Backstop lead/scrap

[Ken O]

We cleaned out the backstops at our indoor range. Smallbore, ceterfire PPC, centerfire bulleye, etc. I tried smelting this crap down today, its got lots of wood fibers/dust. I tried screening it but it just clogged the screen, and a lot of the lead is small pieces.

A guy that has been smelting this stuff says he just throws it in his pot and lets it burn off. I let it smelt on my turkey burner for four hours and the lead was like droplets in the wood/ash/charcoal. I tried stiriing it and it just didnt go to the bottom.

Well, for me its more trouble than it worth. I have three more 50 pound 5 gallon buckets. Anyone wants to come and get them its yours free. I live about half way between Kalkaska and Lake City, Michigan.

[runfiverun]

i think lloyd smale may be in your area.

[clintsfolly]

i think lloyd is about 4-5 hrs one way michigan is a big state clint

[ktw]

I'm further away from you than Lloyd, but I will be passing through in the later half of June. If you still have it then, I would be willing to pick it up.

-ktw

[Firebird]

Fill your buckets of scrap with water and stir; the wood fibers should float to the top for easy removal. Or maybe get an empty bucket and put in a little scrap and then fill it with water so that you can stir up the scrap; probably can't effectively stir a bucket full of scrap lead. You would still have the dirt & crud, but without the wood fibers maybe the screening would work better. Even if screening still doesn't work, the smelting should become much easier without the wood fibers causing problems.

[Ken O]

KTM, give me a PM when your coming through and if I still have it .....

I tried floating the fibers out before, but its still more trouble than I want to do. Its like a slurry, I spred it on a screen to dry. There is lots real fine pieces of lead.

[mooman76]

Do you have a slanted driveway you could lay it out and hose it down. One thing that might help if you can't get rid of the excess junk. Melt some lead in your pot first so you have a good pool started like 2". Then add your junk slow and it should burn off and melt fairly quick then because you have allot of heat already generated.
I did this years ago and the guys couldn't give me enough but at the time I had no place to keep it all. I picked out the rocks til I got tired of doing that. I didn't have as much junk as you have but I did find that if I kept a certain amount of lead in the pot I could scrape off the junk quicker because it could float then.

[RP]

If no one picks the range lead up PM me and i can tell you how to do it not a pro but I have reclaimed about 1500lbs in the last two weeks did 350 this afternoon.

[imashooter2]

If no one picks the range lead up PM me and i can tell you how to do it not a pro but I have reclaimed about 1500lbs in the last two weeks did 350 this afternoon.

No need for secrecy... share it with us.

[Ricochet]

If you have a nice breeze blowing outside, you can always try the millennia-old technique of winnowing to separate the lead from the chaff.

[fourarmed]

I did several buckets of .22 LR bullets that were packed in with fiber from the construction board used to mount targets. This worked fine for me, though your situation may not allow it. I dumped it into my bonfire ring and built a fire on top of it. I fed the fire all day, then let it die down. In a couple of days it cooled off and I dug out a big chunk of lead. Had to use an axe to break it up. If I were to do it again, I would use a trowel or spade to make small holes in the ground, then dump on the salvage and build the fire. I think it would make it easier to break up.

[monadnock#5]

On my way home from the range this afternoon, I passed a small shop where they sell metal detecting supplies. Leaned up against the building was a good, old fashioned gold pan. The sucker was ~30" across and ten inches deep. I don't think that size pan would be of much use to you, but I think the principle might serve you well.

[Ken O]

I like the fire ring idea, I have one in the back yard, and lots of firewood.

[georgeld]

I've salvaged over 7 ton of range scrap like that and it's not too bad once I figured it out.

In the thread of the smelting pots, elsewhere are some pictures of a big copy of a Lee bottom pour I welded up. Fired by a weed burner, heat shields around it to save my legs. Lay a piece of sand screen on top the pot, double hand full/small shovel full of scrap on top. Fire up another weed burner and burn the crap off, what melts runs thru into the pot and is kept melted by the main burner.

What I've found is: there's three parts to scrap: if it melts it's bullet material, if it's trash it burns off. The rest is either rocks, dirt or jackets. Keep the jackets clean and you can sell it for brass scrap and more than recover your expenses.

IF/when I had lots of wood and trash that burned. I'd fill a bucket with water, pour some scrap in, pick out the floaters now and then and when done it was clean enough to melt down. Just have to make sure the waters out of it before it gets into the melt and blows up.

I've found this melt is perfect hardness and won't lead a barrel as long as it's hard enough I can't scratch it with a thumb nail. I've never run a hardness tester on it so don't know. But, my K38 has over 10,000 cast thru it without cleaning and it's spotless bore, no sign of leading. Just wipe the smoke off now and then is all.

Good luck, and don't waste it.

[Ricochet]

It's got enough antimony in it to quench harden, too. Even if it's all .22s or jacketed bullet cores. Most of that's not too far from the popular 1/2 wheelweight, 1/2 pure lead mix.

[imashooter2]

Exactly what I've found Ricochet. Pretty soft air cooled, but it quench hardens nicely.

[Ramslammer]

G'Day All
The toad and myself had 1/2 a ton (meteric) of old stufff from the smallbore club. It has steel deflectors so the bullets are completely shattered/melted from hitting them. Also there is wood and paper from the targets plus sand and sawdust from the bullet traps. We put a sheet of corregated iron up on stands sloping downhill and lit a fire under it. Then we piled some of the scrap on it, as the lead melted we raked the scrap and the molten metal ran out the bottom. When we had recovered that the dross was dragged off the sheet and another lot of scrap chucked on. Worked like a dream.
Juddy

[LeadThrower]

My experience is similar to georgeld. I simply melt it in a cast iron dutch oven, using wax or used motor oil as a reducing agent. I scoop of the crud (jackets) and pour the rest into ingots with a ladle.

I mist the scrap with water to keep the dust down (or drizzle it with oil) as I have no desire to breathe powdered lead. As the stuff melts I spoon in more, as long as the melt isn't visible. The wet stuff dries before it hits the melt and there are no visits from the tinsel fairy.

Someday I'll rig a bottom pour kettle and speed up the process.

[cohutt]

all that stuff is really not needed if you put enough heat to it. It doesn't sound to me like you are getting and containing enough heat to get it going.

put it in a pot, turn up the heat and give it a chance to melt. you don't have to worry about zinc ww so blast the stuff... A turkey fryer and a cast iron dutch oven will do it. don't waste any time getting the wood out it will brun/float once you get the melt going.

it doesn't seem like you are making any progress initially, then you realize the jackets are all empty. some shots from my last (outdoor) berm reclamation smelt:

at the start, dirty jackets, sticks, pebbles, clay pigeon fragments & all:

http://i107.photobucket.com/albums/m284/cohutt/bermining%202/misc004.jpg

about 45 minutes to an hour of covered full bore heat later, the whole pile has reduced as the fragments and cast bullets have melted out of the mix to the bottom. Once it got going i stirred with the poker:

http://i107.photobucket.com/albums/m284/cohutt/bermining%202/misc011.jpg


skim, shake out the molten lead from copper mini-crucibles:

http://i107.photobucket.com/albums/m284/cohutt/bermining%202/misc012.jpg


jackets and big pebbles skimmed away, just small peebles, sand, dirt and ash now:

http://i107.photobucket.com/albums/m284/cohutt/bermining%202/misc013.jpg

after more skimming and some fluxing, the final pool of that full pot of stuff doesn't look like much in the pot but still topped 135 lbs:

http://i107.photobucket.com/albums/m284/cohutt/bermining%202/misc015.jpg

[Southern Son]

When I was 14 my dad signed me up to a small bore rifle club in a suburb in Sydney. I remember the targets sat on a wooden frame and behind that was a heap of steel sheets angled at about 30 degrees. Then at the bottom of that was a huge pile (a couple of decades worth) of lead. No jackets, no other dodgy substances, just lead. I remember that at the time lead was not worth anything much and one day we did a bit of a clean out of the lead, more than 1000lbs, all taken to the tip and thrown. I kick myself every time I thinks about it.

[Ken O]

I still got this stuff if anyone wants it.

[imashooter2]

All the tears posted here over lead getting hard to find and Ken_O can't give it away.:???: