but for most of us it's no big deal. Indoor scrap varies depending on the range, the stuff I get is mainly large caliber hard-cast and I shoot it in 9mm, 40, .357, .41 and .45 with good results.

One tip is smelt it in as big of batches as you can so you get a bunch of uniform alloy to work with.

[pa_guns]

Hi

A very small amount of the jacket material will dissolve into the lead. It's a fraction of a percent, so it should not make much difference. You also will find chunks of steel in there. They also float to the top.

Bob

[38 Super Auto]

Is Range-Lead not spent bullet heads and therefore ideally suited to making bullets if smelted and recast? I was intending on using range lead from an indoor range.

:confused:

I use range scrap. Depending on the range and where you dig ( behind steel plates, behind backstop, shallow, deep ,etc.), the mix of jacketed and hard cast bullets is variable.

I'd suggest getting all you can and smelt up a 100# or so, throw in a pound or two of tin or solder if there is a lot of jacketed bullets in the mix.

Then test out your new alloy. If it's not hard enough, you can add a controlled amount of linotype or harder alloy to get where you need.

I cast with a mix of range scrap and wheelweights. I sweeten it with about 2% tin. I water drop my bullets and I cast hot (frosted bullets). I am getting 14-15 BHN as cast measured within 24 hours of casting

I think alot depends on your application - are you shooting action pistol, plinking, or long range rifle? Unless you are doing critical longer distance shooting, IMO, a little variation in your alloy is not going to be a primary uniformity factor. That's what we mean when we talk accuracy right? Uniformity in peak pressure, muzzle velocity, ballistic coefficient, bullet weight from shot to shot spells accuracy, right.

I shoot a lot of offhand pistol. I think in general, my loads and firearms are a smaller part of the total error than my ability as a pistolero [smilie=1:

As has been suggested hin this forum, alloy up a batch and cast bullets from that uniform alloy. I do it and my bullet weights vary +/- 0.3gr typical for a 125gr .356

That's < 0.25% That means it's in the noise.

:drinks:

[imashooter2]

Indoor range scrap is what I've been using for a few years now. I estimate the mix at 50% .22's and 25% each jacketed and commercial cast. It casts beautifully as is with no additions whatsoever. Air cooled it's pretty soft, easily scratching with a fingernail. Water dropped it hardens nicely. The 15 BHN reported above seems about right.

The stuff I get is horribly dirty to smelt. It seems they oil it to keep dust down when cleaning the traps. There is much fire and smoke involved as the oil and crap burn off. I do the deed in the winter so that my neighbors aren't trying to BBQ and their windows are closed.

I also turn the buckets out into a wheel barrow and add to the pot with a long handled garden shovel. It gives me one last chance to look it over for dud .22's and if I should miss one, at least I'm not standing over the pot...

[monadnock#5]

If you go further down this forum page you'll find an item titled "Casting Zinc Boolits". While casting range lead is a time honored tradition, and one I'd certainly try, you would have to be as careful smelting scrap as you are wheelweights. As lead wheelweights become more scarce, and the price goes up accordingly, more of us will be tempted into giving zinc a try.

[MakeMineA10mm]

Range lead is pretty good. The vast majority I've seen that has been dug and screened from dirt backstops, is pretty clean and you can even tell what alloy it was (as far as hard, medium, or soft). 22s and jacketed bullets are filled with pure lead (a few jacketed bullets have low-antimony amount in their cores). Commercially cast bullets are usually shinier, along with the guys who shoot linotype bullets. WWs will look a little dark and have black occlusions once in a while on their surface. If you're that worried about the hardness of the recovered range lead, you could go through the effort of sorting it thusly, and mix it to get med-hard to med-soft. Personally, I don't worry about it.

Range lead from the indoor range where I recover some, is usually splattered into little shards from hitting the steel deflector plates. I just mix that in too. I borrowed a buddies hardness tester once, and the unknown scrap lead was just one point different than my WWs, so it really doesn't need a lot of sorting/effort put into it, IMO.

[testhop]

one point on mining range lead i have found that it is easy to mine after a big heavy rain the lead is on the top of the ground i use a leaf rake it saves a lot of stooping over