getting the lead

[bigdog454]

Ok! I know that there are some pretty smart people here, so here is my problem. I have access to an old private pistol and rifle range, where people had been shooting for 30 years or more. The range is closing down (being sold), old shooters tell me that every weekend for those past 30 years, they had been putting between 1000 and 5000 rounds down range (not including 22lr). If you do the math thats tons of lead. I guess that the front of the hill containing the lead would fill about 10 to 15 dump trucks. The problem is how to seperate the dirt and trash (sticks, stones, wood target pieces) from the lead. its a one shot (no pun intended) deal. I have a backhoe loader and dump truck avaliable, and have seperated a couple of buckets of lead by screening, thats very time consuming considering I,m looking at maybe 150 tons of dirt. Any mining engineers out there? Anyone got any Ideas? By the way I have a time limit of doing this by Jan 1,2009. Please try to keep it simple, I don't want to spend $10,000. on equipment.

[rusty marlin]

Perhaps a sluice, like for gold, the water carries away the lighter matter and leaves mostly lead and larger stones and gravel. Then screen or melt and float out the stones(it'll be exciting when the water in the stones start cooking off).

[felix]

Six months is not long enough for home methods. Need to hire a contractor to get the stuff off of the property and store it in a safe place: non-epa regulated. Sooner or later the stuff will turn into gold, and another contractor can be found at that time to clean it up for resale. By then electricity (or gas) will be cheap enough. ... felix

[cbrick]

BigDog,

Be interesting what you come up with, please keep us posted. I've heard of companies that clean shooting ranges of lead but I have no idea what their process is.

Will also be very interesting to learn what your costs are if your successful, fuel, time, equipment, amount of lead salvaged etc.

Rick

[docone31]

At our range, they clean up once every six months.
They come with an unit that had A-1 Rental on the side of it.
The machine accepted a loader bucket full of material.
It looks like a shaker, like I used when I was in excavating. The salvage went to the side, and the debris went out the back.
It really looks simple enough. One might be rentable where you are. A backhoe could do the feeding job.

[Stove_Pipe]

I would look into renting something like this

http://http://www.extecscreens.com/productinfo.php?lang=fra&title=8x30%20Trommel (http://www.extecscreens.com/productinfo.php?lang=fra&title=8x30%20Trommel)

[docone31]

The machine I saw could be towed by a pickup.
They get enough lead, to give the range 1/2 and have a full crew to work the machines.

[johnho]

Ok, you got a mining engineer. Best bet is that screen. You will not seperate the rocks and wood with that screen however. YOu will have to melt the lead to seperate all that debris and remove it when it all floats. Screen hole size is the next question. I would look at something around 3/16" or 1/4", the screen people will put the screen on for you, you don't want to do that if you have never done that before, plus they will ask you what size you want. What I am talking about here is called screen cloth, I will explain later.

Now if there are big rocks, say over 3/4 inches then you will do better with a two deck screen with the top one at 5/8" and the bottom one with 3/16" screen. the top stuff will go off to one side, the middle stuff (your lead and small rocks) will go off to another place and the stuff passing through the 3/16" to a different place. You may want a smaller screen on the bottom but 3/16 should catch all the 22 size bullets. Plus they will have expanded maybe some also.

You could even go with a 1/2" screen on top as any 45's would be the largest anyway. I would suggest the 5/8" as a 45 may expand some when it hits the dirt and not drop through the 1/2" screen and you will loose it.

Now, if the top size of the rocks is less than 5/8" then you can get buy with a single deck screen at 3/16". You keep everything over 3/16 and scrap all the stuff that goes through it.

I would NOT remove any material from the site. You don't even want to begin with the environmental problems of any of that stuff you don't want. The site is already contaminated so leave what you don't take right where it is. DO NOT TAKE IT OFF SITE.

I watched a lead recovery group clean a public range one time and they put all the lead in 55 gallon drums and hauled it off. they put all the waste back on the berm.

Hope this helps. Talk to whoever you get the screen from too. They may have another piece of equipment that will work too, i won't go into that right now as it is not that common unless you are around some sand and gravel mines. Screens will typically be diesel powered too. Now for the size of the screen itself, not the screen cloth as I mentioned above. Portable screens will not be generally larger than 8' b y 20' in size. that is the dimensions of the screen cloth. so you would have an 8' wide screen that is 20' long and it will have 3/16" openings or holes. It will look like a big wire sieve.

the above will screen one hell of a lot of material very fast. I doubt that you will be able to feed it fast enough with that backhoe ( I think you said it was a backhoe) to overload it. Plus you will need that backhoe to put the material in the drums too.

If you are confused let me know and I will try and expain it better, if I can. there is a company around the country called PowerScreen that rents out screens. If you have any quarries in your area call them and see who rents screens in your area. Some contractors have them also to screen dirt.

[bigdog454]

Johnho: do you have any name brands for these machines, who makes them? Do I just ask for a screening machine?
BD