Reclaiming range lead

[roger rabbit]

I've been doing some lead mining at the local outdoor range. It's quite easy since the backstops are of dry sandy soil. Just a kitty litter scoop can produce ten pounds in a few minutes. I've only been reclaiming cast bullets so far. There are far more jacketed bullets but I avoid those unless the jackets have completely separated. Is it safe to melt down lead with retained jacket material? I was thinking about the possibility of trapped moisture inside the jackets.

[lunicy]

You are fine with that. Put them in pot, then turn on heat. Don't throw them into a pot of molten lead.

[Tom Herman]

Either bring up to temperature, or make darned SURE your lead is dry before you plop it into a hot pot!
I tend to wash mine to help get crud off it. I then dry the bullets on a dedicated cookie sheet in an oven at 300 degrees for an hour to expell all the water.
Make sure all the jackets are breached: I've seen some bullets that are entirely encased in a jacket with no lead showing. They can ruture suddenly and squirt hot lead.
If you find any, then can usually be flattened with a hammer to epose the core, or cut with a tool like tin snips. You don't have to cut the thing in half, just expose a tiny bit of the core, and they will then melt fine.
Your jacketed bullets and .22's should be nearly dead soft lead, while cast bullets could be anything, so you might want to segregate the stuff to melt into different batches, and sort the alloys out later.
Good Luck with your "mining" efforts!

Happy Shootin'! -Tom

[roger rabbit]

Good! This will make the "take" multiply many times over and I can get the soft stuff as well.

[supv26]

I do my mining from a private indoor range! In another room at the range is the clean out for the range. All I have to do is turn on a switch and this long tray vibrates the lead out into a bucket. Since this is a private range I know what is in there. And, full metal jacket bullets have hit steel so they have broken open enough to expose some lead.

It is funny how the lead collects. Most of the jackets separate pretty good from the lead and the lead packs in clumps and long strips. Some of it I have to break apart to get into my buckets. The first 5 gallon bucket I got out of there made 143 pounds of muffins!

[Boerrancher]

At the local outdoor range where I do my berm mining, there is considerably more jacketed than cast. I don't bother to separate them, and the lead comes out plenty soft. I wash my range scrap several times to get as much dirt off of it as I can. If I am doing multiple batches, I wait until the lead in the pot has solidified and then put in more scrap. It only takes a few minutes of extra time to avoid the tinsel fairy.

Best wishes from the Boer Ranch,

Joe