Disposing of stuff left over after melting jacketed bullets

[Cloudpeak]

I've melted a lot of salvaged jacketed bullets from our outdoor range and am left with a lot of copper "shells" with lead "dross" all over them and also have steel clips off wheel weights with lead residue on them. Is it OK to dispose of this junk at the local landfill? BTW, I figured out that life is too short to melt down jacketed range lead. I think I'm going to stick with wheel weights from now on.

Cloudpeak

[trooperdan]

Cloudpeak, what a timely post! I was doing the same thing yesterday and also made the same decision! Between the jackets and the sand and other debris there is just too much foreign material! I might reconsider if I can get cleaner bullet metal from an indoor range but using dug-up bullets is a chore!

As for your question, I don't know for sure.. but I've been adding half a 3 pound coffe can of jackets to my household trash once a week or so. My conscience does bother me though!

[imashooter2]

Lead, iron and copper all come from the ground, I see no reason they shouldn't go back there.

[David R]

I send it off with the local garbage man. In not too big of quantities.

David

Cloudpeak,

Range lead is the balls is nothing else is availble.

[Cloudpeak]

Cloudpeak, what a timely post! I was doing the same thing yesterday and also made the same decision! Between the jackets and the sand and other debris there is just too much foreign material! I might reconsider if I can get cleaner bullet metal from an indoor range but using dug-up bullets is a chore!

I felt kind of good about recycling the old stuff I dug out of the dirt but my back is not getting any younger. Plus, I already have a reputation amongst my buddies of being kind of a tightwad which digging in the dirt for fired bullets does help perpetuate:grin:

Skimming all of those "carcasses" and thinking about all of the dirt is a downer, as well (although I did pour the reclaimed bullets in my drive and hosed them down to remove most of the dirt). Skimming steel clips on the much cleaner wheel weights looks like a good plan to me.

Cloudpeak

[Tigger]

As for your question, I don't know for sure.. but I've been adding half a 3 pound coffe can of jackets to my household trash once a week or so. My conscience does bother me though!

Most modern landfills are lined with heavy plastic topped with caly and are monitered closely. Might just be the best place for the scrap. Besides look at all the stuff that goes into the trash that's as bad as lead or worse.

[Ken O]

I take my ww clips, weld scraps/subs etc, to a local scrap yard. I dont expect anything for them, I just ask where I can dump them, it all gets recycled.

[nvbirdman]

If you dug them up at the range they were in the ground. If you take them to the landfill they will go back in the ground.

[Blackwater]

Tigger's comment is most pertinent, I think. To avoid much ado about nothing, just throw them in with your household trash, in a plastic bag, and they'll most likely never be seen by human eyes again. The truck comes to pick them up, they're in a hurry to git'r done, and they unload at the dump, where the guys there only want to get to lunch or the quitting whistle. No sense in making problems by asking unwanted questions, and the simple fact is, there's MUCH more human unfreindly stuff than lead or copper or steel that goes into our dumps. That's a very modern problem, and one we WILL pay for one day, but .... that's the way it just IS. The problems come from concentrating so MUCH life and human unfriendly stuff in relatively small places, but none of us here can do much about it. We're addicted to taking the easy and quick way out, and I don't see that changing.

[StarMetal]

Blackwater,

You're certainly right that there are alot worse things that get throwed in the dump then lead and steel. I remember when I worked for the Mafia and we threw an awful lot of bodies in the dump. Ooops! Don't think I was suppose to say that. Hey, hey, HEY, lighten up fellows....I was just kidding.

I'm not one to go around polluting, but on the other hand I do believe the conservatist and enviromentalist go overboard on alot of stuff. Do you fellows know that flourescent lamps are a dumping hazard? Yep, lead crytal glass for the tube and each lamp has a little ball of mercury in it...use to work for GE lamp division in Ohio and made them.

Joe

[Lee]

Me too, worked at NELA Park for a while. "A National Historic Landmark" until they find out who paid the big moola to hide the fact that the pristine "ravine" behind NELA Park was a decades long dumping ground for all those fluorescent bulbs, as well as Mercury Vapor bulbs. Been there, seen that. And when "Neutron" Jack Welch riffed the employees plant by plant, the GE set up "placement center" was in the front of the building used to............make all them mercury filled test lamps. The equipment got a coat of battleship gray, the manuals got a Korean translation, then Bye-Bye..........................
And if you don't believe that, the weird state of Kalifornia has an disposal exemption on "green" fluorescent lamps, which can be disposed of legally in landfills, because they only contain a fraction of the mercury of a regular one. Of course that's Kalifornia. But owning a Barrett .50 is still illegal there........Lee ;)

P.S Not a tree-hugger, just don't like to see different rules for the big guys and the little guys.................................

[crazy mark]

Been to Nela Park as a guest of GE and their "lighting institute". Nice place and they do treat visitors nice. Here in Lane Co oregon we can't even throw the "green lamps" in the landfill and they would freak if they knew how much lead dross hits their precious landfill. They price of dumping at the landfill is such that the woodfs are full of trash and used appliances. They made a local gun range do a major lead clean-up by helping with a lawsuit by a concerned neighbor. Mark

[MT Gianni]

My first haz-mat first responder course was in Idaho and we were told that potatos' have to much arsenic to be legally sold as a food product. With out their prior food history, no way they would be allowed today. That went over big. Also if coleman lantern mantles were a new product they would have to be packaged with a 5' air space around each mantle because of the radiation they can emit. Don't sweat the small stuff, the proposed clean up specs for lead by the EPA were 5 parts per billion, most of the western US has more than that naturally so it could never be reclaimed. Return it to the earth. Gianni.